ReactOS is an Open Source effort to develop a quality operating system that is compatible with Windows NT applications and drivers. The latest release of ReactOS is 0.0.21, released on the 31st of October 2002. To see a general overview of the status of ReactOS view the status page.
New Release for ReactOS
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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I was checking their page earlier today (or was it yesterday?) for developments, this is a neat project and I was afraid it had died. Glad to see it hasn’t died, looks like they just might stick with it.
But we’ll see..
There seems to be a typo. The link is: http://www.reactos.com/index.php?tab=home§ion=status
I’m not trolling here, either:
these guys have been working on it since ’95, meaning it’s like 8 years now.
1) still no GUI support
2) only some console apps working
2.5) incomplete registry support — can’t load drivers
3) and they’re doing this parallel with, instead of contributing directly to, WINE because…?
(yes, I realize it’s an OS, not an emu layer. And I would want an entire OS that’s a clone of WNT/VMS because….??)
hey there are at least trying, must be hard to get support for projets these days, as theres only so many developers who actuzally contribute anything worth while t o go around among all these project,s an we know how short most open source coders attention spans can be, (i.e until the next cool thing comes along).
You might not want to run NT, but what about the companies and people who like NT but dont want to be forced into microsofts upgrade cycle.
>>And I would want an entire OS that’s a clone of WNT/VMS because….??<<
…because it’s free. Because it’s open source, because it can use existing drivers (when they get it working), et cetera, so on, and so forth.
My answer is that anyone running just stock applications or proprietary software apps, will likely prefer Linux/BSD + Wine: a stable, well-tested base OS, with Windows emulation that goes past NT and is getting better every day — has contributors with commercial interests who have been good about folding in their contributions (Codeweavers, Transgaming), and is just very successful as a project overall. Does GUI, and even does apps with evil hidden API calls a la Office.
For those people really needing every last bit of NT: they’re usually running vendor-modified copies of NT with shoddy proprietary software to run instrument and or other external machinery: we have many spectrophotometers and other external devices here controlled through proprietary PCI cards in vendor-supplied PCs with shoddy drivers on top of Windows NT 4.
Frankly, usually the drivers barely work as it is — the things limp along due to completely lacking QA. Getting such proprietary hardware expansion cards + the drivers to run on a WNT/VMS clone frankly seems like a *very* long shot due to just how dependent some of these drivers are on arbitrary mis-features of Windows NT (i.e. can’t even upgrade the OS to Win2k or XP: the things *will* break!)
I guess what I’m trying to say, is that if these are the people that the project is trying to help, then the emulation will have to be *very* good, and down to an extremely detailed level. Furthermore, because the base of users that would really require this type of OS instead of Linux/BSD + Wine seems very small, I don’t see how they will actually get their hands on the necessarily highly-proprietary hardware/software combos to even test compatibility with.
On the other hand, I concede that I may have missed uses for such an OS altogether: someone care to suggest other instances where a complete OS clone would be suitable, but Wine on top of a Unix-like OS would not be?
Because whether you like it or not, Linux is still not as easy to use as Windows. In windows there is no need to tinker with files, or have any idea exactly what you are doing. Most everything is wizard driven, or clearly displayed on the display, and it has been nearly consistent since 95. Linux is dynamic, constantly changing, and more of a hacker OS. Therefore, it makes perfect sense for ReactOS, if they make it work and act exactly like windows at a fraction of the memory requirements, and provide some of the benefits open source provides without all the technical know how linux and BSD demand from users in order to use those OSes.
If ReactOS is made right is is fully compatible with WinNT then there would be no need to use Wine, just use the real DirectX from Microsoft. I don’t see why you’d want to use an incomplete DirectX emulator when you can have the real thing?!?!? I really think this project has some potential, if they stay away from using the Windows “emulator” code that exists for Linux and focus on building compatibility for existing Windows technologies (including those from Microsoft).
I don’t see why you’d want to use an incomplete DirectX emulator when you can have the real thing?!?!?
True, but then again, if this is your goal, why not just use Windows? I’m not trying to troll here, but if what you’re doing can be done under and emulator from Linux or BSD just fine, and you don’t want to run the whole of Windows, then use the emulator of VM of some sort. If you want “the real thing” without the worry of incomplete features or “real support” (I use that phrase VERY loosely), then use it where it was built to be in the first place. If you’re running linux and want to boot into another OS to do something that you don’t want to emulate, then why use a work-in-progress? You’ll have to reboot either way, and you may as well use what works.
this is a interesting project.
run by two central figures.
id like to see this one succeed.
give them your support as in yey not a nay.
remember we support leenooks we should also support the others.
otherwise its a contradiction to the open source ideal!
cheers
Robert
The problem with react is that.. they cant use any of microsofts drivers because im sure microsofts eula states that peices of the os can not be used in other projects or other os’s. im sure they could use third party drivers.. but they wont be able to legally install or use direct x unless its reverse engineered like wine.
only Windows 2000 and above. So, presumably, ReactOS will not try to make a DirectX compatability layer, since WinNT was not DirectX compatible.
I think ReactOS cloning the NT series of Windows(not 95/98/ME), not specifically NT4, which would be quite useless. I think they intend to add compatibility and feature from 2000 and XP.
A lot of you also seem to be asking why? Well, couldn’t Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman used proprietary Unix? Why did they have to make GNU and Linux?
From what I understand, support is intended to be NT only — of course, I could have must misread the article and the website info — they don’t have a real FAQ up yet.
DirectX is minor: from what I understand, each vidcard includes its own drivers for 2D as well as 3D (this would be DirectX + OpenGL). In terms of drivers, using M$ ones will indeed be illegal unless you already have a copy of WinNT (in which case… why are you running a clone?), but on the other hand, 3rd party drivers are usually available, and even for drivers included as part of the core, ‘updated’ or OEM versions are usually available on websites of the hardware manufacturers.
On the other hand, I can’t even begin to imagine the licensing nightmares that would ensue if one wanted to include such drivers — not all of them are freely redistributable binaries!
Actually, if my memory serves me well… Windows NT Service Pack 3 and up support DirectX 3.
As for rather this is useless or not… I agree with Brandon Sharitt’s comment “Well, couldn’t Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman used proprietary Unix? Why did they have to make GNU and Linux?”
If the project is only trying to do NT4. That wouldn’t be necessarily a bad thing. For one thing, you’ve got to start somewhere. For another, trying to keep up with the latest with their no doubt limited resources would be tough. Also, a number of programs do run under NT, so it’s not totally useless.
Clarification… I meant, actually, if my memory serves me well… Windows NT 4 Service Pack 3 and up support DirectX 3.
Well, if they manage to fully reverse engineer NT, I don’t mind supporting them. After all, I think NT design is more better (albeit inmature and unfortunately handled by Microsoft) than UNIX. Overall, cut the Win32 crap and it would be nice 😀
Uhmmm, Windows 2000 is market speak. Internally, it is Windows NT 5.0.x. Click Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> System and you should see something like this “5.00.2195” in the System column. 🙂
I want to clarify some things. ReactOS is cloning the NT kernel, the GDI and other low level stuff and that is the only thing they are cloning. They are going to use WINE on top of their code to provide real compatibility with WIN32. And when you are looking for a GUI, just use one of the Shell replacements for Windows like LiteStep.
The goal of ReactOS project is to create an open source OS that is compatible with all nt/win2k drivers (by implementing all kernel apis, ddi, etc) and user programs (by implementing all the win32 apis, bugs and all
.
WINE is NOT used on top of ReactOS code (that would require X11), but some pieces of WINE code are used where they fit the design of win32k.