The ReactOS team has released ReactOS 0.3.0. There’s a massive changelog for this release. You can get 0.3.0 from the SourceForge page. “The ReactOS project is dedicated to making Free Software available to everyone by providing a ground-up implementation of a Microsoft Windows XP compatible operating system. ReactOS aims to achieve complete binary compatibility with both applications and device drivers meant for NT and XP operating systems, by using a similar architecture and providing a complete and equivalent public interface.”
Seems to be dead.
Looks like a) server overload or b) Microsofts lawyers have come back from vacation. 🙂
website is back online
Everything can be downloaded from sourceforge :
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=6553&package_…
This is recommended method to download as the ReactOS main site does not have as much bandwidth available…
Why do all the sourceforge files show 0 downloads? I’m certain I’m not the first!
They just stagger behind, I have noticed this through many releases now. Check back tomorrorw for todays stats and so on.
Wow!
ReactOS Videos and Screenshots
Videos of the ReactOS graphical user interface, command line, samba-tng (files and printing over network) and Screenshots of ReactOS 0.3.0.
http://www.reactos.org/?page=media
The first video they show they go into firefox to the ReactOS Donate Money page.
LOL
LOL that’s brilliant
Nice, they have qemu and vmware images for download. Going to give it a spin
I thoght they where only aiming for NT4?
They decided to go ahead and aim for XP compat too, a while back. Might as well, it’s NT based, and wine aims for that kind of compat too.
Considering that they’re also using a rewrite of the NT kernel, what it should mean is faster implementation of features as they don’t need to work around Windows/*NIX differences, its just a matter of doing it to the documentation.
Even if it takes them until the end of next year, what this will provide, however, is a good alternative to those wanting to run Windows applications because they require compatibility, but at the same time, not have to deal with purchasing a new copy of Windows.
the idea is good… sure!
this could attract some people to use more OSS.
but why keep that horryble windows look and feel? but it’s still alpha so maybe in the future they will work on the UI too.
A LOT of people like or are at least very used to the old windows look, so they’ll probably keep it – means they can keep working on compatibility instead of the UI. This really isn’t trying to break new ground.
I prefer that look to the blue or green XP themes. The Silver one is ok, though, especially if you slim down the title bars.
I prefer that look to the blue or green XP themes. The Silver one is ok, though, especially if you slim down the title bars.
well… I perfectly agree to that… the blue XP theme is one of the ugliest themes ever created in computer history. anyway, there is not just windows… and making a compatible os does not necessarily mean you have to make it look like. although certainly this makes it easier for people who have always worked with windows and only windows and panic in front of changes (and unfortunately these people still are a lot. I suppose ReactOS is somehow meant for those poeple… who is not afraid of change will end up using linux or another “alternative”.
Edited 2006-08-28 15:05
correct, to the point that even spyware an viri will run on react os. while it isnt a ground breaking os in itself, what its doing for compatibility and what it has a posibility of doing for the OSS comunity is quite ground breaking. almost earth shattering even.
What about performance ? How fast is it compared to windows ?
I know that at this point of development maybe performance is not a priority, but i’m just curious !
I’d say at this point, it’s quite a bit slower than win2k, XP. but that is to be expected, since the priority should always be to get things working solidly first. “Premature optimization is the root of all evil.”. there are likely other factors aswell, such as what optimizations are enabled when compiling these release builds. btw, what compiler are they using for these releases, gcc or vc?
given the small team of developers, I’m impressed at how well it’s progressing.
if for nothing else the sheer volume of available windoze software,especially in the graphics and games dept.Ditto for device drivers,it would be nice to have an open source OS that was compatable with windoze drivers so I could run vitually any piece of hardware I cared to.I would’t care about virus vunerability,because I will continue to run Linux and BeOS for internet stuff,I hope these folks keep up the good work!I haven’t read the full article yet so I don’t know how usable it is in it’s current form but it’s a step in the right direction and I bet this will be finished before Haiku because surely there are more people interested in a free windoze replacement than a BeOS one for the reasons stated above.
Haha, I just got it to blue screen on me – and I mean a real blue screen, just like Windows
“A problem has been detected and ReactOS has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer”.
But did they really need to make it crash like Windows too?
Edited 2006-08-28 15:42
That’s compatibility for you!
That’s pretty funny!
Does it mean you may have one user, no-permissions feature, absolutely insecure OS? Or does it let you change format as you install it?
EXT2 support is planned for the next release. No, the filesystem layout won’t be affected… no /etc for this baby!
Pitty it won’t be EXT3 though, journaling would be sweet.
1) The ReactOS support the brazilian portuguese, spanish or other languages?
2) Can I sucessfuly install in my Acer Aspire 3650 (with wireless and bluetooth)?
Thanks.
“Pitty it won’t be EXT3 though, journaling would be sweet” > ext3 is only ext2 with a journal, so the step to go once you get ext2 implemeented is smaller than going for ext3 right now. IMAO I’m not so enthousiasmed by ext2, as it may be cool for reading and writing to your linux partitions, but I wouldn’t use it for production, as Windows ACL are by far supperior to Unix current access scheme. I’m dreaming of ACL like Windows does under Linux. Maybe simplier though…
“1) The ReactOS support the brazilian portuguese, spanish or other languages?
2) Can I sucessfuly install in my Acer Aspire 3650 (with wireless and bluetooth)?”
This is an alpha OS, not a production one. I don’t think Bluetooth is implemented right now and I don’t think wireless is supported, though network card should be (Wireless require some services to control it while wired card are simple connect and go devices).
For now, what I’m looking for is the possibility to run the OS only in console mode or in reducted more at last. This could be a killer server OS, and optimization could also make it a dream gaming OS, better than Windows itself… once it will support correctly third party device drivers. Te idea to customize completely my Windows version is also verry attractive. If I had more spare time I would definitely help them to make this an MS butt kicking OS!