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Ask Slashdot: Is ReactOS A Serious Alternative To Windows? (reactos.org)
dryriver writes: So I just discovered the ReactOS 0.4.4 Alpha... It seems like this is basically a free, open source Windows replacement in the making. Does anyone have serious experience with ReactOS?
Do you think that ReactOS will ever reach the point where you can basically say "bye bye" to Microsoft Windows, but keep using all your favorite Windows software under ReactOS? Will this be able to run Windows Games and DCC software that taps into the processing power of the GPU? Or will ReactOS wind up being "mildly compatible" with Windows software -- e.g. basic Office productivity type software works, but professional-grade 3D software like Maya/CATIA does not?
Do you think that ReactOS will ever reach the point where you can basically say "bye bye" to Microsoft Windows, but keep using all your favorite Windows software under ReactOS? Will this be able to run Windows Games and DCC software that taps into the processing power of the GPU? Or will ReactOS wind up being "mildly compatible" with Windows software -- e.g. basic Office productivity type software works, but professional-grade 3D software like Maya/CATIA does not?
It's unstable as hell even if you manage to run it on your real HW/VM.
If you need to run Windows software but you cannot afford a Windows license or if you don't want to run Windows for some reasons, use Wine instead - if your application runs under it, most likely it will run well.
Does the public have an IQ above the minimum required to move beyond Windows?
Is Linux dominating after all these years?
Will we have world peace anytime soon?
GNU seems to be doing pretty well with that strategy.
When I first heard about it years ago (15ish?), I thought it was an interesting idea, and it'd be nice to have something that could reliably run Windows software without actually needing to have Windows, but was disappointed that at the time it could only run basically the same handful of things WINE could.
More recently - within the last year or so - I investigated the idea of using it at work to run some of the software we need without having to either continue using Windows XP or pay to upgrade. The runtimes needed for the software wouldn't even install.
There's really no advantage to it over Linux in any kind of practical terms, and some key disadvantages. With Linux and WINE, you can run a smallish subset of Windows software, and you've also got the rest of the Linux software ecosystem. With ReactOS, you've only got the smallish subset of Windows software. If it had 100% Windows compatibility or even much greater compatibility than WINE, an argument could be made in its favour, but as things stand it's little more than a novelty. And if it was at all plausible for it to achieve either 100% Windows compatibility or close enough to be worth it, it would have done so by now.
If you want a Free operating system, go with Linux and live with the selection of software that works with it. If you really do need professional-grade 3D software or other things that are Windows-only, bite the bullet and use Windows. As nice as it would be to have a useful middle ground, it's not happening.
It was easy to miss if you haven't heard of ReactOS any time in the last 19 years, so I don't blame you for missing it, but ReactOS is an alternate implementation of WINDOWS. The summary only mentioned that six times, so it was easy to overlook.
Of you've used FreeDOS (or more properly, if you were AWARE that you were using FreeDOS), it's like that. ReactOS has nothing whatsoever to do with Linux. The only relationship I can come up with there is that it's for people who don't want to use Linux, or can't, and don't want to use Microsoft Windows (or can't). It's non-Microsoft Windows.
I have been trying to position ReactOS as an option for 'Windows' VMs at work for running very specific applications. It does have promise there, but the main issue I stumbled over is that it still identifies as Windows 2003 internally, with for example frameworks like Qt5 having moved on and requiring Windows 7 at the very least (IIRC).
Having tracked the ReactOS project since the late 90s and participated in it in some manner during those years, I can honestly say that there are a lot of highly skilled and motivated individuals behind the project, who absolutely want to make it right.
The main problem is - just like with Linux in the beginning and projects like Haiku - that such an OS project requires a lot of hours of work and money. Since all developers on the project just work on it part-time and the ROS foundation doesn't have nearly the amount of cash Linux had even in '99, things move somewhat slowly.
What would help a lot is if the ROS project would get a major financial backer, so that people could work on it full-time, hire developers and find commercial applications for the OS. That'd kick-start the project like nothing else.
So far the Russian government has shown interest in backing ROS as an alternative for Windows, as have others. Who knows what will happen there?
I personally hope that come 2020, ReactOS will at least be on the level where Windows 7 is today, so that I can say farewell to Windows as Windows 7 support runs out. While I absolutely need to run 'Windows' for various applications, I refuse to submit to the horror that is Windows 10.
Site & blog: http://www.mayaposch.com
If you remove all the DRM and telemetry. Can it then be called Windows compatible?
This question has come a number of times in one form another for well over 15 years. If you can't answer yes to at least three of these four questions your chosen OS isn't a suitable replacement to windows for most people.
Can the average person use it for typical tasks (internet, printing, office etc.) without friction? If your OS makes someone feel like an idiot they'll lose all interest.
Can the average person use it without being to be told RTFM? This attitude has done more to keep people on windows than Microsoft's FUD ever has.
Can the average person run their existing games on it? You don't want to buy a second computer just to play some games.
Can the average person run routine maintenance tasks at the GUI instead of the command line? The lay person doesn't want to deal with command lines.
Mac OS largely meets these requirements (games are a weak spot) and is certainly a viable alternative for most people. Android and Chrome are progressing and likely will become viable if Google ever merges the two and improves hardware support. Certainly Chromebooks have become viable for limited educational settings.
No one else has a product that is remotely viable for the lay person. Professionals and business users have additional requirements that go far beyond these.
Nice attempt to portray Linux as "legacy" when it's as cutting-edge as it gets.
Short answer: NO!
Long answer: For running Applications, you are better of with WINE. Hell, at some point even the ReactOS team realized it as such, and did a redesign to use more of the wine code and better align with the wine team.
But, since ReactOS is a re-implementation of windows, there is the niffty issue of driver support. As in: you can use old win2000/xp drivers with reactos.
It means that all those applications that use custom HARDWARE/drivers (CNC cutting SW, byte bangers, weird ISA/PCI cards) can run in a somewhat more "modern/supported" os.
Come 2019, when support for WindowsXP like systems dries out (that's when support for even Windows POS runs out, as well as those support contracts for large organizations), some (but not all) users of said hardware may consider to move to ReactOS, instead of firewalling/mitigating/baind-aiding the olden XP boxes to death.
But, judging from past experience, I doubt it. ReactOS had XP laying there as a sititng duck for 6 years, while longhorn/vista was delayed, and guess what? they were not able to catch up. Yes, chances are that by 2020 they are to the level of XP, with a little (but not all) of Win7 thrown in the mix, but do not expect more than that...
*** Suerte a todos y Feliz dia!
I actually use ReactOS quite regularly, mostly within KVM. I find it's a pretty good alternative to Windows. Like most open source software there's a few missing features which are holding it back from being a lot more useful, but overall it's getting better with each release and the future looks bright enough. I think if ReactOS wants more enterprise adoption they need to improve the domain login support, and add support for being an RDP Server/Client. This would allow a lot of companies to drop Windows Terminal Server installations from being used. They charge a full server license for something which is not that complex. The same is true for SAMBA and fileserver support. If ReactOS can improve it's Domain Controller functions, there's not much reason why it couldn't be used instead of Windows Server for a lot of the same tasks. Most businesses just like the ease of GUI administration, SAMBA already gets controlled via Remote Server Admin Tools so it could be a useful drop-in in those use cases whcih frees up Windows Server licenses for SQL/Application servers. Will ReactOS take off in enterprise? Maybe/probably not, but a lot of SMBs that are lazy/cheap will probably dabble with it at some point with varying degrees of success. It mostly depends on what server implementations run on it. Stuff like Filezilla server already runs. Now in terms of desktop OS, it really depends on the use case. It's not quite ready for desktop because of driver/control panel support that's missing, but it already runs older versions of 3D Studio Max, Caligari Truespace, and even Skyrim. I think it's a lot like wine in how it progresses, so at some point it will pickup a lot of functionality. What people forget is that wine has 74% of the Windows API reimplemented. That last 16% is hard but not insurmountable. IMHO there's too much focus on reverse engineering the newer parts of Windows, which is silly. The newest parts of Windows won't help bring in users. Think about it, a Windows user running current software is going to stick with Windows which works 100% for those cases. But a person who just wants their legacy tools to run, would be more open to running a windows alternative as long as their old apps are supported. By ignoring the older sections of the software stack and focusing on just the new stuff. They're always playing catch up, never getting reaching parity, and users who would switch get frustrated that their legacy tools don't work, think wine is crap and stop bothering to switch.
GNU first got big because it had tools. It said it wanted an OS but it had tools first. And those tools were better in many ways and with very quick improvements compared to the competition. Unix systems at the time were already very much open source oriented in a lot of ways, it wasn't a confusing issue like today where you see people very wary of anything that's free ("who will support it?" is the cry, despite MS not providing support).
GNU never did replace the OS. It got into a mode of having to be perfect, and thus never really getting too far off the ground. Linux showed up as Unix was starting its decline, and GNU made that possible by having the tools ready and available. It was mostly marketing I think, free versions of BSD were appearing at the same time but didn't generate excitement for a variety of reasons. The big deal about Linux was getting more out of a normal PC to make it work like much more expensive workstations (dos/windows at the time was utter crap).
Today, MS may be on the decline too. That doesn't mean people want a replacement like people wanted a Unix-workalike back in the 90s. The biggest die hards in Windows are in the enterprise, and that's a hard nut to crack, the enterprises that used Unix did not switch to Linux. The hobbiest already has Linux, the gamers are going to consoles it seems, and the generic home user is happy with phones, tablets, and netbooks.