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From the WinBeta subforum of reboot.pro:
I'm Pierre Schweitzer, one of the ReactOS developers. This is a free operating system that aims to re-implement Windows, but this time with an open source license.
ReactOS now supports reading files from NTFS volume. This was a long awaited feature people were asking for. And here it is.
You can see what I'm talking about on the three pictures [included in the fine article].
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NTFS Now Supported in ReactOS LiveCD
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(Score: 2, Insightful) by Hairyfeet on Thursday November 06 2014, @03:13PM
As worthless as Win 3.11 FW. For those that do not know this project started out as FreeWin95, that's right, a FOSS version of Windows 95. Now here we are, NINETEEN YEARS LATER and the damned thing still doesn't have the functionality or stability of Windows 2K which has been dead half a decade. Oh don't get me wrong the IDEA was a nice one but its obvious that is all its ever gonna be, an idea, because they are trying to hit an ever moving target with extremely limited resources while being so far behind they would require MSFT settle on a single release for at least a decade just for them to catch up. As we have seen with 7-8-8.1-10 the days of even 1 release every 5 years are truly over with MSFT going back to the kind of quick releases we saw with Win9X. Hell if the rumors are true that MSFT is going to a cheap or even free pricing model one of the biggest selling points for ReactOS, being an attractive upgrade for older hardware, will be lost leaving only "free as in freedom" as its selling point and I'm sorry but time and time again we have seen that if the GNU model of freedom is your ONLY selling point? You are doomed to failure.
Not meaning to rain on their parade, simply facing reality and reality is stick a fork they be done. Hell even the Amiga guys have been able to ship an OS that is actually usable day to day with Haiku, trying the recent releases in a VM (which is already giving it a hell of an advantage since VMs use a very limited amount of well known virtual hardware) I'd say you'd be hard pressed to call it even beta quality, its buggy as hell and really isn't useful for any kind of real tasks. at their current rate they'll be up to being a functional XP knockoff around 2035. Its a damned shame as we really could have used it during the Vista era and being able to use Windows drivers might have solved the ever present Linux driver issues but they were waaaaay behind before, Windows going to a 2 year release cycle means they have no chance in hell of even being 1 release behind, much less ever catching up.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tangomargarine on Thursday November 06 2014, @03:31PM
Well, since even Microsoft is breaking backwards-compatibility with 8, ReactOS may eventually be more compatible with old Windows code than Windows itself is. Assuming the project ever gets to beta, I'd say aim for 7 compatibility and just stop there.
Hell if the rumors are true that MSFT is going to a cheap or even free pricing model
Don't remember if it was you or somebody else who brought this up before...do you have any actual citations for that claim? I did a quick googling and all I could find were articles saying they weren't aware of any substance to the rumor.
leaving only "free as in freedom" as its selling point and I'm sorry but time and time again we have seen that if the GNU model of freedom is your ONLY selling point? You are doomed to failure.
I'm betting a selling point will also be "we don't plan to fuck over the interface you've been using for the last 20 years."
In other news, programming is hard. Programming really complicated things is really hard. But apparently official Microsoft products are the only ones for you.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Hairyfeet on Thursday November 06 2014, @10:57PM
Go look up Mary Jo Foley's articles, she has the inside track at Redmond and the skinny appears to be the new CEO is really sick of all the XP/7 holdouts and figures he has a winner so the talks are that 1.- It'll be free for everybody or 2.- it'l be free for 8/8.1 and $30 for everybody else, ala Apple. It makes good business sense as the consumer side has never been MSFT's bread and butter and with Chromebooks hitting the low end hard this would let 'em get everybody on Windows 10, used to the UI AND kill of most if not all the Windows piracy in the west while still letting them upsell with pro and ultimate so honestly this move really wouldn't be that big a shocker as some make it out to be.
And I'm guessing you haven't used Windows 10 yet have you? its EXACTLY WHAT THE USERS WANTED Windows 8 to be, its Windows 7 with the OPTION of using the Metro UI if you have a convertible or just like the Metro look. So I would argue that if anything its Windows users that have shown the power of voting with their wallets works, they got exactly what they asked for, a faster Windows 7. i have it running right now on a circa 2009 AMD netbook (figuring if it'll run good there it'll run good anywhere) and even though every single driver is in compatibility mode its STILL faster and more responsive...ohh and I even have full hardware acceleration both in and out the browser, try THAT with 5 year old Linux drivers and see how far you get!
Windows 10 frankly is gonna drive any real momentum these guys had (if they had any) right out as its the same UI everybody is used to, only faster, if the rumors are true its gonna be dirt cheap, and as far as compatibility goes? I have yet to find anything that won't run. Oh sure some of it will only run in compatibility mode (which now even works on startup items, sweet!) but even that has been made hassle free, you just install and run it and Windows does the shims automatically without prompting, hell my dad could use this without assistance!
But lets take Win 10 out of the equation, okay? Even if Windows 10 didn't exist that don't change the fact its been NINETEEN YEARS and they STILL haven't shipped something that is actually useful for anything. Like I said even Haiku has an OS that you can install on actual hardware and do actual tasks on, this thing has less functionality and is more buggy than that Silverlight OS in a browser demo that's floating around the web because at least that is able to surf websites and play card games and the like without crashing! Its been nineteen years man, they have gone from Win9X to XP to Windows 7 as a target and STILL can't get something that you can just install and actually use! I'm sorry but at the current rate they won't have code you can actually use day to day until 2025...in today's breakneck OS release cycle? That might as well be centuries.
It was a nice idea but mark my words it'll just limp along for several more years until it ends up another abandoned project in some source repo somewhere, they are just too far behind with too few resources trying to hit an ever faster moving target. Seriously if Win 10 turns out to be a hit how long do you think being compatible with Windows 7 will be usable? There are already programs that won't run on XP and its plug was pulled this year, hell some are already dropping Vista support, by the time they release usable code they might as well have kept it FreeWin95 as 7 will be about as compatible with modern software as Win9X.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 07 2014, @01:43AM
My thoughts regarding Windows 10:
I've been playing with the beta, and to be completely honest I can wrap it up in a single sentence:
Imagine Windows 8 but with a start menu and the ability to run "apps" in actual windows, almost as if an OS called "Windows" could do that.
Done. That's it. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that there is no real improvement from 7. There. Speed improvements introduced in Windows 8? Negligible. Apps? Why the hell would anyone even bother on a desktop? UI? Still a hideous flat mess. At least bring back the classic theme so that my eyes don't have to bleed whenever I decide to slum it for the day instead of booting to Mint. New start menu? Less usable than the Windows 7 one since each element in the list view takes up about 2x as much space.
I should at least post a disclaimer saying that Microsoft will probably at least pretend to listen to user feedback this time around, so the final version will likely offer something.
And to be fair, I should also point out my personal biases here:
1. I personally dislike tabletified flat UIs more than just about anything else. Wasted whitespace just makes me sad.
2. I consider Windows to be a toy OS for games.
3. I didn't try it on a tablet/touchscreen.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday November 07 2014, @04:18PM
kill of most if not all the Windows piracy in the west
Because Unbreakable Security, sure. Let me know how that goes.
its EXACTLY WHAT THE USERS WANTED Windows 8 to be, its Windows 7 with the OPTION of using the Metro UI if you have a convertible or just like the Metro look.
Technically I think the users didn't really want Metro on the desktop at all, but okay; at least that would be an improvement.
i have it running right now on a circa 2009 AMD netbook (figuring if it'll run good there it'll run good anywhere) and even though every single driver is in compatibility mode its STILL faster and more responsive...ohh and I even have full hardware acceleration both in and out the browser, try THAT with 5 year old Linux drivers and see how far you get!
Blah blah blah Linux sucks rah rah Microsoft
and as far as compatibility goes? I have yet to find anything that won't run.
Oh, so they added the ability to run 16-bit executables under 64-bit back in?* Because last I heard, WinNext was going to be 64-only and 8 doesn't support 16 (as in, even have a compatibility mode for it). And before you ask, I do have an example: Civilization II. And yes, I still play it (most of the good games came out 1990-2000 anyway).
Even if Windows 10 didn't exist that don't change the fact its been NINETEEN YEARS and they STILL haven't shipped something that is actually useful for anything.
Yeah, I may like the idea of the project but I don't realistically expect that they'll actually deliver the product. At this point it would be like Duke Nukem Forever or HURD getting published...hmm.**
Like I said even Haiku has an OS that you can install on actual hardware and do actual tasks on, this thing has less functionality and is more buggy than that Silverlight OS in a browser demo that's floating around the web because at least that is able to surf websites and play card games and the like without crashing!
I thought they've had a physical installation disc for awhile now? And it can run Firefox 1.5 at least. How's that for damning with faint praise eh.
It was a nice idea but mark my words it'll just limp along for several more years until it ends up another abandoned project in some source repo somewhere, they are just too far behind with too few resources trying to hit an ever faster moving target.
Well, they've been working on it this long...programmers can be tenacious sometimes. I'm not sure what to predict.
*I'll admit that this is a bit ridiculous use case, but your statement was ridiculous to begin with, so hey. And Microsoft kind of bases their entire OS on the premise.
**Admittedly many years late, of crap-to-middling quality, and irrelevant by then.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Friday November 07 2014, @05:23PM
Uhhh...riddle me this WHY WOULD YOU STEAL SOMETHING THAT IS FREE? Seriously DaFuq? You are just trolling and looking for a reason to argue, good day.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday November 07 2014, @05:39PM
Speaking of DaFuq...what??
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Saturday November 08 2014, @10:19PM
Oh, you're saying if Microsoft makes Windows free, people can't steal it anymore?* Technically true I suppose...like I said, I'll believe "free Windows" when I see it. Maybe Microsoft could make their money off of the platform lock-in via their Office yearly subscriptions (barf) and other software. You'll have to excuse me if I don't anticipate radical about-faces from companies who've been following more or less the same business model for the last 30 years.
---
I was musing on the perspectives of success in the shower this morning...I suspect that many SD/SN FLOSSy-type posters would call "success" in the software world technically impressive products (a clever idea, or implemented in a particularly exciting way). The original hacker mentality (if you read any of that Stallman biography I linked you a little while ago) was all about eager programmers getting their hands on interesting-looking code and then tinkering around with it.
.
In contrast, the measure of "success" for a probably much larger portion of the world is: How well does it sell? If you look at computing history, many of the best-selling products were NOT the best choice technically speaking. x86 was cheaper, so it won. DOS wasn't entangled in lawsuits like BSD (although maybe it should have been), and cheap at the time (cf. commercial Unix), so it won long enough to bootstrap Windows. Hell, Unix itself most people would probably say is better technically speaking than Linux, but Linux was free and available.
.
So the hacker definition of "success" is directly at odds with the ~mainstream one, which is why there's so much frothing at the mouth, I think, in these arguments. And I, at least, get rather annoyed when people like you imply that Windows is the only "right" viewpoint and anyone who disagrees with you is a fool. I'll agree that Windows has its place; I will not, however, agree that it fills all places.
---
*There's the observation that "stealing" software is a bit of a misleading term to begin with, since you're not depriving the original owner of anything, but I don't expect that argument to have any impact on you other than making you angrier.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday November 07 2014, @05:45PM
In my experience, Wine is already more compatible than old Windows code than Windows is -- and that's been true since Windows XP. "Compatibility mode" is a joke. There was once a time (back when I actually used Windows) when I installed Wine on Windows XP to get some Windows 9x software working...
(Score: 2) by CRCulver on Thursday November 06 2014, @05:30PM
(Score: 2, Interesting) by petecox on Friday November 07 2014, @12:29AM
Even if it never reaches stability for every day use, it could be a valuable testing tool. You don't always have the same exact OS configuration handy that the customer does.
On more than one occasion I've been able to track down a bug by running an application in wine. e.g. when work desktops ran XP and a client were deploying Windows 7.
Being able to do UI tests in a lightweight virtualization container as part of an automated build system would be neat.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday November 06 2014, @08:07PM
> the damned thing still doesn't have the functionality or stability of Windows 2K
You mean a closed source product with heaps of unofficial APIs and bugs and strategic incompatibilities made by a mom and pop shop called Microsoft Corp.?
They are David against Goliath, only this time Goliath is in a f*cking tank. I admire them.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 06 2014, @09:30PM
It's the MSFT business model. [google.com]
Want a continuous trail of brokenness?
Just commit your ecosystem to M$'s junk and M$'s business model.
Expecting someone else to perfectly duplicate that ongoing brokenness is folly.
Reimplementing M$ technologies is strictly for LEGACY apps from which folks can't seem to free themselves.
All the really interesting stuff is happening in the land of FOSS anyway.
Everyone with the slightest bit of sense has realized that having a M$ ecosystem with those wide-open backdoors is playing Russian Roulette with all the cylinders loaded.
Cryptome Reveals How MSFT Gives the FBI & NSA Back Doors to Crack Encryption [soylentnews.org]
-- gewg_
(Score: 1) by jmorris on Friday November 07 2014, @12:09AM
Um, you claim to have booted Haiku and you think it is an Amiga OS clone? Guess you never actually saw an Amiga, right? Haiku is a clone of Be OS.
Now onto the subject of ReactOS. Their problem is that they have been at it for a very long time and still have NOTHING to show for it. They can't really point to a single instance of a non-trivial Windows application running on an actual PC hosting ReactOS and say, "This is what you can do with our product!" I don't expect them to have Windows 8 or even 7 full compatibility. But how about Win9x? OR WfW? Something? Some subset that can do something useful for somebody? Anything?
Within a year of Linus making his big announcement people were doing useful work with real machines running it. Most of the credit of course should go to the GNU Project for supplying the userland, MIT for X, etc. but it could do things. And ReactOS has Wine to contribute a lot of code that also actually does things... although Wine also has a lot of gaps in coverage considering how many years of effort it has invested.