Submitted by Nearly ten years ago the ReactOS Project released version 0.3.0. Today we are proud to announce the formal release of version 0.4.0. A great deal of work has gone into making this release happen and as we look back it is remarkable to consider how far the project has come since that release a decade ago. This release is both a celebration of and a testament to everything that the ReactOS team and community has achieved together. Thank you to all of you for having stood by the project for this long and we hope rewarding journey. For those of you chomping at the bit to check out the release, go to the download page to get it now.
This is a huge release, and highlighting just a few new features – such as wireless networking, USB support, sound support, etc., etc., – would be a disservice to all the other stuff they worked on.
The fundraising script won’t let me get to the download file. Anybody have a direct link to the install CD?
Yeah, same thing here. Trying wget results in a 404. I was looking for the vbox version. I guess I’ll just move on…
Edited 2016-02-17 01:59 UTC
http://sourceforge.net/projects/reactos/files/ReactOS/0.4.0/ReactOS…
It has a “No thanks”… link, just like many projects’ websites. Or is it not shown for some reason?
Shouldn’t this project have taken off when the Amiga source code was leaked? I don’t know much about reverse engineering an OS, but to an outsider it seems like half the work magically fell in their laps.
ReactOS is a Windows clone…
Boomshiki,
ReactOS is related to Windows, not AmigaOS and that source code leak would not have been of help anyhow.
Anyhow, as an OS recreation project, the ReactOS team has gone through great length to prevent any Windows source code from reaching its code base. I remember a situation a number of years ago in which some developers had access to Windows source code and this led to a thorough audit of the ReactOS code to ensure that no code originating from Microsoft had accidently been incorporated into it.
Looks like it’s getting better since I tried it several years ago. I wish development would go faster, but it’s still impressive for such a small team. This may be too optimistic, but anyone know if it can run visual studio & virtualbox?
VirtualBox runs on Linux. There’s no need for it to run under ReactOS.
tidux,
You are being too presumptuous about the needs of others. It’s up to me how to best make use of VMs. For example it’s been invaluable to me in providing a proper linux environment on a proprietary windows virtual private network that I had no routing control over. Luckily virtualbox did exactly what I needed without any fuss and I was even able to use iptables under virtualbox. Not shabby considering that a physical linux box failed to connect to the VPN at all.
Since I do make use of VMs in windows, it would be nice if they could work in reactos too.
Oracle – the owner of VirtualBox – would disagree – https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
VirtualBox runs on Linux, Windows, Mac, and Solaris. So yes, it would be quite a milestone for ReactOS to support running VirtualBox.
Fair play that seems like a very good release from them.
Installation is quick and easy in (Virtualbox anyway)
Easy application installation from the Application Manager
I could see it being a decent option for someone who’s needs are pretty limited – web browsing, email, office etc and who wants a familiar interface.
I’d like to see a bit of a prettier theme as it’s a bit WinME / 2000 at the moment.
Of course a light linux disto could serve such a user just as well, but still, cant help but admire the effort here.
You mean like this one? : https://reactos.org/sites/default/files/ReactosThemedEverywhere.png
The Lautus theme is included by default and you can enable it after installing ReactOS. It’s just not enabled by default.
Just tried a different browser this morning and they’ve apparently removed the virtualbox download. They must have been having problems with it.
Does ReactOS actually run any Windows software besides Notepad? — or is it still more or less proof-of-concept, pre-alpha, alpha software?
It runs unreal tournament (the original from 1999) quite well.
It runs lots of applications more or less fluently. You can get an idea of what kinds of applications you can run by looking at the screenshots section. https://reactos.org/gallery
It is there:
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/reactos/ReactOS-0.4.0-REL-vbox.zip
The VirtualBox download option is available. Please check again.
At the painfully slow release rate of React OS, version 1.0 of this XP clone should be available in only 60 years.
It is already considerably more advanced than XP. It is essentially a Server 2003 kernel with 8.1 userland that runs on a Pentium.
It takes less than 10 seconds from boot a full desktop running under Virtualbox.
except that it doesn’t run, apart from in Virtualbox. I can’t get it to function on any real hardware. It bluescreens immediately on all machines I triend.
It doesn’t have drivers for a lot of modern hardware. Virtualbox is far better option unless you only have a PII.
Edited 2016-02-19 05:08 UTC
I have tried it i.a. on a very dated (meaning about ten years old) standard PC. It still bluescreens, also tried on two oldish thinkpads, also no luck. Running ReactOS in Virtualbox makes little sense to me. I have wine on Linux, which is far more useful and stable.
The whole point of ReactOS is that it is supposed to run on real hardware, because in theory you can use all the windows drivers for special hardware. Else it is kind of pointless.
It is 20 years now since the first predecessor to reactos started, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReactOS#Early_development Two decades should be enough to make a system at least boot on real hardware without bluescreening.
It doesn’t take much to make ReactOS barf in VirtualBox, too. For my part, all I did was just install and run Firefox.
Edited 2016-02-21 11:09 UTC
To me it makes sense. There are many legacy custom apps out there. With ReactOS you can make a tiny app container and deploy without worrying about Windows licenses and different Linux distros/Wine versions’ configuration.
Interesting.
This could provide an alternative to those wishing to remain within a Windows 7-like environment after 2020 on a 6th generation CPUs (or later). Given the small size of the project team, a focus on running it as a virtual machine rather than on bare metal has a higher probability of success.
I am looking forward to a pre-packaged solution consisting of a light-weight Linux distribution, a pre-configured Virtualbox environment, and ReactOS.
… probably.
But, who cares?
1. ReactOS is an incredibly nice piece of reverse engineering. Creating a new OS from scratch, with no internal documentation and making it binary compatible (including at hardware drivers) is no trivial at all.
2. Also considering the size of this team that works in their spare time compared with the army that develops Windows every single day; ReactOS team did a very admirable stuff.
3. For the people inside ReactOS dev team, the things they are done must be completely rewarding personally.
4. For the common people, the ones that use their computer to use Office, browse the web and listen to music… It is already there, ready to be used!
Does it run at all on real hardware? And is it possible to use it for everyday use? I’m just curious as this looks like a major step forward. From what I can tell it looks quote close to the state Haiku is in, which I really didn’t expect.
I ran it on real hardware back when the current version was 0.3.2, so I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be further along today. Granted, not all drivers were there, but it booted, took me to a Windows like environment and I was able to install and use Firefox and a few other Windows software.
Edited 2016-02-18 13:44 UTC
Not as far as I am concerned. I tried on various real hardware, including a legacy PC and a thinkpad T420. It all bluescreened immediately. I remember testing 0.0.1 many years back on real hardware. It ran, although it only had command line, no graphic interface.
But it doesn’t take much to make ReactOS bluescreen on even on virtual hardware. As far as I am concerned, running firefox was enough. I am very concerned that in terms of stability, reactos isn’t getting any better, and not only on real hardware.
Edited 2016-02-18 18:09 UTC
For goodness’ sake, listen to yourself.
ReactOS is in ALPHA.
Therefore do not expect it to work at all.
Get a daily build and see if it works on a stable known hardware platform. Then it may work. It may.
If the daily build works on virtualbox, then good. If Firefox or some other software crashes, then raise a bug, the bugs are being fixed and they are working on the fundamentals. As they come into place then things start to work often without specific bugs being applied. The memory manager is being rewritten, driver support, APIs, the undocumented mess that is Windows is being documented and researched and then written from scratch.
When ReactOS enters beta you can raise your expectations, until then keep your inane observations to yourself.
Honestly you lot, you are mean to be OS people – engage Brain – THINK – then spout your stuff.
I didn’t ask if it is good enough for ditching Windows, but if it’s good (as in stable) enough for everyday use (surfing the web, looking at pictures, writing e-mail etc). Alpha may be very unstable, but it doesn’t have to be as it just indicate that it’s unfinished. AROS is pretty stable while being partly still in the alpha stage.
Maybe you shouldn’t assume the stupidest when reading other peoples questions.
You can’t just redefine a common development term like “alpha” to suit your argument, and pretend it’s reason. Alpha means anything between paper planning, and not yet feature complete with known bugs. (Even beta does’t mean feature complete any more.)
I can confirm that ReactOS is alpha quality. I just tried to install it on a spare old thinkpad and it destroyed the entire partition table.
Well, I wouldn’t complain hadn’t it been for the Indiegogo campaign “ReactOS Community edition” to which I donated and which invoked at least on me the impression, that the OS becoming usable was within reach. Compared to how they portrayed reactos back then the picture is not very incouraging. And 20 years is a long time for being still in alpha.
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