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ReactOS 0.4.9 Is Entirely Self-Hosting, Fixes FastFAT Crashes (appuals.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Appuals: ReactOS, the "free Windows clone" operating system, has pushed out ReactOS 0.4.9 just recently, which brings a whole slew of improvements. With this latest 0.4.9 version, ReactOS has become entirely self-hosting without any issues, which means ReactOS can fully build itself from within itself, it does not require any third-party operating system to compile ReactOS. Self-hosting was built into older ReactOS versions, but it came with a myriad of issues -- the system would become too stressed under memory usage and storage I/O loads. This was due to a flawed NT-compliant kernel.
Additional improvements in ReactOS 0.4.9 include overall stability and performance enhancements. The hardware abstraction layer and the FastFAT drivers received significant attention, and FastFAT should no longer eat through the cache so fast it causes system crashes due to resource leakage. FastFAT has also been rewritten to trigger a "chkdsk" repair on dirty / corrupt volumes during boot detections. Some other quality improvements are the addition of a built-in zipfldr extension -- ReactOS can now natively unpackage zipped archives, without the need of a third-party tool like WinZip. The changelog can be viewed here.
Additional improvements in ReactOS 0.4.9 include overall stability and performance enhancements. The hardware abstraction layer and the FastFAT drivers received significant attention, and FastFAT should no longer eat through the cache so fast it causes system crashes due to resource leakage. FastFAT has also been rewritten to trigger a "chkdsk" repair on dirty / corrupt volumes during boot detections. Some other quality improvements are the addition of a built-in zipfldr extension -- ReactOS can now natively unpackage zipped archives, without the need of a third-party tool like WinZip. The changelog can be viewed here.
I guarantee you do use Linux on a daily basis. You just don't realize it.
My corporate PTB gave me the choice of a Windows install or a Linux one. I took the plunge and am not tempted to go back.
The only area which causes me some grief is interfacing with the Skype For Business infrastructure at work. Other then that, clear sailing.
IMO - unless you're a hardcore Windows gamer (the latest greatest stuff, not things that WINE can take care of) Linux is a solid desktop choice for even the most mildly technical adept user.
Min
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
I love it when people criticize others for doing stuff that doesn't affect them at all. Especially IT janitors who don't realize that their entire job depends on Open Source software working properly. No one cares about "servers where you work".
I doubt the time of these hobbyists would have saved at least a dozen children. Just like the resources and effort to make a single Lamborghini cannot be directly used to create 10 honda accords, despite the price tag suggesting that would be the case given a simplistic interpretation of 'value'.
The critical assessment could also have applied to Linux in 1993, this silly unusable Unix-wannabe, what's the point, we have several Unix vendors alreday? Linus himself said "I’m doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones". It's hard for me to picture this scenario for ReactOS of course, but it is a good thing that sort of assessment didn't discourage free software back then...
Also value in preservation, if not practical direct use. In this marvelous age where we have created the ability to have perfect preservation in terms of digital data, we do a lot to make it still unlikely to run old software. Efforts like FreeDOS and ReactOS improve chances of preserving experience of 'dead' platform/platform revisions.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
You might want to avoid reading the article, so you don't realize just how silly that sounds now that you can't take the comment back anymore...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I just don't see the point, I was hoping someone would explain why all the time and effort has been spent to build something that is not wanted, and not needed.
I think I can help.
The problem with your statement here is the "is not wanted and is not needed" part. This software is wanted and is needed.
Sure, you can buy a copy of Windows and run Windows software. You are correct - that need is fulfilled perfectly well.
By one vendor, and one vendor only. That is the important bit.
As a mental exercise, let's say that Microsoft does something completely odious in their next Windows 10 patch. All your personal data is collected and stored at Microsoft and sold to the highest bidder. Advertising everywhere. (Yes yes I know, people already feel this is happening. Bear with me.)
What now?
You're a small dev company writing an application. You have to write it for Windows because that's 90% of the market share, pretty much. You have years into development and it has to be for Windows because you don't have the resources to run it anywhere else. And now suddenly Microsoft is doing this terrible thing, and you don't want to be a part of it.
You could release your application on a ReactOS image. You get all the Windows functionality, and none of the "locked in to one vendor-ness" of Windows.
So long story short, choice is good. There is a metric ton of legacy code and applications that depend entirely on Windows, and having a single point of failure for all of it is untenable. This is why projects like ReactOS and WINE are valuable.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Time is money and resources etc
Software development time is far from a fungible thing. If I redirected some of my time to, say, going to synthesize vaccines, well I'd produce less software but I'd probably produce no vaccines in my attempt. Economy is our best approximation for equating value of different things, but at the end of the day there are differences that don't work.
Sure, volunteer as you can, this is a worthy and honorable thing t odo. However you can't volunteer all the time. Even as you attempt to volunteer to feed the hungry, you may be turned away because they have enough volunteers. Produce vegetables, sure, that no one will want because there are already plenty of vegetables supplied. Raise chickens and do more harm than good as you end up giving people salmonella. It's frequently not so trivial to convert 'guy thinking and pressing keys on a keyboard' to 'saving children'.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
You are looking in the wrong place.
It was too much for Poettering to handle.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII