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?

Comments

no

[Anonymous Coward]

simple answer, NO, long answer FUCK no, following legacy designs is a way to ensure you will never be a viable alternative.

Re:no

[Anonymous Coward]

following legacy designs is a way to ensure you will never be a viable alternative

GNU seems to be doing pretty well with that strategy.

Re:no

[Anonymous Coward]

With the way Microsoft is beginning to phase out standard programs in favour of UWP applets, I'd say ReactOS has a real chance of moving in and taking over what MS is abandoning.

Re:no

[kamathln]

Yeah, ReactOs could be to Windows, what Mate is to Gnome.

Re:no

[kamathln]

If they give more seriousness to the development though

Re: no

[tigersha]

ReactOS could be to Windows what a punch card reader is to a VR headset

Re: no

[Anonymous Coward]

So Windows could be to Android/Apple what 1/4inch magnetic tape drives are to solid state disk drives?

Re: no

[h33t l4x0r]

I disagree. As long as you don't ever want to play a game, or have any of your hardware work properly, I think it's a perfectly viable alternative to Windows.

Re: no

[Type44Q]

Not to mention, an open source knock-off of a Yugo (regardless of whether the unwashed masses - not professional drivers - have standardized on Yugos) isn't likely to actually be good. We'll stick with our Batmobiles. ;)

Re: no

[Type44Q]

Nice attempt to portray Linux as "legacy" when it's as cutting-edge as it gets.

Re: no

[Anonymous Coward]

GNU and Linux are related but orthogonal. You can have Linux without GNU, and GNU without Linux.

Re: no

[Hognoxious]

... but you can't have either without systemd.

Re: no

[TheOuterLinux]

Not true. Here's a distro list: https://without-systemd.org/wi...

Re: no

[BarbaraHudson]

Well, if you're going to go with car analogies, people are still buying the VW Beetle almost 70 years later, And minis almost 50 years later. And you'll pay a lot more for a running used super beetle today than a brand new one in the 70s.

If there were a way to manufacture and sell new super beetles without having to go through safety and emissions, plenty of people would buy them for the nostalgia factor.

Re: no

[Hognoxious]

Well, there's systemd egg sausage gnome3 and systemd. That's not got much systemd in it.

Re:no

[Dutch Gun]

So, yeah, phasing out Win32 in favor of Windows store apps is Microsoft's wet dream, of course, as you see with Windows 10 S.

The problems is this: no one is writing UWP apps. The idea used to at least make a tiny bit of sense when there was a promise (however slight) that MS might have a foothold in the mobile market. Now that UWP covers only Windows 10 and Xbox One, there's not as compelling an argument to make for its "cross-platform" capabilities. So, companies that want to target Windows only still write native or C# Win32 apps. Anyone who wants true cross-platform will probably use another technology altogether. Essentially, UWP is sputtering out.

Instead, what you're seeing is the rise of Microsoft's Project Centennial, which is the conversion of Win32 apps of *any* flavor into a Window Store App (essentially, they run in a container), which is how MS Office is added to the store. So, as you see UWP != Windows Store Apps anymore. This provides some of the benefit of store apps, like increased security and ease of distribution / updates / installation (something many Linux distros have enjoyed for a while), without having to completely rewrite applications.

We'll see if this makes a difference in the long-term strategy of getting software in the store. I remain skeptical, and believe Windows native applications are far too entrenched in the ecosystem to ever realistically be abandoned. At the very least, MS will always need a "Pro" version that you can actually use for software development (and to run all that pesky "legacy" software), so there's really little chance you'll ever see a complete abandonment of the traditional Windows desktop in the foreseeable future.

Re: no

[X3J11]

I DON'T LIKE SYSTEMD!

+1 virtual mod point for making me giggle.

Re: no

[cyber-vandal]

Lol yeah that's all. No one at all is developing new stuff for Windows. Fuckwit.

Re:no

[phantomfive]

no one is writing UWP apps. The idea used to at least make a tiny bit of sense when there was a promise (however slight) that MS might have a foothold in the mobile market. Now that UWP covers only Windows 10 and Xbox One, there's not as compelling an argument to make for its "cross-platform" capabilities. So, companies that want to target Windows only still write native or C# Win32 apps.,

The other counter-argument: you'll just have to rewrite the app when Microsoft changes the API. Win32 is a pain to use, but at least it's stable.

Re: no

[cyber-vandal]

Professional developers you say? I couldn't convince Chrome to install on the Ubuntu "batmobile" a few months back without a lot of command line fucking about.

Pro tip: If your software installer fails you show an error message.

If your software installer is aware that software requires other packages it should install them first then install the package you want to install or fail if it doesn't know where to look.

What it should NOT do is install the package but then put out a console message saying it couldn't, leaving even the more knowledgeable user going round in fucking circles. I got it to work eventually after uninstalling Chrome (which dpkg told me it failed to install), installing the other packages and then installing Chrome again.

The Joker would've already destroyed Gotham while the Batmobile was spinning its wheels.

Re: no

[Anonymous Coward]

No one here heard of Devuan?

https://devuan.org/

Re:no

[Dutch Gun]

"When Microsoft changes the API?" Microsoft, if nothing else, is pretty good about supporting older APIs. Even when they're deprecated, they generally continue to function. Is there some specific example you're thinking of that I can't remember?

Re:no

[phantomfive]

Windows phone 7, windows phone 8, windows phone 9, windows phone 10

Re:no

[JediJorgie]

> the only reason anyone uses Windows is for compatibility with old software

That is utter BS. Yes that is reason some folks run it, but that would only be small portion. A huge number of users use it because that is what is on cheap computer by default and/or that is what their previous computer had.

Re:no

[JediJorgie]

> So, yeah, phasing out Win32 in favor of Windows store apps is Microsoft's wet dream

Where have you been? They have been putting wrapped Win32 apps on the Windows Store for a long time now.

Re: no

[Jerry]

@Hognoxious: "... but you can't have either without systemd."

Sure you can! Slackware, Gentoo, Devuan, LFS, and other lessor knowns

Re:no

[Dutch Gun]

Maybe that continuity is limited to their desktop platform. I don't have any experience writing to their mobile platforms. It sounds like you *wish* you didn't either.

Re: no

[Jerry]

I DO!

Re:no

[phantomfive]

I don't have any experience writing to their mobile platforms. It sounds like you *wish* you didn't either.

tbh I enjoyed the mobile platforms that I got to work with, which was mainly 7. People were paying me to do it, and giving me the phones to work with, so as far as I was concerned, it was just a new toy for me to play with. And there were some good ideas.

If I'd had to make business decisions, things would have been different.

Re:no

[Darinbob]

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.

Re:no

[drinkypoo]

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.

People do tend to forget that there were basically no free compilers before gcc. Getting an assembler was easy enough, you might find a pascal compiler (why?) but finding a free C compiler? Nope. Then came gcc. If you weren't running BSD (as in, the BSD, not "*BSD" which didn't exist yet) you had to pay for a compiler.

Unix systems at the time were already very much open source oriented in a lot of ways,

They weren't Open Source, except BSD. What they were was Open Standard. They used documented interfaces, so anyone was free to develop a workalike. That's what made Linux possible.

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

The big deal about Linux as compared to the BSDs was the license, which attracted a community of people who were about sharing. The BSDs attracted people who were more like medieval monks. They were cloistered away in little clusters and hoarded their knowledge jealously, snickering snarkily at anyone who had less. Just getting BSD installed was a challenge. I had worked on real Unixes at the time I first tried to install BSD and the difference was absolutely night and day. But Slackware was even easier to install than SunOS4, SunOS5, or anything from SCO. (The SCO stuff was perfectly easy to install. Yes, this was before the big SCO v. Linux badness.)

Major contributors to Linux have stated outright that they contributed to Linux specifically because it used the GPL.

Re:no

[Darinbob]

I meant open source oriented, in that most people went and used free software on them.

Re:no

[Darinbob]

BSD wasn't much different than other Unix systems for installation. The BSD license was pretty open, excepting the kernel parts not written originally by BSD, but that cleared up after a bit.

Re:no

[Dutch Gun]

Um, yes, I'm aware.

Instead, what you're seeing is the rise of Microsoft's Project Centennial, which is the conversion of Win32 apps of *any* flavor into a Window Store App (essentially, they run in a container), which is how MS Office is added to the store.

Re: no

[bev_tech_rob]

I DO!

I'm not sure, but it looks like you missed the Monty Python reference......

Re:no

[cheesybagel]

Maybe not but the idea makes sense much like FreeDOS and DOSBox makes sense. Windows isn't compatible with itself as it is and we'll be able to use less and less old applications and games in it as time goes on. So having, say, a Windows XP, and a Windows 7 compatible OS/emulation would be nice.

Re:no

[UnknownSoldier]

> 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.

It was more then just marketing -- it a was a difference in Philosophy and how it was applied.

BSD, while "free", didn't provide the guarantee that the code would STAY free like GPL.

My understanding is that Stallman _could_ have used a corresponding WTFPL, Do-What-The-Fuck-You-Want Public License, aka Public Domain, but he was more concerned about companies "hijacking" the free source code and making it proprietary again.

Sometimes you need to restrict freedom in order to maintain it, ironically.

> The hobbiest already has Linux, the gamers are going to consoles it seems,

Aside from console exclusive games, gamers are all over the place.

PC Master Race is alive and well thank-you-very-much -- especially with the high performance demands of 4K, 120 Hz, and VR. Plus certain games such as Starcraft 2 will never be on shitty* consoles.

* Shitty is the technical term for dog-slow performance compared to PC -- they are great games on both PC and Console platforms.

Destiny 2 is rumored to also be coming to Windows.

That said,

* Sony uses FreeBSD for the PS3 and PS4 hypervisor kernel.
* Microsoft uses the Windows kernel the XBox 360 and and XBone.

> and the generic home user is happy with phones, tablets, and netbooks.

On PC, if the Steam Hardware Survey is accurate:

* Windows is ~96% of the market here,
* OSX is holding steady at ~3 %
* Linux usage, while also holding, is still a rounding error, for the most part, at ~0.76%

Mobile space is different:

* Android, with its 2+ Billion devices in 5 years, uses Linux, making WinCE and Windows Phones look like a total joke.
* iOS is also popular.

Sorry, I don't have stats for mobile.

Re: no

[UnknownSoldier]

The OP's original argument was that gamers were migrating to consoles (which implied away from PC.)

the gamers are going to consoles it seems,

This is false.

In actuality ALL THREE platforms, PC, Consoles, and Mobile are seeing more players overall. (Usually there is a shift back-and-forth between PC and Consoles every time a new console comes out.)

> casuals being content with tablets.

I'm not sure I would say "content."

While there is a high influx of casuals in mobile, turn-over is also EXTREMELY high -- in PC and Consoles the churn is much, much lower. If you look at the DAU (daily active users) and MAU (monthly active users) specifically the Day 7 and day 30 retention rates you'l see the average user retention rate drops off sharply after a few days:

* Day 1 Retention Rates - Android - Range from 41% to 15%
* Day 7 Retention Rates - Android - Range from 22% to 4%
* Day 30 Retention Rates - Android - Range from 12% to 1%

Does this help?

References:

* https://www.quora.com/Whats-a-...
* https://www.quora.com/What-are...

Re: no

[Reziac]

I understand the objection to systend as "violating UNIX design principles", but for those of us out in Userland, who just want the damn OS to work -- what are the pros and cons?

I read this:
https://unix.stackexchange.com...
which is all dandy from a technical POV, but doesn't tell me how it affects me as an everyday-desktop-OS user.

Re:no

[Reziac]

Having messed with ReactOS a bit, and followed it since the beginning, I think that's a fair assessment.

Right now ReactOS's compatibility target is Server2003, which also makes it compatible with XP (or good enough, tho not yet with the 64bit flavors, nor with NTFS support tho that's on the horizon). That's a significant niche that may have no real end in sight, particularly with the embedded-industrial market, where upgrading an OS can be prohibitively expensive (as in 6 figures or worse) or even impossible, and support for legacy drivers is critical.

I have XP and ReactOS set up as a dual boot, and tho ROS has some memory management and related issues, otherwise they're close enough for government work. In fact I recall reading that one of the smaller governments in ?eastern Europe? had switched to ROS as their primary OS.

ROS performs well on old hardware, and is now to where it supports some Office and CAD software. So it can scrape by as an everyday desktop, and if you're used to XP or 9x, there's almost no learning curve. It's small, lightweight, and entirely lacking in bloat. Considering it's been built mostly by a handful of people in their spare time, it's not doing badly at all.

So: a replacement for Windows? Not across the board. But as a replacement for the 9x/XP/2003 niche? I think it will be. Not quite yet. But in time.

Re: no

[Reziac]

LOL! Oooh, if I hadn't already posted, a mod-funny point to you :)

But if you seriously want to see what presently works on ReactOS, here's a forum thread; the most interesting stuff is recent, so starting at the end:

https://www.reactos.org/forum/...

Re: no

[TheOuterLinux]

From what I understand, people don't like systemd because it "bogs" down the system with unnecessary (and "non-free") stuff. But in my experience, it's not enough to to loose any sleep over if your system isn't too old and generally makes things runs better. I admire Richard Stallman (an important guy to look up for this issue), but I've tried his Trisquel OS and it is not for the average Linux user; actually, it was hard as hell to use when I tried it a few years ago.

Another way to look at systemd is that it is "open source," but the license (LGPL; Lesser GPL) for it makes it so developers don't have to release a source code and makes it legally impossible to redistribute a personally made Linux distribution using systemd without asking for permission (a free sub-license) from the Linux Foundation and/or possibly what distro you based it off of, and personal experience has shown the LF to be helpful only for first-time applicants (I guess they're busy) and go where the money is, ie. Microsoft has been a member for a few years now, to which is also partnered with Canonical (Ubuntu). Though in all honesty, there are thousands of Linux distributions (distrowatch.com) and I am sure not all of them have permission. They sort of own your work and can pull your license at anytime.

The big problem with systemd is that it creates a dependency for projects, essentially, though inadvertently, having the Linux Foundation monopolizing a UNIX-based system while others would prefer "free as in freedom" from the "Free Software Foundation" (GNU), which doesn't use systemd and the Linux kernel is Linux-libre. Systemd developers also have a bad habit of adding and removing features without letting the general Linux community have a say first, and the problem with developers in most cases is that if it works on their system, it will with everyone else; we don't all have $1000+ machines. And because it uses "non-free" software, it places even more resections on what a developer or just an adept user can do with it.

So, that's how I understand it; I might of got somethings wrong (hope not); anyone feel free to correct me.

Re: no

[Reziac]

Thanks, that's quite informative. So it's not terribly relevant to desktop users (since either it works or it doesn't), but can be headachey for devs, and perhaps for mission-critical systems.

Having followed the free-vs-libre issue for a long time... I think Stallman has a case, but spoils it when he uses it as a bludgeon, which has given me a preference for the BSD license.

I haven't looked at Trisquel OS ... absolutely loathe where Gnome has lately gone (swore off even downloading any distro that uses it!). Trisquel screenshots don't look bad, but that says little about usability... what was giving you fits?

Re: no

[TheOuterLinux]

I tried the "Sugar" version of Trisquel and couldn't figure out how to use it, and I also couldn't get wifi to work out-of-the-box. I hate GNOME and Unity. XFCE with a Whisker Menu for easy program search, Catfish for easy or detailed file search, and wmctrl for easy workspace switching; then, add key combos to the keyboard settings. However, the OpenSUSE (Tumbleweed) version of XFCE is much faster than Ubuntu and there are a lot more packages available thanks to SuseStudio. To give you an idea, I made my own Linux distro with SuseStudio based on OpenSUSE 13.2 32-bit before they dropped support. Because of this, I had to create my own upgrade script to fix broken repositories, which isn't really that big of a deal since there are Tumbleweed and Factory versions of the ones I was using. So now, I have a nine year old laptop running 32-bit kernel 4.11 PAE (for more RAM access) and the latest open source software and on my worst day, it might barely graze 2 GB of RAM out of the 4 I have. Start up for me is usually only ~300 MB of RAM on XFCE and ~160, if I remember correctly, when using IceWM. Even just booting up the 3GB ISO I made Live, the DVD only uses ~600 MB of RAM. I don't think Ubuntu anything uses less than that at anytime, even after installation. You can check it out here: https://theouterlinux.com/psyc..., though it doesn't have an easy installer like Ubuntu has. If you want to make your own Linux distro, I highly recommend SuseStudio.

Re:no

[cthulhu11]

Please let's stop pretending that Linux is not Unix. For all purposes that aren't trademarks, it is.

Re: no

[cthulhu11]

Or what BeOS was to ... well anything.

Re: no

[cyber-vandal]

So you think it's acceptable for an application to provide no feedback in the event of an error? I'm glad I don't use any of your systems.

I did use the command line which neglected to mention the very important fact that the GUI had already installed the application despite the dependencies not being met.

Installing Chrome on Windows has never been a hassle, and indeed when I installed it on Mint it worked first time just by double clicking an icon.

I was installing Chrome because I was interested to see how Netflix runs under Linux. It doesn't work on Chromium.

Re: no

[Reziac]

I like how you think :) Yeah, when I last tried Ubuntu, it sucked up something like 1.2GB RAM just to display a naked desktop, which is ridiculous; Win8 uses less. Heck, PCLinuxOS FullMonty (currently the distro I like best -- I can scrape by on LXDE but really prefer KDE 4.x) doesn't use that much and it includes everything known to man.

Since my "new" machine is 8 years old (albeit with 8GB RAM) I still think in terms of resource thrift. My drag-around and access-anything distro is Wary Puppy, and it runs quite nicely on 15YO hardware.

So I'll give yours a try, what the heck. :)

[goes off, finds SuseStudio, promptly discovers a build I have to try] Thanks, I may have to play with that. And I was astonished to discover that my Novell login, which I haven't used since ~2001, was still alive and well!

BTW to the nominal topic -- I have ReactOS and WinXP on a dual boot, just to compare. Box is AMD64 2GHz, 2GB RAM, older IDE HD. ROS boots to the desktop in about 12 seconds, uses ~100MB RAM and I don't think I've ever seen it above 120MB (albeit running nothing much) tho it does sometimes get stuck using a lot of CPU. XP (the full MSDN-final-5512 build, not a Tiny or Lite, default install) decided it was not to be outdone ... boots in 9 seconds and uses... are you sitting down? just 70MB RAM (albeit with no 3rd party drivers installed). This is better than XPTiny on my old laptop, which I thought was downright thrifty at 100mb. I have no idea what went 'wrong', but it needs to happen more often. :D

Re: no

[TheOuterLinux]

If you have any questions about PsychOS, feel free to email me and also take a look at https://github.com/TheOuterLin...; it's like journal I've kept during making it. If you're worried about RAM, you can also run "yast" in a console and then navigate to the YaST live installer. It is not as easy as Ubiquity is for Ubuntu-based systems. I really need to make a YouTube video of it, but I've been lazy. If you're bored and looking for an extremely light and feature rich OS, try KolibriOS or MenuetOS; it's made with assembly and will fit on a floppy but works just fine from a USB. If you do some digging, you can find interesting assembly software for them such as ZSNES.

Re: no

[Reziac]

I'm always interested in small but functional OSs, so thanks -- hadn't tripped over Menuet or Kolibri. Downloaded and we'll see if they'll run off an Easy2Boot USB stick (my usual way of checking out new distros, no more wasted DVDs). Try any OS once. :)

But wait! there's more!
http://www.techradar.com/news/...

Your PsychOS link goes to v2.5.6 at 2.6GB, is that correct?? I see it listed as 3.05GB on your info page. Regardless, hubiC link doesn't allow a download manager, and that's an overnighter on my slow connection, so I'll have to remember to fetch it last thing at night.

Re: no

[TheOuterLinux]

Holly shit...I need to fix that. Thanks for pointing that out. It is supposed to say 2.6.1. I added the wrong link. :(. Make sure to check it again. Shows you how popular it is...The Upgrade script link is the correct one though. The way I have it working is that 2.6.1 is the last build since SuseStudio doesn't support OpenSUSE 13.2 anymore. Ergo, all changes will be made from now on via the Upgrade script.

The website and all the social links at the top is being maintained by one person. I love Linux and do what I can. Having that said, if you do run into bugs with the Upgrade script (written in Bash), please let me know. I don't get a lot a lot of traffic to help me figure stuff out like I would want, though I haven't been brave enough to get it on DistroWatch or anything like that.

PsychOS will run just fine without the Upgrade script, but the included default repos will be broken if you chose not to, though regardless, it does include a crap ton of stuff. 32-bit is starting to meet its end and after annoying the OpenSUSE admins to death, it was explained to me as a phenomena they are calling "bit rotting," i.e. letting old servers die. So, I have had to find people that still at least maintain 32-bit Tumbleweed repos as replacements.

Also know that PsychOS uses rpm packages and not deb like most people are used to. Zypper is the package manager; it is very similar to apt-get in a way that you can run "sudo zypper refresh," "sudo zypper update," or "sudo zypper install [package]." When in doubt, "zypper --help" is actually helpful contrary to most managers. It does have a GUI version for this, but it's incredibly annoying.

I use UNetbootin for things like Puppy.

Re: no

[TheOuterLinux]

Ok. I fixed the link.

Re: no

[Reziac]

I don't think I've ever even used any of the package managers, so it's all fresh to me. :) I've been trying to find a linux I could love for almost 20 years, and it's still not there, often due to small but nagging issues like most apps being unable to set workspace color so it doesn't fry my eyes, or the file manager settings don't stick (since I practically live in the file manager, this is a perpetual nuisance). But I keep looking, because Windows has gone where I don't wish to follow. I still use XP and XP64 on my everyday boxen, because for me, they got it right, and it's been all downhill ever since.

I haven't tried UNetbootin, tho it looks simple enough. Easy2Boot has kinda spoiled me... set it up on the USB stick, copy Windows, utility, and linux ISOs (live or install) to the matching folders, boot from USB and pick the one I want from the menu. So far the only fails have been Hackintosh and ReactOS.

Glad you posted when you did... reminded me to download your ISO ... not quite 4 hours to go!

Re:no

[woofbnb]

No I don't think.

Re: no

[TheOuterLinux]

I'm really sorrow about using HubiC, but I've been trying to get away from cloud services like Google as much as possible, and HubiC is also based in France, to which they are much more strict than the US or UK about privacy and less strict regarding "non-free" software; VLC is a good example.

Also, my website uses its own analytics so people like Google don't have access and my settings are are set to honor "Do Not Track" settings that most web browsers have. And even if your browser doesn't, all you have to do is go to the "Privacy" link: https://theouterlinux.com/priv... and there's an option to tell my site not to. I'm only mentioning it because the warning I give before downloading may seem a little ominous to people, but it is really targeted towards those who live in the US or Japan if you know what I'm getting at.

Re: no

[Reziac]

I see a lot of linux distros on Sourceforce and Github, tho I have no idea what issues that may entail. Also there are dozens of public FTP archives. Always easier for we on slow or unreliable connections (also why I use Getright as a download manager). Problem with HubiC is it doesn't actually produce a valid download link, so there's no URL to feed to Getright.

But anyway, I finally got the whole ISO, tho haven't had a chance to look at it yet. I was about to do another trawl though a pile of distros anyway, but discovered I need to get another USB stick first (the two I already use for this are full!)

Not worried about your site tracking, etc. -- what's the deal with US and Japan? About all I got from your "warning" is that it's the usual "don't blame me if this distro makes your computer dance the hula". That's why I have a dedicated test machine. :)

Re: no

[TheOuterLinux]

If you need more incentive to use PsychOS, my actual "test machine" is a tiny Acer Aspire One ZG5 with 1GB of RAM, though I usually do my PsychOS installations on it through a TTY environment (Ctrl+Alt+F1) to save RAM; after it's installed, RAM isn't much of an issue.

For download management, I like uGet, which is just a front-end for aria2c, and it even excepts torrent files, metalinks, and things like that; I haven't tried it with HubiC though.

I would host the file on the website, but if something happens to the site itself, then I don't have that extra security for anyone that may decide to crawl around where they shouldn't; most people don't even check the Sha-1. The US and Japan have very strict laws regarding software. France does not; that's why developers from there can legally create a program like VLC to play so many file formats, including libraries such as libdvdcss for DVD playing. So, the warning is more for the US and Japan downloaders, and using a French cloud storage service just seemed to make sense.

Re: no

[Reziac]

So I've got PsychOS up as "live" -- performance is very good, far as I got. Lots of software I hadn't heard of before, which I'll have to explore. Not my favorite style of desktop, but even so it's nicely set up.

I did manage to blow something up -- tried to run "Make Human" which got as far as the splash screen and then died, and after that no app will run -- either silent fail, or an error, all in this format:

Failed to execute command "inkscape %F"
Failed to execute child process "inkscape" (input/output error)

so it must have crashed some necessary process I can't see (don't know how to check, I are not a *NIX guru :)

There was also a "Fatal CPU error" in the first bunch of text crawl, early in the boot process, but it went by too fast to read, and didn't seem to do any harm.

I've had almost no luck with getting ANY variant of SuSE to run, so it's still doing better than most of its kin!

Re: no

[TheOuterLinux]

I think it is because some applications wont run properly via Live, hence the "%F" part of the error and perhaps the MakeHuman issue. As far as desktops go, it also includes IceWM and GNOME as choices. At the password part of the login, click the gear icon to change it. I would have used LightDM instead of GDM as the login manager, but LightDM didn't look the same as what I was used to. Also, the Upgrade script is very important for all kinds of fixes, but you shouldn't run it without installing PsychOS first.

Re: no

[TheOuterLinux]

Also be sure to look up keyboard shortcuts such as Command+Spacebar for the WhiskerMenu, Command+1,2,3,4 to switch between workspaces, and Ctrl+Spacebar for file searching. After running the Upgrade script, I added the ability to highlight text from anywhere and then press Alt+t to open a dialog box with an English translation (uses Google Translate). The Upgrade script also adds what I have called "climenu," which is this: https://imgur.com/a/BS2jW, for the command line extremists; everything in climenu works both in GUI and TTY environments.

Nope

[Artem S. Tashkinov]

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.

Re:Nope

[Artem S. Tashkinov]

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?

In ten years, maybe, if your favourite software is at least 5 years old.

Will this be able to run Windows Games and DCC software that taps into the processing power of the GPU?

Not likely, because in 10 years ReactOS will only properly support Windows XP, while Windows will move on so much, there will be no modern GPUs to support Windows XP. Even right now, the absolute minimum requirement for modern GPUs is Windows 7 and ReactOS doesn't support it at all.

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 already is.

Re: Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

There is another free windows. It's called hypervisor ISO server. You can install a 3rd party gui shell and then you can run any windows desktop apps in the host rather than a vm instance.

Re:Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

In ten years, maybe, if your favourite software is at least 5 years old.

Will this be able to run Windows Games and DCC software that taps into the processing power of the GPU?

Not likely, because in 10 years ReactOS will only properly support Windows XP, while Windows will move on so much, there will be no modern GPUs to support Windows XP. Even right now, the absolute minimum requirement for modern GPUs is Windows 7 and ReactOS doesn't support it at all.

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 already is.

No, not in 10 years or 20 years or ever. ReactOS has the same fundamental problem as Wine, it will be forever chasing stability trying to implement features and support that will ensure you can never run anything reliably but legacy software.

Re:Nope

[wjcofkc]

Agreed. Wine has come a very long way. For the longest time I never thought it would amount to much more than a curiosity that could run Solitaire. Over the last few releases I have been pleasantly proven wrong. Wine works very well. I still find myself impressed when I try and succeed to install and run something complex.

Re: Nope

[Gumbercules!!]

He means "Hyper-V Server".

Re: Nope

[Slashdot Junky]

I believe the person is referring to Windows Server Core.

Re:Nope

[Xest]

Yes, I remember this project when Windows 2000 was released. Given it's had nearly 20 years to catch up and is still nowhere near I don't see why it would suddenly manage to do so now.

Honestly, with Microsoft's trajectory towards more open source, I think Windows will go open source before this becomes a viable Windows replacement. We'll probably find out in another decade.

Re:Nope

[ausekilis]

The ReactOS guys work with the WINE folks. So it's possible that as the OS gets further along being an OS, that the binary compatibility from WINE will be as caught-up as WINE is.

I hope ReactOS becomes a viable alternative, I'm not liking this walled-garden trend that vendors seem to like these days.

Absolutely

[Anonymous Coward]

ReactOS is a project I've followed for a long time, and this alpha is not perfect, but it's brilliant, in the sense that a viable alternative to M$ Windows is under active development and maturing at a reasonable speed.

Re:Absolutely

[Anonymous Coward]

Your only shot at running Reactos on real hardware is to use an old machine about 10 years old. And even then it is by no means a sure thing. No way it will run on anything newer.

Re:Absolutely

[dreamchaser]

ReactOS is a project I've followed for a long time, and this alpha is not perfect, but it's brilliant, in the sense that a viable alternative to M$ Windows is under active development and maturing at a reasonable speed.

I've been following it, and have played with it, since it's inception. It is NOT ever going to be a viable Wiindows alternative. While I applaud the effort from a geek/hobbyist standpoint, thinking it will ever be a viable option is delusional.

Re:Absolutely

[Njorthbiatr]

"Can it run games?"

No, it can't. Not like Windows can. It won't run anything competitive like Overwatch with high framerates and low input lag.

That's the only thing stopping most users who would switch to Linux from switching to Linux. WINE will let you run your other windows applications you need. It's the plain and simple fact that Microsoft has DirectX and Linux doesn't.

The idea that ReactOS is a good idea is kind of confusing. It doesn't offer any solutions to any of the problems that currently exist for Windows users who don't want to use Windows.

Re:Absolutely

[Rod Beauvex]

I have long suspected that AMD and Nvidia have deliberately been writing broken Linux drivers at Microsoft's behest, because when they lose the gamers, their downward slide will be irreversible.

Re:Absolutely

[slimjim8094]

Likewise; I first booted it in a VM probably 10+ years ago. It's a nifty idea but it's far, far behind Wine. It's probably great if you're the sort of person who gets excited about the NT kernel and know about subsystems other than Win32 (though I don't actually know how NT-style the kernel of ReactOS is).

It turns out making a Windows compatibility layer as well as the kernel, sound, print, network, graphics, etc stacks is kind of a lot of work and there's a good reason for taking an existing fully-featured OS and adding just the compatibility layer. If you like Windows, you might be better off working on a Windows-style desktop environment for Linux.

Short answer: no

[Anonymous Coward]

But maybe someday. dryriver, it looks like you have just discovered ReactOS but did you also realize that it has been alpha software for 20years? I 100% support their efforts—and have even given them money—but simply put, it is nowhere near replacing Windows in any meaningful way and unless someone wants to give them a $300 million grant, then they will not be any time soon and probably never.

Unfortunately, NO

[doragasu]

My experience running it on VirtualBox, is NO. The last version I tested was 0.4.2 IIRC. Excepting pendrives, keyboards and mouse, no USB device I tested worked, even pretty simple ones like USB to RS232 converters. Most applications crash unexpectedly, and getting pretty simple hardware configured, like the sound card, can lead to lots of crashes and even BSOD easily. I appreciate the great effort that ReactOS team is doing, but nowadays, if you need to run Windows software, you have pretty much better chance to get it working with GNU/Linux+Wine, that in ReactOS.

Re:Unfortunately, NO

[Elledan]

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.

Re:Unfortunately, NO

[TheRaven64]

ReactOS uses WINE for all of the userspace stuff, so it's unlikely to be a better option than *NIX + WINE. Its main advantage is if you are using something that has a kernel component, because it provides the same device driver KPIs as Windows, so that legacy bit of expensive hardware with Windows 2000 drivers might work with ReactOS and nothing else that's actively maintained. But for pure userspace code? I doubt it's the best option.

Re:Unfortunately, NO

[BeanThere]

It is definitely improving. Some applications I tried in 0.4.2 that didn't work then, now do work in the latest release. However, they were still a bit glitchy. I think IF they can sorta start hitting some sort of 'critical mass' (e.g. where enough applications work well enough to attract more users, and at the same they attract a few extra serious developers), they have a shot at something good. I'm keeping an eye on it, I think within a year or two it may be viable to start using it to replace some of the applications I now run in XP VMs.

Re:Unfortunately, NO

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

ReactOS is in sort of a tricky spot in terms of ever being the best option. Without the resources to chase full compatibility with whatever Microsoft feels like doing; your odds of getting all the drivers lined up and working for relatively new hardware aren't all that exciting(and, since the objective is binary compatibility with Windows drivers, not the development of ReactOS drivers, if the vendor's driver doesn't work you probably don't have any alternatives).

Legacy systems are more likely to work; but those are also more likely to be in the "wall it off from the internet and try not to touch anything" phase of their lives; which is deeply ugly; but generally a situation where you have a lot to lose and not much to gain by ripping out whatever antique version of Windows is currently there and replacing it with something else.

It's kind of a narrow niche. Especially if you have no objections to binary drivers(which you almost certainly don't, if you are even thinking about an OS intended for maximum Windows compatibility); Linux has a very good chance at working at least adequately well on new hardware faster than ReactOS does and while crufty old Windows can't be trusted in hostile environments, it can be isolated and kept on life support in various ways.

Re:Unfortunately, NO

[TheRaven64]

There are some cases where firewalling is difficult. I did some work some years back for a company that specialises in transferring data between different formats (including to and from paper, microfiche, old mainframe tapes, DVD, and so on). They had some very nice scanners that cost over £30K each, and which came with Windows 98 installed running the software. For that much up-front cost, I'd imagine that they're still using them - Windows 98 was EOL even back when I consulted for them. Unfortunately, for them to be useable, they need to be able to connect to the SMB server that they'll store the scanned documents on. They can be firewalled from everything else, but they're still likely to end up with malware eventually (there are known holes in the Windows 98 SMB client code). The vendor wasn't providing any software updates. There are probably a lot of other things in a similar situation, where they need to be networked for interoperability with workflow tracking stuff, but aren't safe. The real problem for ReactOS is that the people who are in this situation are typically not the sorts of companies that would fund open source development.

Re:Unfortunately, NO

[tibit]

It'd probably be worth it to reverse engineer the hardware and write a modern Linux driver for the scanners, and then expose them as network services to clients written whatever your heart desires.

Re:Unfortunately, NO

[Reziac]

My ROS install is 4.3 or 4.4 (too lazy to hook machine up to check) and it has partial USB support -- could read some devices but not others. Reportedly it was previously working, but got broken a few builds ago and wasn't yet fixed.

I see there's a v0.5.x out so I guess it's time to try an upgrade. 0.4.whatever was the first one I'd tried that would install and run for me. But I like the concept enough to keep following it.

Re:Unfortunately, NO

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I'd agree that "firewalling" can be a nontrivial exercise(and, as in the situation you note, frequently cannot just involve a "drop everything" rule and a satisfied expression); but in a situation like that you would presumably restrict their SMB access so that they could only interact with SMB on a single, actually supported, system you control that would effectively act as an SMB proxy(in the inelegant sense of having the same directory(s) available over SMB on one interface to the 98 boxes; and over another to the outside world; I don't think that there's any sort of 'rewrite SMB for safety" proxy option).

Definitely ugly; and (while being willing to do it can pay the bills) part of why dealing with legacy systems isn't considered a joyful hobby; but also exactly the sort of situation where "You can add a relatively low end Windows Server(possibly even desktop, depending on volume and what, if any, other features you need) SKU and some network adjustments to the situation and keep the 98 machines safely away from everything else" sounds a lot more attractive than "Well, there's this cool alpha/maybe-beta-ish OS we can try installing..." Win98 is certainly no marvel of uptime; but "30k scanner" is one of those things where downtime displeases people.

Re:Unfortunately, NO

[TheRaven64]

but in a situation like that you would presumably restrict their SMB access so that they could only interact with SMB on a single, actually supported, system you control

Unfortunately, SMB uses UDP and so it's possible to spoof the origin address unless you have a correctly configured managed switch. In a company like this, which doesn't have that much in-house computer expertise, they don't have a managed switch and probably wouldn't configure it correctly if they did have one.

In short: no.

[YukariHirai]

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.

Re:In short: no.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wine runs more Windows software than Windows does. Modern versions of Windows are incompatible with a ton of older software that works perfectly in Wine. Hell, Malware 10 perpetually breaks compatibility with modern software (that also works fine under Wine) with every forced patch.

Re:In short: no.

[Kjella]

There's really no advantage to it over Linux in any kind of practical terms, and some key disadvantages. (...) 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 it was plausible, the WINE project would have done it by now too. In which case why wouldn't you run Linux and your legacy Windows software? I think that even if things were different the niche for ReactOS is limited to an extremely small segment where you want a 100% drop-in replacement with zero retraining. But the chances of replicating everything so faithfully you wouldn't realize you're not running "real" Windows is basically zero. As long as you got bigger issues that that, it's maybe preferable for everyone to know that you're just running an emulation. Even for those who feel WINE is "hard" there are front-ends like PlayOnLinux that give you very close to a native install/run/uninstall experience, assuming WINE can do the heavy lifting.

Re:In short: no.

[Gavagai80]

Eve if they could 100% replicate Windows so faithfully that you wouldn't realize you're not running the real thing, they'd be sued into oblivion.

Re:In short: no.

[dbIII]

If it was plausible, the WINE project would have done it by now too

Moving target.

Re:In short: no.

[dreamchaser]

Unfortunately, APIs can be protected by copyright.

Re:In short: no.

[Gavagai80]

To re-implement Windows, you're bound to end up breaking a software patent somewhere. There are only so many ways to implement the same API. Currently they have no money and don't affect MS profits at all so there's no point to going after them, but if they were successful then efforts would be made. Even if they remain entirely in Russia, Russia is not totally immune to IP lawyers, especially when a company can afford to put a big bribe in the right pocket.

Re:In short: no.

[LVSlushdat]

Everybody in this thread keeps talking about Wine, but everybody seems to forget about the paid, heavily-developed port of Wine called CrossOver. Sure, its not free, but since its not, and has a bunch of developers constantly working on it, it runs a LOT of Windows software, quite a few that won't run on the "free" Wine.. https://codeweavers.com/ .. I gave up on Wine a few years ago, and now pay to use CrossOver for the several Windows apps I need to run, and flatly *refuse* to dedicate a machine to Windows to run...

Re:In short: no.

[Lesrahpem]

I've definitely experienced this with older games. I have a lot of older games (say 1995-2005 era) that simply don't work with Windows 10 or don't work well. Most of them work just fine with Wine.

Re:In short: no.

[cheesybagel]

Which "professional-grade" 3D software are you talking about? What do you think the major studies and effects houses use as a platform? There are plenty of options on Linux including Autodesk Maya or Softimage.

Re:In short: no.

[YukariHirai]

Which "professional-grade" 3D software are you talking about?

Whatever the original poster is talking about. I don't know and don't especially care which of those are Windows-only and which run under Linux, but he's giving them as an example of Windows software that might continue to not work with ReactOS. The point isn't really 3D software, it's software one might need to use professionally that you'd otherwise need Windows for.

Tech Demo

[darkain]

ReactOS was a promising tech demo... like 10 years ago. Considering where it has gone from then till now? It seems to be moving along quite slowly, and has an interface that isn't even comparable to Windows 98 yet in terms of usability.

Need to keep legacy applications alive? Best bet is still VMWare with PCI Passthrough for any legacy hardware you need.

Re:Tech Demo

[short]

s/VMWare/VMware/
s/VMware/KVM/

TFS only said Windows six times

[raymorris]

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.

Yes, for simpler applications

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't listen to the brigade here trying to warn you of the evil Russian dangerous operating system. ReactOS works perfectly fine for general use and simpler applications. But if you f.ex. need heavy real-time 3D apps or games, then you will have to give your soul to Microsoft and switch back to Windows.

Free / open source

[therealspacebug]

"Imagine running your favorite Windows applications and drivers in an open-source environment you can trust."

Well, you can trust the OS itself, but since almost every program most people are going to run on it are non-free, you can't trust it.

(That's not a problem with the OS though)

DRM-free, spy-free Windows?

[Misagon]

I think that most people that would be interested in ReactOS or Wine are not because they would not want to pay for a Windows license but because they have concerns about Microsoft's present and future shenanigans. There could be many reasons: from national security to just wanting to keep the machine safe and stable for what they are running.

That begs the question, what about cracker groups? Are there no cracked versions of Windows 10 out there with telemetry and other back doors switched off, that could only receive screened updates?
If that is an option for people, why isn't Microsoft concerned?

Re:DRM-free, spy-free Windows?

[CptLoRes]

If you remove all the DRM and telemetry. Can it then be called Windows compatible?

Re:DRM-free, spy-free Windows?

[gravewax]

If they want Safe and stable they certainly WON'T be using ReactOS or Wine!

Re:General Protection Fault

[mrbester]

Makes a change from "Outlook not so good" all the time...

Never heard of it before

[DalM]

I'm not in the tech field professionally. I follow tech news for entertainment mostly. I've never heard of "ReactOS". It basically looks like they said, "Ok, let's make a clone of Windows 2000." I'm an environmental engineer. The Civil and Environmental industries will never ever flip to Linux or anything else. Not because we can't for some reason, but because it's pointless. We have old people in the industry that refuse to learn anything new at all -even when it's applicable to the field. I have enough trouble just convincing many civil engineers that they should do groundwater sampling near known leaking petroleum storage tank sites prior to designing water pipes, much less getting them to learn some new OS. It simply won't happen.

Re:Never heard of it before

[Anonymous Coward]

You must work with some mighty small time civil "engineers" then because all of the real civil engineers work with supercomputers which run...

I'll give you a hint, it ain't Windows.

Re:Never heard of it before

[Geodesy99]

> (A) "... The Civil and Environmental industries will never ever flip to Linux or anything else. ... (B) have old people in the industry that refuse to learn anything new at all"
Hmmm ... 'never'? I wonder why ESRI, the dominant player with ArcGIS decided to start releasing a Linux version? http://desktop.arcgis.com/en/a...
(B) Demographics - attrition will take care of most of the problem, competition, outsourcing the rest. See http://www.economicmodeling.co... . I heard this same pissing and moaning when aerospace moved from 2D to 3D Solid Modeling, and the transition happened in a relative eye blink.
(A) Nobody actually trying to get work done wants to deal with any OS. The need for model integration, remote teams, ,etc. practically dictate cloud based going forward. The size of GIS models and nano detail make for mammoth datasets. And guess what, nobody wants to deal with MS BS when building those systems or as an end user: Jon Hirschtick of OnShape ( https://www.onshape.com/ ):
"We have observed that most large-scale web successes rely on generic Linux-based computers—and lots of them. ... We chose a clean-sheet, full-cloud architecture because those other technologies, running desktop CAD on remote desktop servers, don’t solve the big problems that users have. They just move the problems and inefficiencies of desktop CAD software and file-copy workflows to a different computer. They don’t deliver the true big benefits of cloud. We’re not alone with this belief, by the way. Full-cloud has won over semi-cloud in many other industries, including Salesforce versus Siebel, Workday versus Oracle, etc."

Re:Never heard of it before

[Bite The Pillow]

You talk with authority about something you never heard of before.. The entire point is that it works and acts like Windows. The UI is not a perfect match, but functionally it is the same. The learning curve is no more than a windows version upgrade.

Re:Never heard of it before

[Reziac]

And it works and acts like Windows before the desktop got mangled into something a lot of us don't recognise or hate beyond all description.

See, Microsoft, if you'd kept the XP shell available and made the Win8/10 desktop just another *optional* shell, I wouldn't have jumped ship. I don't want a damned smartphone appliance wasting space on my desktop monitor; if that's what I wanted, I'd just use the fucking smartphone.

Why?

[SpaghettiPattern]

I mean, all we /.ers want is a terminal emulator. And when we get frisky and need graphics, perhaps Eclipse and a browser. Any Linux distro has these nowadays.

The long answer is maybe

[DarkOx]

I have seen it used on a few machines on my companies plant floor that are used to run some very old designer software, that produces a set of instructions that is then sent to machines running 'real windows' but highly isolated. Files get copied to a 3.5" and walked over! The design software won't run on anything newer than XP. The control software is running on WFW3.11 and Win95 in some cases.

ReactOS seems to be fine for this. The software runs and its basically the only thing the PCs are used for. Prior to this they were running WFW3.11 in DOSBox. ReactOS makes it a little easier for less than tech savy machine operators to get the file onto the floppy disk etc. They were struggling with the virtual/emulated machine concept. Ie I saved the file to the floppy drive, no you saved it to the virtual floppy drive now you need to copy it to the actual floppy. I said I saved it to the floppy. NO! So ReactOS is not without its use case, its just rare.

As far as the OP's question though. The answer is mostly "No", ReactOS is not going to be a reasonable platform for gaming, and really any kind of media. There is simply no hardware support. It shares a lot of code with WINE but lags behind what even WINE implements. WINE on Linux on the other hand can give you a pretty darn good gaming experience if you do your homework and pick well supported hardware, and check the app database on winehq before you frustrate yourself. Its also good to install apps in their own wine bottle, for best compatibility, and flexibility around libraries and such. If you do that I have found most software will run acceptably, unless you insist on the cutting edge latest games. Stick to titles for a few years ago for best results.

Re:The long answer is maybe

[drinkypoo]

ReactOS makes it a little easier for less than tech savy machine operators to get the file onto the floppy disk etc. They were struggling with the virtual/emulated machine concept. Ie I saved the file to the floppy drive, no you saved it to the virtual floppy drive now you need to copy it to the actual floppy. I said I saved it to the floppy. NO!

So uh, why not point the VM at a physical floppy drive? Are there any virtual machines that won't let you do this?

Re:The long answer is maybe

[DarkOx]

We could not find a way to do it with dos box reliably. The alternative would be to use something like vmware player, but than we would need DOS licenses. Which did not have any of those (that would could prove anyway having held onto the boxes all those years). We have lots of legal copies of WFW, I suspect because the PCs were bought with DOS but not Windows at one point. The WFW boxes and media were kept.

Auditors get goofy about that stuff no matter how much you tell them Microsoft even if Microsoft comes here and does a audit of their own they are unlikely to notice or care about DOS 6.22 and Windows for Workgroups running in some VM. I suppose WFW would run on freeDos but at that point you now have a third party DOS running in a VM running windows, why not just use ReactOS, was the conclusion we came to. Its like 4 PCs so we all just wanted to stop thinking about it as fast as possible.

Re:The long answer is maybe

[drinkypoo]

We could not find a way to do it with dos box reliably. The alternative would be to use something like vmware player, but than we would need DOS licenses.

How about FreeDOS in a VM? Or was this pre-FreeDOS?

Its like 4 PCs so we all just wanted to stop thinking about it as fast as possible.

That part I understand :)

Don't count on it

[iampiti]

I've been following the project for some years and they same some hardworking people...but they're way to few to take on a project of this size.
Cloning Windows is a huge huge work and they would need serious financial backing and a lot more people to be a viable replacement for Windows in a short time.

Re: Yo! Grandpa! Re:Seriously?

[ChanceCallahan]

What were you doing running Steam on Win98? I'm honestly curious.

Re:Not yet, but soon.

[dreamchaser]

They have had 20 years to get there...it isn't going to happen. I'd like to see it happen, but thinking so is just wishful thinking.

Recurring question

[onyxruby]

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.

Version 0.4.5 will be released next week!

[jeditobe]

https://www.reactos.org/wiki/T...

Is ReactOS A Serious Alternative To Windows? YES!

[jeditobe]

Is ReactOS A Serious Alternative To Windows? YES!
Of course, YES!
But it is possible only with your support! The good beginning is to test programs and report bugs!

P.S. Have you seen this video?

Re:No, ReactOS is a

[jeditobe]

ReactOS is NOT Russian

The final answer is NEVER

[Anonymous Coward]

I joined the ReactOS team a few years ago. And left again in a matter of days when I realized that ReactOS is just a shell with virtually no functionality. The code quality is beyond description - I have never experienced so poor code anywhere else during a period of more than 30 years of coding.

For instance, when I tried out ReactOS, you could format the system partition without any warning. Simply issue "format c:" and it happily formatted your Windows partition. Most of the code of ReactOS is like that. It appears to work but nobody tested it, nobody uses it, and it doesn't make any sense when you try it out.

No, ReactOS is NEVER going to be usable for anything but wasting a few nerds' time.

Maybe

[Murdoch5]

I'm downloading it now to try it out, but regardless if it can, Linux is already the king of the OS game.

I run Linux for my desktop OS on all my computers and I haven't missed Windows for one day. Once you leave the desktop, Windows is dead, I don't have a single server running Windows Server, and I don't need them to, because it will give me nothing I can't do quicker or better with Linux. The take away is that well ReactOS might be a great replacement for Windows, as I'm about to try it, Linux already is.

Wish them luck, but ...

[Hognoxious]

It'll be an uphill battle. Windows is barely compatible with itself.

Yes. But don't use it for the wrong reasons.

[Qbertino]

Just about any FOSS system is a viable alternative to Windows, because it doesn't rely on certain functions becoming obsolute and needing to be upgraded. The prime mechanism of cashflow for MS.

This is the reason I abandoned Windows after Win2K and moved to Linux. The lack in convenience is annoying - I once again had to manually fiddle with modlines and x11.conf just a few weeks ago (... in effing 2017!!). But in the long run my *nix skills will still be useful and applicable when todays versions of Windows have long since passed again.

How far ReactOS is in replacing older versions on Windows is I don't know, but AFAIHH it is pretty impressive how far it has come. Although progress is very slow, AFAICT.

However, don't use ReactOS for the wrong reasons!

If you are relying on React to run older versions of MS Office, I strongly recommend you move to some FOSS office package like LibreOffice and ditch the Windows camp alltogether. Also 3D shouldn't be a reason wantig to keep old versions of Windows around. Switcihing to a modern platform and using the tool of your choice or the FOSS tool Blender is a way better idea for stuff like that. ReactOS is a platform for good functional custom legacy software built for Windows - and if it succeeds at being exactly that, then that is a good thing. Testing legacy software with ReactOS might yield results that can save companies massive amounts of money, because they now know a platform their stuff runs on that MS doens't controll and can continue developing against it rather than ditching millions worth of software and starting from scratch. And that is always a good thing.

My 2 eurocents.

Re:Yes. But don't use it for the wrong reasons.

[tepples]

If you are relying on React to run older versions of MS Office, I strongly recommend you move to some FOSS office package like LibreOffice and ditch the Windows camp alltogether.

Unless the application you need to run is a pile of macros for an Office application. For example, in my day job, I have seen Stone Edge, which was an order processing application for online sellers written as a set of Access VBA macros, and the client-side prevalidation of product listing feeds in Amazon Seller Central, which is Excel macros.

ReactOS is trying to *unseat* Windows?

[itomato]

That's a lofty goal. One they don't pursue.

Nope. History shows us...

[HockeyPuck]

Done before, just run windows on windows...

-Your friends in the OS/2 Warp Community.

November 2004 through July 2006

[tepples]

Valve's Half-Life 2 was the first major game to use Steam and was released in the fourth quarter of November 2004. Though mainstream support for Windows 98 ended in June 2002, extended support (including security updates) for Windows 98 continued through July 11, 2006. This makes an overlap of over a year and a half of production use of both Steam and Windows 98.

No, but driver suport gives it some use-cases

[williamyf]

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...

ReactOS aims to run drivers

[tepples]

Wine may work provided your application doesn't use any devices other than a keyboard, mouse, display, audio output, storage, and network connection. A lot of applications for which people keep Windows around are applications devoted to accessing a particular hardware peripheral through a custom driver. As I understand it, ReactOS can run drivers for these peripherals, unlike Wine.

Re:ReactOS aims to run drivers

[drinkypoo]

As I understand it, ReactOS can run drivers for these peripherals, unlike Wine.

That's the idea. The reality is very different. ReactOS can attempt to install those drivers, and that's as far as it will usually get.

Has anyone commenting actually used ReactOS

[TheOuterLinux]

Or is it just a bunch of PC gamers and IT guys in a "Window$ is the best" bitch-frenzy like they normally do? I don't play computer games and like ReactOS. It's not an out-of-the-box Linux distro like a lot are used to. If you can't learn to be more proactive in your setups to get things to work, that's you're your own problem.

Re:I think you already know the answer.

[tepples]

Linux is dominating, but X11 isn't. Servers overwhelmingly run GNU/Linux, and Android/Linux and Chrome OS/Linux clients already outnumber Windows clients.

Re:Yo! Grandpa! Re:Seriously?

[MSTCrow5429]

No, Windows NT-line on Alpha was always running in 32-bit. Which is why I never saw it installed on very much, probably. What was the point?

Fair use defense for interoperability

[tepples]

True, but as far as I'm aware, the most recent Oracle v. Google recognized a fair use defense for interoperability.

PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch

[tepples]

You don't want to buy a second computer just to play some games.

I'll assume for the moment that you don't claim to speak for millions of people who buy a Sony or Nintendo computer just to play exclusive games.

ham sandwich

[ooloorie]

A ham sandwich is a "serious alternative to Windows", for some values of "serious". It depends on your application and needs.

Linux is obsolete

[Anonymous Coward]

At least that was what Prof. Tanenbaum opined when Linux was still sporting alpha version numbers. Presumably, his own Amoaba OS was the future.

Real usage

[DMJC]

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.

Re:Yo! Grandpa! Re:Seriously?

[MSTCrow5429]

Yes, the 32-bit Windows 2000 Alpha RC did leak. The work on the 64-bit Windows for Alpha somehow helped with the development of Windows on x64, although don't know how myself.

They got Itanic workstations for $10 each, they were all HP employees, and got Doom to run on it.

It will be a viable alternative to Win Server 2003

[tiniebras]

ReactOS is intended to be a binary compatible OS to windows systems circa 2003. I suspect its main use will be to run legacy software from that era. Development started on it in '96 and was crawlingly slow. However fund raising efforts from 2012 onwards have meant it has been able to significantly step up the rate of progress. It will never replace the current version of windows, but then again it was never intended to.

Re:The Stained Glass Logo.

[drinkypoo]

I find it hard to take seriously any discussion about MS Windows

Me, too! Why would anyone take that garbage seriously?

Wine is better

[loufoque]

Wine is the same thing, but better since it runs on top of a real OS, so you're not forced to use an ancient design and ancient drivers.

Re:The Stained Glass Logo.

[sl3xd]

I find it hard to take seriously any discussion about MS Windows on a site flat out refuses to use the actual Windows logo. ... Because Slashdot doesn't want to get sued into oblivion for using a trademarked, and heavily enforced symbol? They don't use the Apple Logo either...