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posted by cmn32480 on Sunday August 28 2016, @03:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the no-more-whining dept.

For those not following this project it is a FOSS reimplementation of the Win32 interface, which supports a great deal of humanity's historical computational effort. The new ReactOS release has reached 0.42 and the filesystems ext, btrfs are apparently RW, though Reiserfs and UFS are readonly mounts, successful systems have been shown running.

A nice gallery of some successfully run high profile applications is here (e.g. SimCity and PhotoshopCS2 !!), although interesting, not why I am reporting this.
There are an *enormous* number of scientific instruments (not just microscopes, but various scanners, PCR decks , robots) which originally came with a Win32 driver disk, and have since gone out of business or stopped support. There might only be a single run instance on a crusty old i386 (yes, I've seen that!!).

This is an ambitious project and of course depends on the effective WINE project. It deserves some specific credit and visibility, for providing a possible threshold in the future that sufficient OLD applications can be run independent of the new Microsoft "One OS to rule them All", that it may be possible to construct hybrid machines running Linux, and sufficient driver support from ReactOS to manage the old device drivers that WINE may find difficult to reverse engineer.

But in general, more OS choice's are a good thing!


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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by SomeGuy on Sunday August 28 2016, @04:29PM

    by SomeGuy (5632) on Sunday August 28 2016, @04:29PM (#394247)

    Anyone trying out ReactOS for the fist time should carefully read about the status of the project and what it is about. There are a lot of misconceptions out there. ReactOS is a serious project and will likely eventually fill certain long term market voids that Microsoft is leaving behind. But one must understand the nature of the project and the state of the product.

    Currently, ReactOS WILL fall down on its face often. It is still a work in progress, and still considered alpha quality. Anyone expecting it to magically install and work perfectly on goofy lobotomized "modern" hardware will be disappointed. Even Microsoft Windows falls down on its face sometimes (seemingly more often these days). Try out Microsoft Windows NT 3.1 sometime as a reminder of how easy people have it these days.

    Applications WILL often fail. Applications can even break under Microsoft Windows when Microsoft pushes out small updates - but when that happens people can point at the vendors rather than Microsoft. The ReactOS compatiblity isn't perfect, and never can be simply by virtue that it is NOT windows. Again, it is alpha quality, but if an application works under Wine with no workaround, then it stands a good chance of working under ReactOS.

    Development is slow - it is actually impressive that they have come this far with only a hand full of developers. If you don't like the speed at which things are moving, then feel free to donate money or resources to help speed things along.

    ReactOS can't just include Windows components. Most Microsoft runtime DLLs, resources, and updates are only licensed for use under Genuine Microsoft Windows. Some people perceive that Wine under Linux sort of gets a free pass on this, as many workaround involve installing Microsoft DLLs. But neither Wine nor ReactOS will ever be licensed to bundle Microsoft's work. Of course, you are free to mix and match things however you want on your own personal computer.

    Yes, ReactOS is "legal". This can not be emphasized enough. ReactOS contains no proprietary Microsoft code, and clean-room re-implements APIs.

    Given how Microsoft is going downhill these days, having another Windows-compatible OS is becoming an increasingly good idea.

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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by eravnrekaree on Sunday August 28 2016, @04:44PM

    by eravnrekaree (555) on Sunday August 28 2016, @04:44PM (#394252)

    The problem I have with ReactOS is actually wastes developer time and resources on implementing kernel functionality we already have with Unix open source kernels, instead of focusing on a windows comparability layer on top of existing Unix kernels. IF the goal is to get Windows apps to run without Windows, this does not bring us most expeditiously closer to that goal in the most time efficient way possible. Its useless wheel reinventing, writing code that absolutely does not need to be written for win32 compatibility. Think, if these people were to spend their time writing Win32 compatibility code for WINE instead of writing their own kernel, we would be further along in getting Windows apps to run without Windows. The real goal here is to get windows apps to run without Windows. I would also argue most people who want to run Windows apps without Windows want to run Windows apps on top a Unix OS along with Unix apps, and do not want to have to run a seperate OS just for Windows apps.

    If you want us to get closer to being able to run all Windows apps without Windows. please, cancel ReactOS and focus your code writing efforts on making WINE work better for Unix OSs like Linux, BSDs and OS X.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 28 2016, @04:57PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 28 2016, @04:57PM (#394255)

      1 word: drivers

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by SomeGuy on Sunday August 28 2016, @06:03PM

      by SomeGuy (5632) on Sunday August 28 2016, @06:03PM (#394277)

      One of the goals of ReactOS is not just to provide application compatiblity but also *hardware* compatibly. There is quite a bit of Windows-only hardware out there where the only way to operate it (or operate it fully) is through a proprietary closed source binary driver. Now, if you can stomp your feet enough to get all of these vendors to release source code, then by all means please do.

      There is also the seperate issue that some people just don't want a Unix based OS. There are many archaisms in Linux/Unix, and while Windows has its own archaisms, many people would, to put it bluntly, prefer not to run an OS that feels like it should be running on a DEC PDP-11.

      Tthe people with the above needs/wants deserve to have a choice, and therefor it is not a "waste".

      • (Score: 2) by eravnrekaree on Sunday August 28 2016, @10:25PM

        by eravnrekaree (555) on Sunday August 28 2016, @10:25PM (#394336)

        You could do a hardware driver compatability layer on Linux. In fact, that would be a great idea to get more people to use Linux, would be for windows drivers to work on it.

        • (Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Sunday August 28 2016, @11:31PM

          by SomeGuy (5632) on Sunday August 28 2016, @11:31PM (#394353)

          You obviously have zero idea what that would involve. Perhaps YOU should try getting past the Linux politics and implementing it if you think it is so simple.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @09:31AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @09:31AM (#394561)

          FWIW NDISwrapper exists.

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by Arik on Sunday August 28 2016, @06:26PM

      by Arik (4543) on Sunday August 28 2016, @06:26PM (#394284) Journal
      First off there's very little wheel reinvention going on because the two projects communicate and contribute to each other. So that's a red herring. Second running windows apps on top of unix is not always the best way or even possible. This allows not just software but *hardware* compatibility, and driver compatibility.
      --
      If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
      • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday August 29 2016, @05:25PM

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Monday August 29 2016, @05:25PM (#394828)

        I completely disagree. Running in an old-fashioned pre-XP Windows environment is not a desirable thing. There's issues of IT support, keeping the system updated, network connectivity and file transfers, etc. And further fragmentation is not a good thing.

        What they should be working on is 1) improving WINE so that it'll run all this crappy proprietary Win32 software these machines run, and 2) developing a device driver translation layer so that the custom device drivers these machines use can be run on Linux. This will give you both software and hardware compatibility, but allow you to run on any Linux machine you want, and will allow you to continue to update your Linux machine (both the hardware and the software) while still running the same proprietary Win32 application and any custom hardware it interfaces to. The main problem will be when their custom hardware simply isn't capable of being easily connected to a modern PC: an example of that is old ISA expansion cars, which can't be plugged into a modern PCI/PCIe motherboard, but even here I do believe there's PCI-to-ISA adapters out there for exactly this reason. For the device drivers, we already have an example of something like this being done: remember when Linux WiFi drivers all ran under NDISwrapper? That was exactly the same situation: people wanted to run WiFi hardware in Linux, but didn't have Linux drivers available, so they made a wrapper allowing them to run Windows drivers. It should be possible to do the same thing here, but in a more generalized way.

        Instead of trying to make a closed-off, all-in-one solution to this problem, we need a building-block approach that allows us to use these blocks in any kind of system we want; these can then be integrated into more complete systems, much like how LinuxCNC can be run on any Linux system you want without too much trouble (install the software and build a kernel with the realtime extensions), but the LinuxCNC developers provide a Debian-based all-in-one system if you want to use theirs.

        • (Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Monday August 29 2016, @08:16PM

          by SomeGuy (5632) on Monday August 29 2016, @08:16PM (#394911)

          Running in an old-fashioned pre-XP Windows environment is not a desirable thing. There's issues of IT support, keeping the system updated, network connectivity and file transfers, etc.

          Well, then the good news is that in theory if ReactOS gets enough traction you won't have any of those problems. When that happens, you will be running an up-to-date operating system that can handle all of that and maintain compatiblity with Windows based hardware and software.

          What they should be working on is

          I'm so glad that you and the other poster seem to know what everyone should specifically be doing. Someone should make you the manager of Earth. :P

          The whole NDISWrapper thing was sort of a fluke really. NDIS is an oddly standard driver interface that originated with 3COM, and was then used across DOS, Windows, and Windows NT. So it has some cross platform-ness already baked in to it. This is not the case with most other driver classes.

          • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday August 29 2016, @10:20PM

            by Grishnakh (2831) on Monday August 29 2016, @10:20PM (#394955)

            You don't need the driver to be cross-platform, you just have to figure out the driver API and write a translation layer for that. If you're making a Windows clone, then you're already doing that basically.

            And no, ReactOS isn't going to "get enough traction" with its tiny little team and little interest. There isn't enough money or interest from people who want to keep clunky old Windows-based manufacturing and scientific equipment running to fund that; if there were, the team wouldn't be complaining about funding and resources like they are. Companies in that position will happily use a free solution if it exists, but if it means shelling out a bunch of money as a contribution, they'll sooner just junk the equipment and buy a new one. You're not going to get a lot of people wanting to work for free on this project, because honestly, who the fuck wants to spend their spare time making a clone of Windows 2000?

            If you think it's such a great project, then you can spend your time working on it. I'm just pointing out how with their limited resources, they could have a much more positive effect by creating some smaller building blocks rather than trying to clone an entire OS that no one is really gung-ho about using unless they're forced to.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Ramze on Sunday August 28 2016, @07:06PM

      by Ramze (6029) on Sunday August 28 2016, @07:06PM (#394293)

      Ah, see the problem is you don't understand the goal. The goal isn't to run Win32 apps without windows. It's to completely replace Windows -- especially for hardware that only has windows proprietary drivers. Lots of organisations have ancient Windows machines chugging along to support not just some app, but some printer, scanner, document imager, medical imager/device. Usually these devices cost tens of thousands of dollars or more and only came with drivers for very old Windows machines. I've seen Clerk of Court offices running Windows 95 back when 2000 was old hat and XP was on SP3. I've seen map and blueprint printers that needed Windows XP (no bloody SP1, SP2, or SP3) in the Windows 7 days. (I've even seen a printer with XP embedded version on it and the printer was inextricably tied to the same hardware as the OS)

      Sometimes you can run these environments in a virtual machine or on a linux PC with a wrapper for the driver, but often not.

      The point is to install ReactOS anywhere you need Windows, then run any random windows installer with 100% compatibility... and use any random USB cable for your usual windows USB plug'n'play with the Windows drivers.

      With your attitude, one could just as easily say it's best to scrap all this Linux on the Desktop crap, invest everything in ReactOS as "everyone" really just wants to run Windows apps in a Windows-like environment anyway for their desktops. Leave Linux for corporate servers, stop re-inventing the wheel when 90% of the planet really just wants free Windows without the spyware/adware. With Wine, Mono, Vulkan, and ReactOS, we could make it happen.

      But, seriously... none of that coding is a waste. It's all different approaches and different strokes for different folks. Now... Gnu/Hurd, BeOS/Haiku/PearPC, and a few others might be of questionable use-cases... but ReactOS is a worthy endeavor.

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 28 2016, @09:17PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 28 2016, @09:17PM (#394326)

        There is also software that requires kernel level access that an emulation layer like WINE can't provide easily and safely at least. Drivers are not just there for hardware, drivers are a standalone executable type (.sys) in Win32 that can be used for any system level task.

      • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 28 2016, @09:19PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 28 2016, @09:19PM (#394327)

        My employer is looking to use ReactOS to replace some boxes running Windows XP. Sure, replacing the computers is easy, but the multi-million dollar machines they are attached to are a little more difficult. We specifically have multiple old BIOS computers in storage to keep them running. We've tried WINE, but it craps out due to the DRM of the system not being supported because it uses a driver to talk directly to the hardware that Linux + WINE hates. With ReactOS, we can get a lot farther in the process with the hardware, but there is some software problem, but given that is a software problem, there is a chance WINE would have toe same one, even without hating the driver.

    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @05:41AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @05:41AM (#394485)

      The most important bit about ReactOS is that it runs real Windows drivers. Having the hardware support that Windows does is massively important.
      Really, this is an issue that only ReactOS is in a good position to solve -- not just with current hardware with awful not-Windows drivers, but older custom hardware with no drivers for any other system.
      The other thing is that it pretty much works like Windows -- administration and the lot are just like on a Windows machine. The target audience for ReactOS isn't Linux users, but Windows users who have issues with the way Windows is progressing.

      There's also architectural differences that cause major issues with WINE (one that's affected me a bunch over the years is how awful DirectDraw performance is in Wine -- although, Windows 8's DirectDraw performance is also really bad, I think WINE is actually doing better than Windows with it at the moment, even if Win7 and down can soundly beat the pants off of it).
      Still, if you really want to run Windows programs right now without Windows, WINE is still your best bet.