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ReactOS 0.4.10 Released For The Newest "Open-Source Windows" Experience

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  • ReactOS 0.4.10 Released For The Newest "Open-Source Windows" Experience

    Phoronix: ReactOS 0.4.10 Released For The Newest "Open-Source Windows" Experience

    ReactOS, the open-source operating system striving for binary compatibility with Windows software -- including drivers -- for Windows Server 2003 and newer, is out with its latest quarterly feature release...

    Phoronix, Linux Hardware Reviews, Linux hardware benchmarks, Linux server benchmarks, Linux benchmarking, Desktop Linux, Linux performance, Open Source graphics, Linux How To, Ubuntu benchmarks, Ubuntu hardware, Phoronix Test Suite

  • #2
    Originally posted by phoronix View Post
    for Windows Server 2003 and newer
    According to their official GitHub repository:
    ReactOS™ is an Open Source effort to develop a quality operating system that is compatible with applications and drivers written for the Microsoft® Windows™ NT family of operating systems (NT4, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, Seven).

    The ReactOS project, although currently focused on Windows Server 2003 compatibility, is always keeping an eye toward compatibility with Windows Vista and future Windows NT releases.

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    • #3
      This is actually looking more and more enticing. I am not liking the direction of Linux becoming too dependent on online services and ReactOS is starting to look quite nice. Almost the sweet spot between Windows XP and "Windows Longhorn" where it was starting to look sleek and still snappy

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      • #4
        That's awesome. I like the new look; brings it up to WinXP instead of 95.

        Once stable, ReactOS would be perfect for running stubborn Windows applications in a VM on Linux. Currently, a couple of my users need a Win7 VM in order to use iTunes for their iPod/iPhone. This would be a good, open-source, and overall much more lightweight VM environment for situations like that.

        (And yes, I know iTunes runs quite well in wine, but there is no USB device support yet, which is the main reason they need iTunes at all)

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        • #5
          I hope it also has XP's support for switching back to the Win9x look. It could be useful as a freely licensed option for approximating the experience of a Win9x install with a predefined set of applications on hardware that has no Win9x drivers.

          (The next-closest freely licensed alternative being to slap together something Linux based which boots into a window manager or compositor which full-screens a Wine virtual desktop window.)

          ...which reminds me. I need to get back to that project to experiment with using Win9x's support for using Program Manager as a shell to build something that approximates Windows 3.11 for Workgroups on hardware that it has no drivers for.

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          • #6
            ReactOS; I love you, but I'm afraid it just can't work out between us, in the time it's taken me to become an adult, you're still a toddler, and haven't even learned to crawl yet!

            And I'm sorry but I'm not the kind of sicko who would want to be in a relationship with a toddler.

            So this is goodbye ReactOS :'( I hope one day you'll grow up into a fine young (positively ancient...) OS.

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            • #7
              Originally posted by ssokolow View Post
              ...which reminds me. I need to get back to that project to experiment with using Win9x's support for using Program Manager as a shell to build something that approximates Windows 3.11 for Workgroups on hardware that it has no drivers for.
              Wait, you can do that??

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              • #8
                Originally posted by PluMGMK View Post
                Wait, you can do that??
                Yeah. Windows allows you to change the program that's launched as the desktop shell (which is how things like LiteStep and others work) and, up through Windows XP SP1, they included a copy of Program Manager for companies that didn't want to be rushed into employee retraining.

                If I remember correctly, Windows 9x uses the same "Edit the shell= line in windows.ini" mechanism as Windows 3.1x.

                Wikipedia's Program Manager article explains how to do it in NT-family Windows versions:

                It could be used as the default shell by specifying the Shell value in the registry at either HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon (per machine) or HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon (per user).
                Last edited by ssokolow; 06 November 2018, 08:33 PM.

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                • #9
                  Thanks for the tip! I've been looking for reasons to mess with my Win98 VM…

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                  • #10
                    Been waiting for this release for a while. BTRFS support is awesome! Finally a real filesystem! ReactOS already runs 3D Studio Max and Caligari Truespace so it's perfectly capable for my 3d art needs.

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