ReactOS Has Been Steadily Improving As An Open-Source Windows Implementation

[NateHubbard]

Strangely enough, neither the live nor the install CD will work with any type of video in QEMU. Both versions hang with an "Unable to initialize video" error.

That's probably specific to your setup. I was able to boot it up without any problem. I didn't specify anything, so whatever the video defaults were worked fine.

[Danielsan]

After 23 years, they are still in alpha. I had a career as a software developer and retired in that time. I have a hard time taking them seriously - I prefer products that release in my lifetime.

Then there is all the controversy over copyrights and funding. The main response to these seems to be an angrey response that they are only a hobby project.

Maybe they just need a business degree. I just wish they would 'get their s**t together'

Maybe they just like working on it without any deadline or pressure or needs to have this done... Or maybe they are trying to be supported by M$ as once did RedHat with CentOS before to transform it on CentOS Stream...

[darkoverlordofdata]

I'm impressed. Please tell us more about all of your contributions to open source projects ...

I didn't realize that open source was a pissing contest. Thanks for explaining that.

I've been told by several projects that they don't want me to touch their code base. I'm an old, ex-microsoft developer with slew of nda's. I don't blame them, I don't want to poison their clean room. Not that ReactOS seems to care about that...

Sure, I wish them success. Just saying it's probably not going to happen in my lifetime, I'm older than rms.

[motang]

It is too bad ReactOS is not in the position to take the Windows 7 refugees. Just read an article in the past week how there are so many Windows 7 users that refuse to upgrade to Windows 10. RecatOS could have gotten those said users if they were on par with Windows 7.

[AJSB]

The big rhinoceros in the corner, upon the advent of the leak of Windows XP source code, if ReactOS mysteriously catches-up with MS Windows XP's performance and stability, might prove a significant threat for MS Windows 7 and MS Windows 10.

My feelings, I still have many Windows XP era hardware and devices relying upon the supposed dysfunctional XP operating system, and using MS Windows 7 or MS Windows 10 is not an option due to applications requiring only MS Windows XP.

That Windows XP "Leak" is PURE POISON.

ReactOS devs should stay far Far FAR away from it.

IMHO, YMMV...but then don't complain about the consequences.

[scottishduck]

Unfortunately the state of their USB stack means that basically noone can test it on bare metal.

[sb56637]

The firmware can only be flashed using a crappy old Windows application, which will not run properly under Wine. Thankfully I was able to configure a QEMU disk image with ReactOS, preloaded with the manufacturer flashing app, and do the firmware upgrade remotely.

Very interesting. Thanks, that answered my question if ReactOS actually has any advantage for running Windows programs over Wine on Linux, I had falsely assumed they would have the same limitations.

[estan]

Very interesting. Thanks, that answered my question if ReactOS actually has any advantage for running Windows programs over Wine on Linux, I had falsely assumed they would have the same limitations.

Yea, I guess we were just lucky that this particular program ran better under ReactOS. Another benefit was that we didn't have to soil our Linux installation will all the packages that Wine brings in - just `qemu` and a few dependencies were enough, which were easy to remove afterwards.

[Vistaus]

It is my understanding that the reactos devs are actually heavy contributors to wine, and also reactos is quite heavily based on wine as well.

I can relate a little though, I tend to feel that reactOS is mostly worthless, but it's not because the project itself is inherently worthless, so much as that the project becomes worthless to me as an end-user due to lack of progress. Of course that only applies to my specific use cases though, but still... I mean this is a project that's been in development for 22 years, I doubt they have any good excuses for not having come anywhere close to completing it by now...

22 years is a loooong time. But worthless is a bit of a stretch, disappointing would be more like it. So much potential but not enough of it realized after so much time.

22 years, what a shame! If only other software developers did any better... oh wait, it took 15 years for Wine to release a stable version and remind me how long it took to release Duke Nukem: Forever?

[Vistaus]

The big rhinoceros in the corner, upon the advent of the leak of Windows XP source code, if ReactOS mysteriously catches-up with MS Windows XP's performance and stability, might prove a significant threat for MS Windows 7 and MS Windows 10.

My feelings, I still have many Windows XP era hardware and devices relying upon the supposed dysfunctional XP operating system, and using MS Windows 7 or MS Windows 10 is not an option due to applications requiring only MS Windows XP.

Impossible. One of the most-used arguments as to why Windows is supposedly better is that every new version again and again has the best backwards compatibility. So either people are lying or you just didn't bother to try and run your XP apps on a newer version of Windows.