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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!
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday August 28 2016, @07:19PM
I was really interested in ReactOS back when they were targeting running Wind95 programs after MS had stopped supporting them, but years passed, and they never delivered. Now they aren't even promising.
It's my expectation that the only MSWind programs it will run are the same ones that WINE will run. And in that case why should I use them rather than Linux, even on a virtual machine? (OK, I've been told that they kernel is quite small, so as a virtual machine they take up a lot less room. But they take up more room than WINE does, and I've already got Linux installed.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Informative) by requerdanos on Monday August 29 2016, @12:05AM
If your goal is simply to run a particular application, there's no reason necessarily to use ReactOS over wine assuming that your app runs both places.
If your goal is, as others have pointed out, to use (obscure and/or expensive) hardware that has drivers only for older windows operating systems, then ReactOS is the only one of the two that can do it. Wine doesn't do windows drivers, but ReactOS does by design.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday August 29 2016, @06:24PM
Wine doesn't do windows drivers, but ReactOS does by design.
Yeah, and now you have to take all the other Windows bullshit along with it: the clunky old UI (they're emulating old versions of Windows), the terrible case-insensitive filesystem, the crappy administrative tools, etc. If I wanted to use Windows 2000 forever, I'd just use that.
What they *should* be doing is working on making a device driver interface layer, much like NDISwrapper worked for WiFi on Linux back in the early days of 802.11. Make it so you can run a crappy old Windows device driver on a modern Linux system, probably in userspace, and then allow the application running in WINE to work with that. If you do that, then you don't need to recreate an entire operating system, and you'll allow people to run whatever version of Linux they want, instead of being stuck with an OS that has far too few human resources to keep it up-to-date.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Monday August 29 2016, @07:22PM
Granted, ReactOS' model is to replace Windows by being a free windowslike alternative. I am not interested in that; I don't have any windows-requiring devices that can't cope with various Linux workarounds. I am not the target audience of ReactOS. But I have run across lots of intelligent, talented people that nonetheless have a strong preference for "Windows" and all that comes with it vs. something else, like GNU/Linux (which I, in turn, prefer).
Although for me, and for many of my peers, most machine/server builds start with "what unixlike OS will this one be using?" and leaning heavily towards my favorite Linux distributions, and it sounds like it's about the same for you, I have observed that many people actually prefer Windows, even with its limitations, and don't want any version of Linux at all. From their point of view, running Windows-only hardware and the Windows-based software for it probably seems like it should be running on something that at least looks and works like Windows, which ReactOS does and Linux doesn't. If ReactOS reaches a maturity point where it can be solidly deployed for most use cases, I would think that a solution like that without problematic licensing would be welcome to "the Windows people."
Personally, I'd prefer the magic driver assimilator layer for Linux, but the itch being scratched, the impetus for progress on supporting Windows-centric things, belongs to the Windows people. It may be that only the Windows people want that itch scratched badly enough to put the work into it, and their scratch is probably going to look a lot like Windows. Still, I wish them well with it.
Meantime I'll be over here with no Windows computers at all (all GNU/Linux servers, workstations, and laptops; all Android/Linux tablets and mobile devices).
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday August 30 2016, @04:03PM
When you say that people want something that works like Windows, even with its limitations, are you talking about from a GUI point-of-view, or do you mean stuff like the case-insensitive filesystem, the confusing and arcane control panel and management functions (esp. regedit and gpedit.msc), the horribly limited cmd.exe shell, the awful browser (and which one? IE6?), the need for having a 5GB device driver pack just to print to a printer, etc.? If you just want a Windows-like GUI, that's easy: KDE is already like that in its default form. In fact, it's *more* like Windows than the newest versions of Windows, since there's no crazy Metro live-tile interface anywhere. I would argue that many distros of Linux really satisfy the need for a Windows-like UI better than Windows, with KDE, MATE, Xfce, etc. They're simple, easy-to-use, and reliable, and more sensibly set up than Windows ever was. The familiar WinXP-7 UI is a pretty good UI on the surface, it's when you get to lower details that things really fall apart. And don't forget the horribly broken package management on Windows. If you're arguing that people really want to stick with having to do registry hacks and use the broken management tools that Windows has, that seems suspicious to me; Windows admins might prefer it just because they know it (and even here, it's been changing from version to version), but I really don't buy the idea that casual users care that much. I'm sorry, I just don't see any value in re-creating Windows in its entirety, warts and all. With some effort, it'd be much, much easier to make something that can run Windows software and drivers, built on top of existing Linux/FOSS components, since most of this is already in place. I've converted several non-technical people over to Linux/KDE and it's gone very smoothly; it's really not hard to learn if you already know how to use Windows, and it doesn't have all the gotchas that Windows has.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Tuesday August 30 2016, @06:22PM
Thanks for your reply; let me first say that you're right, that modern GNU/Linux distributions represent a much better path in a myriad of ways.
I know some of this can be hard to believe, but I've seen things like this over and over. I haven't been a "Windows Person" since the late 90s when I started using Linux, but I vaguely remember having some of the issues that many, many of the Windows people that I run across have.
GUI point of view: yes, many people prefer whatever sort of GUI they learned initially and/or recently regardless of its advantages or drawbacks. The windows 95 thru Windows 2000 (and XP in classic mode) is pretty popular, but just about any "windowsy" gui would probably do. Including most unixy ones.
File system idiosyncrasies: yes, whatever they learned about "the file system" initially and/or recently, whether it be case insensetivity or breaking drives into multiple 2GB partitions, or whatever they learned already.
The odd control panel and microsoft management console: Especially this. Many people who learned to find what they need in this difficult-to-navigate, counterintuitive system seem to genuinely value that knowledge and want to be able to depend on its usefulness.
cmd.exe (and even COMMAND.COM): Even here, I have seen lots of people who learned how to do a few basic, productive things in the command shell that they first/most recently learned, and value that knowledge and want consistency in an arena to employ it.
Windows browsers such as IE: Good question. Outside having to nagivate badly-designed intranets and web interfaces that require IE, I don't see a lot of brand loyalty in this area. Lots of people could use IE or firefox or chromium or almost any other similarly-appearing browser and *not even notice* as long as you have to click on a blue "e" to start it up. (I think that's why microsoft edge has a "blue e" icon not far removed from IE's.)
5GB Printer drivers: Again, I think that a lot of the "windows people" have an affinity for that which is to them familiar, and if that's "when you reload windows, be sure to install that printer CD. When the icons for those ten unrelated programs show up on the desktop, that means the printer is working"-- then yeah, there's a class of people who prefer that as known and safe.
Personally, I want what you'd probably describe as a "Windows-like" gui and so use MATE or LXDE on Debian. Problem solved. But "Windows people" seem to roll with Microsoft's periodic changes in UI--I don't think the UI, within reason, is the biggest problem with being what many of the "Windows people" want, as long as a basic UI works in a windows-ish manner. I think that as an interface, for them, KDE would do just fine. In fact, the ReactOS folks offer KDE for Windows in their software install tool.
I think that with casual users, it might go either way; some, in my experience, don't even *notice* if you replace their computer with a linux machine. A few don't care one way or the other as long as they can pretty quickly figure out their key tasks and get to work or play. But most of the people I've worked with in "Windows counseling" involving OS alternatives have a huge, irrational fear of change, even of change for the better, in the area of technology, and whether Windows is good, bad, or in between, they have already made a place for it in their worldview and are not taking applications for additional residents there.
Then there's the sign shop that has a custom vinyl cutter and does not care a wish in the wind for even the computer itself, much less its OS. The machinist with the lathe and laser cutter connected to the computer with a serial cable. The payday loan shop that still uses Okidata ML-320 printers on parallel cables and some strange vertical market loan calculator and management system. For these folks, the computer-hardware-and-os is just a life support system for the (often crappy) software and the hardware that does their actual work. For these folks, having 99% faster CPU, 99% more CPU cores, or a 99% better operating system would make about zero difference to their tasks and workflow; for them, suggesting improvements to the system--to the hardware or to the OS--seems in my experience to generate a puzzled look, furrowed brows, and an abundance of don't-get-why. Things like "What we have works, we know it, why would we change it for no benefit???"
For you, there is probably no value in doing that thing. For a great many, in fact, there is no value in doing that thing. For the people--they exist, and I'll bet there are more of them than there are of us--who prefer Windows do or die, there's probably value in having a GPL drop-in windows replacement. I'm certainly not going to tell them that their work is pointless, because I can see how a functioning system of this nature could appeal to such a person. Heck, just "GPL windows without the microsoft spyware" sells itself to a certain segment.
I am not going to go running ReactOS on anything, nor Windows either, so I am not in their target demographic. But once ReactOS becomes stable, I can sure see installing it for customers as part of otherwise windows-centric solutions that they want.
You've converted people to Linux, I've converted people to Linux, this is a good thing. But you will find that it is by no means 100%--nor even 50%. Lots of people steadfastly remain unconvinced. If the ReactOS folks at least get people out from under Microsoft, if not out from under the Windows ecosystem itself, then I believe they are doing a good thing and I salute them.
Make sense?
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Monday August 29 2016, @07:45PM
What? It's that damn case sensitive Unix file system that needs to die a miserable and horrible death. Who actually organizes their files with upper case first and lower case second? I'll tell you who - absolutely no one ever! That is not how real people do it. And that is not even mentioning problematic annoying ambiguous files that have the same name but with different capitalization. To normal people, they look the same. I bet you start counting from zero too.
Because it doesn't have animated icons with advertising in the start menu, dumb translucent windows, or a depressing dark black theme?
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Monday August 29 2016, @09:58PM
Who actually organizes their files with upper case first and lower case second? I'll tell you who - absolutely no one ever!
The problem with speaking in absolutes is that it takes exactly one contradictory data point to prove you absolutely wrong. I am that data point. It's not that I purposefully organize my files that way, it's that I use a leading capital to mean certain things contextually and I expect capital letters to be sorted above lowercase letters because I understand that the letter-symbols I see actually correspond to numbers, and I expect those numbers to be sorted numerically; it's how I want them to be sorted. If you want to sort them based on the alphabetical characters they correspond to, adding this to the hidden .bash_profile file in your home directory should probably do what you want:
LC_COLLATE=en_US.utf8; export LC_COLLATE
That assumes things about your system which may not be true, but probably are.
And that is not even mentioning problematic annoying ambiguous files that have the same name but with different capitalization. To normal people, they look the same.
To people who pay attention to capitalization, they look quite different.
I bet you start counting from zero too.
I can't tell you how Grishnakh counts, but for me the answer is "it depends on what I'm counting."