There are quite a few operating systems which have moved beyond the simple hobby operating system stage, onto a more lasting plane of existence. AROS, ReactOS, SkyOS, Syllable, Haiku; they’re no longer basement products, coded by a single programer – they are now projects in which a lot of people have invested time, and possibly money too. They won’t go away any time soon. The last few days have seen news on three of these systems: ReactOS, SkyOS, and Syllable.Firstly, Syllable. Ruwen Boehm ported the VLC and MPlayer multimedia players to Syllable Desktop (VLC screenshot). The behaviour of both is still a bit rough, but watching DVDs on Syllable is possible now. Some of the needed parts were ported by Rui Caridade, Andrew Kennan, and Kaj de Vos. Newly ported components include FAAD2, FLAC, FontConfig, LibA52, LibCDDB, LibDVDNav, LibDVDRead, LibID3Tag, LibMAD and LibMPEG2. These packages don’t have to be installed separately, as the libraries are included in VLC and MPlayer. Packages for both are available from the Syllable website.
Robert Szeleney, SkyOS’ wunderkind, announced a new IDE for SkyOS, coming in the next SkyOS build. “The IDE features various editors (source, datacollection, layouts, etc.) and allows GUI design using the SkyOS Layout system to design size, resolution and font independent layouts.” A video of the new IDE has been put online. “In later versions the IDE will also supported an integrated debugging and an image editor to design your icons and images right in the project.” Additionally, the first theme using the new theme engine has been released.
Lastly, ReactOS has made some major strides, once again. The DirectX runtime now loads and works on ReactOS, albeit 3D support is not yet functional. The installer doesn’t work either, so you’ll need to copy the relevant files over manually (dxg.sys, dxgthk.sys, dxapi.sys, ddraw.dll, and dciman32.dll). In addition, there have been performance fixes, a new calculator program, as well as a temporary measure for keyboard switching.
I think I can safely say that no one that I know from outside this forum would know anything about any of them.
sbergman wrote:
–“I think I can safely say that no one that I know from outside this forum would know anything about any of them.”
while I don’t doubt that for a second, there was no mention of these operating systems being even remotely mainstream, nor did it seem implied. it simply stated that these were no “no longer basement products, coded by a single programmer”.
I’m a huge fan of Haiku (and Beos), that doesn’t mean I believe it will conquer the desktop. hopefully it will do well in attracting users beyond the Beos base, but the competition is fierce for those few people prepared and/or able to leave the windows platform.
this is why I think Reactos is the alternate operating system with the greatest chance of attracting a substantial userbase. being a windows clone means access to drivers and most importantly windows’s biggest asset, it’s unequaled software library.
the only negative thing I find with Reactos is that if successful it will help reinforcing window’s hold over the operating system market. not that I think windows is bad (I don’t, although there are other operating systems I think are better), but rather that the whole desktop operating system market would do better with more competition.
That’s why Microsoft has to be careful when they say Windows 7 won’t be binary compatible with previous Win32 applications. Yes, they said there will be compatibilty modes using virtualization, but if they don’t get a good amount of software running properly, people COULD, especially corporations that rely on said odd program, turn to ReactOS.
Yes, they will be doing Wine and Reactos a favor, for sure. If Microsoft just continued evolving WinAPI into full x64, those two projects, with zero support for processors other than i386, would be good as dead.
http://wiki.winehq.org/WineOn64bit
I find your lack of faith disturbing.
You can compile wine in a x64 OS, so what. You are using 32bit emulation. Wine project has stated that preliminary work in Win64 won’t start until 1.0 and Reactos that they won’t be considering it until Wine has something.
Wine and Reactos code is, in their own words, full of assumptions about x86. So don’t expect to have anything working as soon as they bother to work on it. The original NT kernel has always been portable.
If Windows keeps the Win64API, you will have in a few years another whole lot of “legacy” apps Wine won’t have any support for. And Reactos will have a harder time reimplementing yet again the GUI and the driver model.
I don’t know where you heard this about reactos, but it’s not true.
Edited 2008-05-09 18:10 UTC
Reply, so you(I see you are a Reactos developer) are actually working on the x64 port?
Don’t get me wrong, I am most interested in ReactOS, but I searched your site for information on x64 and every piece of information I found was pointing to very low priority(“x64 only apps are not ubiquitous yet so we don’t need to support them”) and “as WinNT kernel is portable we should be portable too with little effort”, and maybe something about problems with MINGW.
And I do remember that some developer stated the porting wasn’t trivial because of data structures and datatypes that are hard coded to 32bit values.
Could you clarify what the actual status is?
Edited 2008-05-09 18:39 UTC
While RactOS may not end the Windows Monopoly it will end the MICRO$OFT Monopoly over computer opperating systems using the worlds largest driver and software library (A library which now includes Proprietary Commercial Software and Shareware, Proprietary Freeware and ecen F/OSS software.
This is something computer makers can actually use to end the Microsoft tax on computing, something which even desktop Linux has failed to do.
While I really would like Linux to win I know it will never happen as long as hardware manufacturers will not build linux drivers for their products.
Right now even though ReactOS is mainly aimed at running current Proprietary products its own GPL/LGPL
status (Wine which is the basis of its GUI libraries is LGPL) may bring more people in the F/OSS movement.
I know people assume they use WINE code, but that isn’t really true. They use WINE as a reference point, but all the code in ReactOS is meant to be original. If their code resembles WINE or is an exact copy anywhere then it will really surprise the lead developers. They share an allegiance with the WINE developers in spirit and goal, just not necessarily in code.
…and? I see a premise, but no conclusion.
There is an implicit one. The issue here is the lack of a clear definition of what makes something a ‘basement project’. The OP is making the point that he doesn’t believe enough people are aware of these OSs to move them out of the realm of basement projects.
On that last point, at least, we agree. Thom’s writeup equated “basement projects” with single-developer projects. Yet none of the examples have been “one-man shows” for at least a half-decade now.
I’m not convinced that that point has much significance. In 1998, the exact same comment could have been made about Linux. Or c. 1988, it could have been said about Windows.
A common fallacy. Allow me to illustrate:
———
¨¨¨
The OP is making the point that he doesn’t believe it is likely that you are going to win the state lottery.
¨¨¨
I’m not convinced that that point has much significance. Last month, the exact same comment could have been made about the last winner of the state lottery.
———
See? Demonstrating that one OS out of many made it out of the basement is a far cry from proving that it is likely that any other particular OS will do the same. And yet people present those kinds of “arguments” over and over.
Not to disparage the hard work of the devs of these projects; Being known by readers of sites like OSNews is no insignificant feat. But they are *far* from hitting the big time. Most technical people have never heard of even BeOS, let alone a BeOS clone.
Edited 2008-05-10 03:10 UTC
So your contention is that those statements would *not* have been valid?
Where do you think I’ve claimed otherwise?
Do you know anyone that reads John Dvorak? I know he has his detractors, but he just lead off his Inside Track column this month in PC Magazine talking about ReactOS.
He said that everything since Windows NT has been Windows NT. Microsoft is standing still in terms of new development, so they present a good target to be picked off by ReactOS. I think he made a very good point.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,2290316,00.asp
Edited 2008-05-09 04:16 UTC
Yes, I really think the time is right for ReactOS to finish off Windows…
Tech on the street:”Will it affect my mortgage?”
While i was all keyed up to try out Syllable and ReactOS the images just sat on my data store and took up space.
I have a real big OS apathy as of late. With so many projects that look really promising i get some kind of ADD and go back to debian instead.
well, haiku was on google summer of code last year and there are several new projects for this year’s gsoc. and even macuser knows
http://www.macuser.com/geekery/the_beos_just_wont_die.php
now it’s time for other projects to get more attention, especially reactos. It could be the best way to move from windows to an open source OS.
I think I can safely say that no one I know outside of tech circles knows anything about Linux, but it still seems to be doing alright.
Personally, I’m glad that some alternative operating systems are still receiving enough interest to carry on with development. I sincerely hope that we will eventually be able to move beyond the current Windows/UNIX duopoly.
I live in a small town on top of a mountain, and quite a few people know about Linux and use it.
But I suppose this is a special case.
Most people have never heard of the Borgward Isabella, NSU Ro80 or a Lanchester. However these were all highly innovative and impressive cars. The Model ‘T’ Ford was cheap and solid but it continued to be sold long after it was totally outdated – a bit like Windows IMHO.
You thoroughly deserve a plus for that observation. And I would be very glad to give you one, but I have already posted a comment in this thread, and therefore, can no longer moderate comments in this story.
OSNews was much more fun when I could intermix commenting and moderating.
I took the liberty of upmoding your post’s parent post on your behalf. Also upmoded you, for pointing out this weird limitation of the moderation system.
My apologies to all those wit-comments authors that I will no be able to vote up after “I hit the Submit comment button”.
BiPolar said…
I also took the liberty of modding those comments up, and given the large amounts of points already seen it appears many others agree with you and the grandparent post. Now if we could only get the OSNews.com team to realize how much this kills conversation…
BiPolar said…
Ditto here as well, I know there will be people who merit a +1 (and quite a number of people who’ve earned themselves a -1) will no longer get the attention they deserve after I post this, but hopefully if enough of us comment in this sub-thread the Editors will start to understand how annoying this policy is…
sakeniwefu said…
ARGHHH!!! The above question that appeared while I was posting is exactly the kind of thing that needs a +1 to bring it to the attention of others only now I cannot do so, since I’ve already commented…
–bornagainpenguin
Edited 2008-05-09 19:25 UTC
+1 from me to all of you.
I hear about these all the time when I pop in IRC channels and other forums. Haiku tends to get the most mindshare in my experience.
Your experience may be different but it doesn’t make it true.
Well, if you hear people talking about them in unspecified IRC channels, they’ve hit the mainstream for sure. When are the 390 versions due out?
Gotta love the biting sarcasm you find online… *sigh*
Biting? Not really. Chiding? Yeah. Keep in mind that I would not be here if I did not value diversity in operating systems. I’d be participating at linuxtoday.com or lxer.com and not have moved to this site which serves a more diverse crowd.
I doubt that the developers of the referenced OSes care that much about IBM mainframes. And the recognition that they have achieved is notable. 🙂
Edited 2008-05-09 02:48 UTC
too true :]
Has anyone contended that they’ve “hit the mainstream”?
Edited 2008-05-09 03:37 UTC
I’ve personally sworn off Vista after helping friends and family fix problems on it. It is such a let down after XP w/SP2. At least with ReactOS I know what I am getting into. And if I want to change something with how it works then due to its open source nature I have that right.
OT – But in my opinion they should have kept the style of NT 4.0/Win98SE and fine tuned the underlying engine. Ever since 2000 I’ve felt Microsoft was working against their customer base and trying too hard to woo programmers. In my opinion a programmer-oriented OS is just not what the masses at home want.
OT – But in my opinion they should have kept the style of NT 4.0/Win98SE and fine tuned the underlying engine. Ever since 2000 I’ve felt Microsoft was working against their customer base and trying too hard to woo programmers. In my opinion a programmer-oriented OS is just not what the masses at home want.
We live in a world driven by economy an easy to program OS brings economic benefits to the customer, that’s exactly what the masses at home want.
Don’t get me wrong on a romantised level I agree with you but the realities of life are much different.
If I’m correct you miss the DOS base of modern Windows implementations and ReactOS. Well that shouldn’t be a huge problem. I think the solution lies in something called FreeDOS/ReactOS or the like.
Now there are a few issues that must be solved and I’m currently trying to figure out, the most efficient solutions on my workbench in my basement 🙂
However I expect there are some bright people out there, that come up with better solutions than mine.
Anyway it shouldn’t be too hard to merge FreeDOS and ReactOS to a single distribution.
> If I’m correct you miss the DOS base of modern Windows
> implementations and ReactOS.
So do I, but maybe you could explain your point a bit. What exactly is the “DOS base” in Windows NT and its descendants? Even more so, what exactly is the “DOS base” in ReactOS?
> Anyway it shouldn’t be too hard to merge FreeDOS and ReactOS to a
> single distribution.
You certainly realize that FreeDOS is a DOS re-implementation, and that ReactOS is an NT and Windows re-implementation. How would they work together? (Short of running them alongside through virtualization, that is)
> Ever since 2000 I’ve felt Microsoft was working against their customer
> base and trying too hard to woo programmers. In my opinion a
> programmer-oriented OS is just not what the masses at home want.
Funny, because I thought the opposite on both points. I got the impression that MS did not actually serve the programmer by keeping the old Win32 API alive too long, except for making old programs still work without too much effort.
Also, making life easier for programmers seems an easy way to ensure high-quality applications to be created for that platform, and thus serve the end user (although he/she certainly isn’t interested in those details).
I can say, as a test engineer, that making life easier for programmers is *not* going to ensure that a “high-quality” application will be created…
> I can say, as a test engineer, that making life easier for programmers is
> *not* going to ensure that a “high-quality” application will be created…
Then I’d be interested in your experience, because that’s exactly what I am currently working at: tools to make life easier for programmers. Especially, I’d be interested to hear whether such tools are (by your experience) meaningless, “not enough”, or even counter-productive to high-quality software, and why.
Then I’d be interested in your experience, because that’s exactly what I am currently working at: tools to make life easier for programmers. Especially, I’d be interested to hear whether such tools are (by your experience) meaningless, “not enough”, or even counter-productive to high-quality software, and why.
I’d imagine it’s a double-edged sword: those programmers who have the talents and will to do high-quality job will do that no matter the tools, better tools will just let them achieve the same result faster. And the programmers who don’t care to do such a good job, rather wishing to take as many shortcuts as possible, will be tempted to use even more shortcuts made available to them by such software.
I just have to throw in my opinion: I don’t consider such software meaningless. IMHO it’s up to the programmer to do the job anyway, not the software, so if the end-result is less than can be reasonably expected then blame the programmer.
Call me when there’s nvidia 3d support on these platforms as well as support for my audigy2 platinum. Seriously I love these little projects, but noone is going to run them without support for hardware accelerated 3d. Reactos I can definately see becoming popular in the future as they get windows drivers to load/run hell they already had nvidia drivers loading/working with a patch so once that’s cleaned up it should become an attractive platform. Aros I’d really like to play with but I think they should seriously look at writing a modified form of the UAE Amiga emulator and add a “convergance” mode like parallels did on mac so that you can use old amiga apps right next to current ones seamlessly. That’ll give Aros a massive jump in the number of supported apps, more drivers again would be nice on Aros. Haiku I haven’t looked at much but for a beos clone I would look at the same sort of seamless emulator I was talking about for Aros. all the alternative OSes need standard 3d card support that means nvidia, ati and intel. I think if these projects can capitalise on work done by nouveau and the open ATi drivers they could present a viable competitor to linux on the desktop (oh and if any of them implement a linux binary compat layer to run games in….)
By “noone,” can safely I assume that you mean Peter Noone?
http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/Noone
3d and audigy are important for games but a lot more is important for getting games. linux has 3d and all kinds of hardware support and you don’t see too many new EA games coming for linux….
first you need an OS you can use for browsing the web and other activities where you actually see the OS
uh, by no one I take it you mean “gamers”, 3d graphics designers, or people who’s profession require the use of 3D acceleration? Most people I know almost NEVER need it on their computers. They all play games on consoles. I’ve never “needed” 3D on my computers.
/me happily uses BeOS with software 3D, NEXTSTEP with software 3D
I think Haiku dont really need 3d at all for R1 (allthough i am thankful for Rudolphs effort as my card i supported now with accelerated 3d). its just not sensible to prioritize it as there are more urgent things to be worked on. As for audigy, there are some cards that apperantly works. And Quemu is available for emulating windows, UAE works fine in Haiku and most BeOS apps works without emulator. Also i would like to point out this COMMON flaw that i see in boards often. products like VMWare and paralells are VIRTUALIZATION products NOT emulators! And no, such products does not exist for Haiku… atleast not yet.
They won’t? This is a complete surprise to me at this point in time, as I’m sure it’s just as surprising to the Haiku team.
You’re confusing “What I need” with “What everybody needs”, which is a common mistake. You don’t need 3D accelerated video to browse the web, listen to music or watch movies. In fact given the broad range of tasks that people use their computers for, 3D support is only relevant to a very small subset.
That’s not to say that Syllable or any other OS wont get hardware accelerated 3D support at some point. Dee Sharpe has been working on the code for Syllable for some time.
Don’t hold your breath – they won’t.
Most people seems to forget that most of the computers out there are -not- used as home entertainment/gaming computers.
ReactOS needs to run everyday office applications and do so out of the box. Don’t forget that there are millions of desktops out there that are still being used as Windows NT3.5.1/4/2K machines (and for obvious reasons rather -not- switch to Vista) – and if ReactOS can capture a small percentage of this crowed, it has a fighting chance.
– Gilboa
I personally believe that except for Windows, Linux and OS X, everything else will have a very hard time becoming mainstream.That includes, IMO, pretty mature projects like OpenSolaris or PC-BSD. In order for an OS to be a viable alternative, especially on the desktop, it needs drivers for almost every piece of hardware (Apple only supports its own, we know it, although many drivers are being written for hackintoshes) and a native version of every mainstream piece of software.
I know what some people could say: Linux, for instance, doesn’t have MS Office. But it has very viable alternatives.
Why, with the proliferation of “desktop” or “consumer-oriented” OSes is there noone trying out something different than the desktop metaphor GUI model?
Is the desktop metaphor really the be-all end-all of GUI development?
We’ve had essentially the same desktop experience since Mac OS / OS/2 2.x / Windows 95 because everyone just imitates that.
Technical pizzaz and sound/3d-drivers aside, what happened to innovation on the GUI side?
(I’m just saying, I’m not trying to diminish the accomplishments of any of the projects mentioned, hell, I even have a paid for license for SkyOS)
Because the WIMP desktop model is actually a pretty good one, that people seem to understand and work with easily.
Creating innovative graphical user interfaces is a job for the Human/Computer Interaction lab at your local University, not necessarily a job Open Source developers with little time to spend on blue-sky research and development.
yeah, that and most of the “other GUIs” so far, that I’ve seen, have sucked. Hard.
Half the time they seem to complicate stuff more than simplify, and involve MORE clicking/typing/flailing arms about than is really necessary…
How come this is becoming replies on other stuff than what it is about? Congrats to all teams for their work
Syllable team, you are wonderful and hopefully your os becomes something great
ReactOS, you rock
Anyone taking on the “Big cheese” is good with me 
SkyOS: Okay
Innovative, but low-level is more important. If people can’t run your OS then why create apps??
What do you mean “can’t run”? It supports a lot of common hardware so most people should be able to run it. Okay, sata support is limited, and some other important hardware pieces are missing but those do not prevent running skyos.
And an IDE is a rather important tool for an OS. If it is easy to create new small apps for an OS, this can quickly add some interesting applications that are currenlty not top priority.
It is a way to get more involvement from the community.
Imagine there was no visual studio or eclipse…
I love playing around with alternative OS. I am closely following ReactOS and Haiku.