ReactOS 0.4.2 Released: Supports Linux Filesystems, .NET Applications, and Doom 3 (reactos.org)

Continuing its rapid release cycle, ReactOS has unveiled version 0.4.2 of its free "open-source binary-compatible Windows re-implementation." Slashdot reader jeditobe reports that this new version can now read and write various Linux/Unix file systems like Btrfs and ext (and can read ReiserFS and UFS), and also runs applications like Thunderbird and 7-Zip. ReactOS 0.4.2 also features Cygwin support, .NET 2.0 and 4.0 application support, among other updated packages and revised external dependencies such as Wine and UniATA. The team also worked to improve overall user experience...

ReactOS is free. You can boot your desktop or laptop from it. It looks like Windows (a 10-year-old version, anyway), so you already know how to use it. And it'll run some Windows and DOS applications, maybe including DOS games that regular 64-bit Windows can no longer touch. These videos even show ReactOS running Elder Scrolls: Skyrim and Doom 3.

Comments

Yes, but...

[Stormwatch]

...can it run Crysis?

Re:10 year old?

[darkain]

10 years ago was Windows Vista's release... Scary, isn't it!?

Re:The OS That Just Won't Quit

[Anonymous Coward]

For the longest time, article after article of slow progress I did not even think the developers took this seriously beyond beyond some coding fun.

Remember they are re-creating Windows NT (and more) from the ground up. It's a big job. Looking to how long it took Linus to make his kernel isn't really a good metric. Linux wasn't the first free UNIX (the BSDs) were plus Linux got all the GNU tools. So UNIX like operating systems have been in development for a long time. Since WinNT is a different architecture it will take lots of work to get off the ground.

Another thing to keep in mind is they are going for internal compatibility as well. So it's not just about documented APIs but undocumented APIs. The reverse engineering adds another task to their already lengthy list.

Honestly I check out the ReactOS code base every few days and look at the progress they are making. It's pretty amazing. I contributed a few patches but they really need lots more help.

I'm no Windows fanboy (I'm an OpenBSD fanboy actually) I do think that having a diverse OS ecosystem is really important and the work that the ReactOS guys are doing is very important. I'm glad they get press coverage here in the hopes that it may attract some developers with Win32 experience.

Re:The OS That Just Won't Quit

[LVSlushdat]

I spent close to 20 years supporting MS products. I retired in 2010, and soon decided I was through with anything MS.. All of my home systems are 100% Linux, *however* its great to see an OS that likely allow one to run a Windows program that, for whatever reason, won't work in Wine. I don't expect to have this happen, but one never knows.. After seeing what a shitshow Windows 10 is, privacy-wise and MS a bang-up job of using just about every malware vector to get their shitshow on everybody's computer, I couldn't be happier to have left MS in the dirt....

Re:It's tainted

[jfdavis668]

Um, since Microsoft doesn't release it's code, there is no way you determine that is was copied. Also, since Microsoft doesn't release it's code, there is no way to copy it. If the APIs are the same, of course. They are trying to create software that runs Windows programs that call Windows APIs. They would have to be the same. The law suit would fall into the same category as SCO vs IBM over Unix code in Linux.

LOOKS good, but what can it do?

[blind biker]

I would be so very grateful to the ReactOS community if I could run Office (2007 is fine), Zotero and some version of SolidWorks on it. I don't even dare to install ReactOS to try, as the disappointment would be crushing. Basically, I hope to not be forced to install Windows 10.

The problem with ReactOS

[N3wsByt3]

Does not lay within it's technical capabilities and prowess, but with it's management skills and ability to create a community.

For years I've been a fan of ReactOS, actively participating and contributing to the community, albeit not in the form of a coder. Which, in the (still) current ReactOS mentality, is the only thing that counts for the brass, apparently. Testing ReactOS on a dedicated real-life machine (thus, not in VM), debugging, translating, making info-pages on their wikipedia: nothing really matters to the 'elite' of ReactOS. They just consider you some sort of fodder, and the moment you ask for a bit more transparency (on their financial side, for instance), or try to address the complete lack of community involvement, they bork (and bark) at you - and worse. Time and again I've tried to explain this in the past, that a successful project is NOT merely depended on the technical/coder side of things, but also how you establish a community, and try to involve people in your project. There were some half-baked trials at it, but those were mere lipservice, where it was always a consideration of a top-down approach, not a bottom-up way of seeing things.

Ergo; in the 20 years of their project, they have not succeeded in gathering 1/100th of the community that other projects like Linux have. Again and again I've pointed this out to them, but to no avail. They just refuse to see it, and only want things done strictly to their wishes, with their attitude of finding no other (real) importance to the project than 'code'. Which, granted, is an important part, but which will NOT get you a lively, engaging, and growing community - which is an absolute necessity for any open source project to know success. Eventually, since I kept hitting that nail, they got annoyed (not: they realised the error of their ways) and kicked me out too, the so many-th person who was a tester/sponsor/translator/helper of ReactOS they managed to drive away.

Whatever; so I went away, which is what they wanted. But what did it help them, then? Nothing at all. They view constructive criticism as a threat, not as an opportunity to better themselves and the project. They don't value anything someone does outside of their little constraints, and outside their preconceived notions as to what they see as important, yet have the mouth full of 'community-involvement'. Whatever you do, how many years you may have sponsored or helped out as a non-coder, you just are not counted as having done anything worthwhile. They have no inkling of an idea how to get a thriving community where you allow the bottom-up approach as well.

It's a sad thing to say, but the whole thing is run by people with overblown ego's, trying to protect their little turf and egotistical whims, ignoring anyone else, and being autistically elitist in wanting to decide virtually everything to the minute detail. Its only a community-project in name, but not in essence. And that's why, even after 20 years of operation, their project is just a small-scale project who - in comparison with other projects - has almost nothing to show for. They make some small technical progress year after year, that's true, but they fail to realise how much their ego-driven top-down approach has muffled the project to achieve the grandeur and support it could have had, had the top been more prone to some input from the people actually supporting it.

I've poured hundreds of dollars in it, and spend years on it helping them in my own way, only to kicked out when I pointed out their mistakes and lack of transparency. I still lie, the project, but I can not, in good conscience, support (most of) the people running that program/project. they've done it with me, as they've done it with dozens of people: it's no surprise, thus, that they're still at the small scale they are, without any community to speak off. They can't get any traction, because they kill off everything that would get them traction. There are some good coders under them, to be sure, but almost all of them lack the ma