The ReactOS website has been completely redesigned. That in itself won't get your panties in a twist, however, the screenshots section might. They show just how far ReactOS has come: OpenOffice.org 1.1.4, MS Office 2003's setup, Unreal Tournament, Deus Ex, Flash Player, and much more. Note that some of those apps will only run in the latest SVN version.
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Speed and Looks still aren’t an issue with all the other stuff left to do. But its getting close enough that I’m starting to think >>No Vista for me, I’ll dual boot Linux/ReactOS<<. I mean seriously, I’m getting to the point where Linux hast what I want (Python, Ruby, GCC and so on) and windows doesn’t, and for what I need from windows (Office and the odd tool that doesn’t work on Linux, maybe an old game here or there) ReactOS is starting to shape up. Get WindowBlinds working and I’m in. 
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Sorry people, I meant to cancel my post after changing my mind but hit the wrong button. Someone should change the site so I can take back the post/reply, or at least so it has to be a minimum length before it can be submitted. I'm used to gmail and having the cancel button on the bottom, I was a little distracted and forgot what site I was on :-p.
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It's not based on Linux at all. They have written their own NT clone from the ground up. Their relationship to WINE it that they used some of their reverse engineering and implementing of the Windows API as a reference for their own Windows compatible API. So it has nothing to do with Linux.
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ReactOS is an attempt to create a complete open source reimplementation of Windows NT/2k
It has many Wine parts, but it isn't Linux running Wine - it is a clone of the NT kernel, wine DLLs ported to that kernel, and clones of those service and applications that Windows has (like GDI, Windows Explorer, etc)
Pretty slick really. Some people hacked on a kernel quietly and without fanfare for sometime. Then, suddenly, they reached a point where they could import a signifigant chunk of Wine, and due to that could run a GPL clone of Windows Explorer that already existed. Badda bing badda boom, ReactOS went from a kernel with some graphics tests to an OS with a functional desktop and applications
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So does this mean that we could see Free (think "free speech," not "no cost") video card drivers soon? If so, would they perhaps be ported to the Linux/X11 architecture? That would kick ass...
(Note: I've a Radeon 9200 in my box that runs lovely using the Free drivers, so I'm happy.)
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Grml, I nearly missed it, because RSS is broken at the moment ( http://www.reactos.org/reactos.rdf - 404).
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Answer to my own question:
http://www.reactos.org/wiki/index.php/Xen_port
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I found this interesting except from looking at the tour on the React OS web page the install looks rather like Windows as well. I particularly noticed the time zone set up panel and noticed (like in windows) the lack of a GMT versus local time check box on the time/date/local set-up.
The lack of GMT in the hardware clock (Windows NT and up apparently use GMT in the *system clock*) makes multi booting with other OS's problematical, especially if each tries to leap forward/back at the appropriate time when you next boot them up. Laptops which travel seem to be a good use of GMT in the hardware clock as well.
[I worked around this particular problem by telling Windows that I live in London and don't use daylight savings time. All other OS's on that machine use GMT.]
Are the security problems with Windows copied over as well. If you (say) install iTunes under ReactOS do you need to be running in administrator mode for CD's to mount within iTunes or for preferences to stick when using the application?
(I use iTunes as an example. Much software which comes with a piece of hardware (ATI TV in) REQUIRES you to be admin merely to launch the program. Others such as iTunes don't work quite right.)
Are these misfeatures copied over as well or is an effort made to correct them say by virtulizing the registry, which would probably break applications?
-Jim B.
Member since:2005-06-30
Blaming Windows for the manner in which others develop software for it is a bit off. There's nothing preventing iTunes from having per-user settings. There's not much ReactOS or anyone else can do if software doesn't use NT's security model well, and assumes it's being run with an administrator account. Complain to the people that write the software; it's broken.
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"There's not much ReactOS or anyone else can do if software doesn't use NT's security model well," There is, and Windows Vista does(will). On Vista, when a regular luser runs/installs an app that requires admin privileges (writing to system folders or restricted areas of the registry) Vista sets up a sandbox that lets the app think it is doing just that, while in reality it is all local to the user. C:usersbobfakeCwindows and HKCU//pretendRegistry//HKLM or whatever. It will be a lot like Wine, with each user having a copy of the registry and system drives for those apps that require their use.
"Systems engineers won't have to spend as much time tweaking permissions with Windows Vista, though, because registry and file virtualization in Windows Vista redirects per-machine file and registry writes to per-user locations if the user doesn't have administrative privileges." - http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/expert/gethome.mspx
Not sure if they will be able to get it to work right (with installing as well as running such programs), but it is an idea ReactOS can and should use IMHO. There is too much stupid software out there that thinks it needs admin rights. Please ReactOS, provide a way to let apps think they have them while keeping them localized.
-MO
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No, but microsoft's default plan of having the user be an admin user is faulted-- probably why software designers for win32 think it is OK to assume administrator priviledges are available (and also why network worms are so prevelent for win32)
Having hung around in the ROS IRC channel for some time, I have heard this very topic come up several times. Pretty much all of the developers at ROS think that running an Admin account as the default is "A bad thing" (TM), and that it needs to not be done in ROS.
Currently ROS is single user, so admin is assumed for the sake of development. As ROS becomes more network aware, I'd expect that to change.
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Stop wondering if ReactOS will be a Linux sub-system or otherwise "virtualized" within Linux. It is another option. WINE already covers that point.
I'm not talking about virtualizing (which is already possible with ReactOS btw) I'm talking about a sub-system which it totally different. As a Linux sub-system, it would allow for things like loading drivers written for windows from within the Linux kernel...
You can't do that with Wine. Wine is an API.
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But BETTER OSes have supported super-sessions for years now.. IBM call them Hypervisors... Linux as well as intel and amd hardware are more than capable of running multiple OSes in their own space as entirely seprate machines. the only thing on the block that DOESN'T have extensive support already for this is MS windows [but they're thinking of adding it as a premium server feature] <p>
you could have all the different OSes running at the same time!! with a little careful planning you could run Linux and ReactOS at the same time... with the Synergy project you could even get copy/paste working!!! Just keyboard switch to use apps in their "native" environment!!
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"ReactOS won't offer much in the way of networking until it's next release (0.3). The current release I believe has networking code, but it doesn't do anything."
The TCP stack is already functional and usable (although it needs more work) The main problem is the lack of drivers (only 2) and no control panel applet to configure it, thus you need to do it in the registry.
It's relatively simple though, and you can have a play with a network able ROS.
Currently, we've had web browsers, mail clients, IRC clients, a few servers and many other bits running.
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Why don't they "just" use the BSD TCP/IP stack - like Windows does? That implementation is actually quite stable. That would be a major step forward for the project.
And congratulations, ReactOS. I've been following you since the early versions. Keep up the good work!
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Windows doesn't use the BSD stack. They may have started with it, but they have since rewritten it extensively. Even from the initial release they have used a different API to make it integrate into Windows, Winsock. Since Winsock 2 they have abstracted out to the API to support different network transports like IPX/SPX.
The BSD API is synchronous, and the Windows one is asynchronous. Even if ReactOS used the BSD implementation underneath they would still need to do quite a lot of work to make it usable to Windows apps.
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I'll just go on and assume that ReactOS's interface is much snappier than X because it's not abstracted by 85 layers of toolkits/libraries/drivers/whatnot, and this is the thing I really miss since I switched to GNU/Linux. Just consider - since the authors of ReactOS don't need to kill off *nix (as Microsoft did) they might as well implement a decent Posix subsystem so we could get the best of both worlds - a snappy interface and all the sweet, sweet unix tools all at once! Gonna try this one asap, and good luck to the ReactOS guys.
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If ReactOS subsumes into Linux is WINE. Stop wondering if ReactOS will be a Linux sub-system or otherwise "virtualized" within Linux. It is another option. WINE already covers that point. If the goal is to have games and high productivity programs like Photoshop or 3D Studio running on a free Windows clone, virtualizing it's not feasible.
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Personally I don't like windows but I do take pride in developing software that is cross platform. I don't trust wine enough yet for testing how well my program will run on windows. And qemu is just too painfully slow to do anything with.
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Even if reactOs forever sticks to win2000/winxp (but not vista) compatability alone, this would be a dream come true. It has an Alexandrian porportion of software libary to fall back on. Vista my be better, but Win2k is good enough for nearly all home and business users.
In fact, with the many easy to use IDEs (i'm thinking Delphi in particular), we may actually find that ReactOS gets so popular that 5 years from now, win2k software developement may still be more active than vista only software. ReactOS can take over the world! Why not? As long as they can get the diver model and basic API working, anything that windows can do, ReactOS can do. (Damn, now i've got myself so excited, i'm pissing myself with utopian visions of the computing future)
Imagine the fantastics forks of Windows we can do with this! Booyah!
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I have been following ReactOS for years. I have even run it on ral hardware a few times. It really is a beautiful thing, and even runs some applications.
Can't wait to see 0.3, since I want to try some basic Windows web serving on it....maybe AnalogX Simple Server, or even Apache.
I like the idea of possibly having a stable win32 server that won't have to load the GUI...should be nice as far as keeping down overhead.
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This is all well and good but the same exact thing can be accomplished within Linux by using Wine (yes, I know they swap code)
The screenshots page looks like a laundry list of my old Windows programs that run fine and get semi frequent use in Wine. Irfan, WinRAR, Deus Ex, check.
I don't mean to denigrate, I guess I am just surprised by how precisely it matches the list of apps I actually use in Wine. I guess I shouldn't be though, that's the nature of it. It is impressive that this all runs on its own kernel etc, and getting to this point should accelerate development. I guess I just look forward to the day it can run more than Wine can, otherwise why? Well, ease of use and all that..
I'm rambling. It is impressive to see it move forward as it is, and impressive that it go this far, with so much work being done before the general public could really be shown anything. Congrats!
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(1) As mentioned many, many times...It isn't based on Linux in any way.
(2) The only thing it has common with Linux is that its open-source.
(3) In regards to applications actually installing and working, I suggest you see one of ReactOS's fantsites...Office is not stable when it installs, and it doesn't even run at this time.
I like ReactOS, because it provides an alternative.
Something Microsoft will NEVER let happen if it has its way to everything in life.
I'll definitely keep an eye on this one.
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2005-08-26
