Taking ReactOS 0.4 RC1 For A Test Drive To Experience Open-Source Windows Compatibility

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Taking ReactOS 0.4 RC1 For A Test Drive To Experience Open-Source Windows Compatibility

With ReactOS 0.4 RC1 having been finally released, I decided to spend a few minutes this morning trying out this open-source operating system that's still striving for binary compatibility with Windows programs and drivers.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=22556

[pal666]

"windows compatibility" is wine
reactos is "linux incompatibility"

[andre30correia]

what waste of time by this devs

[Zan Lynx]

what waste of time by this devs

Just like Linux is a waste of time because all it does is copy Unix. Right?

[Candy]

what waste of time by this devs

Actually it's not a waste of time. I've been following the development of ReactOS for the past couple of months now and I am looking forward for a stable usable release (... which of course will take some time).

I plan to run ReactOS with some proprietary software on separate hardware, without the requirement to purchase an expensive Windows license. The benefits I see in ReactOS is.

a) It has a native known Windows look. By that I am referring to the older look from Windows 2000 and Co. The good old 3D look that I am used to for quite a long time.
b) ReactOS as of now seem to stay open. So no licensing is required.
c) ReactOS is being developed and bugs are being tracked and removed.
d) The small size of ReactOS. As of now the archive is around 100mb of size. So you can even install it on low consumer hardware.

I don't need ReactOS to do anything else than serving the 2-3 Programs on that other hardware. Sure thing I can do this by running Wine. But this creates only overhard and administrative energy, that I'd like to avoid. E.g. setting up Linux, customizing it, installing wine and then ontop of that again the 2-3 Programs that I had in mind. With ReactOS it's one thing. You install ReactOS, install the 2-3 Apps and never look back.

[edmon]

If it can run MS Office 2003 and Axapta 2009 , microsoft can announce bankruptcy right in the moment!i

[schmidtbag]

"windows compatibility" is wine
reactos is "linux incompatibility"

To my recollection, ReactOS uses chunks of wine but it isn't based on wine directly and it doesn't have wine installed. If developed properly, it should work with native Windows drivers, which is something you can't do in wine.

[GreatEmerald]

Yes, it can be potentially useful. I have one old machine which is not capable of running anything past Windows XP, but it's still useful for things like LPT ports for label printing and such. If ReactOS worked well enough for that (rather simple, yet requiring direct hardware interface) use case, I would switch to it from XP.

[schmidtbag]

Yes, it can be potentially useful. I have one old machine which is not capable of running anything past Windows XP, but it's still useful for things like LPT ports for label printing and such. If ReactOS worked well enough for that (rather simple, yet requiring direct hardware interface) use case, I would switch to it from XP.

Why couldn't you do that in Linux? Surely you'd have the proper drivers for that printer. Also, USB to parallel converters are dirt cheap.

[unixfan2001]

what waste of time by this devs

"windows compatibility" is wine
reactos is "linux incompatibility"

Spoken like true buffoons.

ReactOS developers are (or at least have done so in the past) contributing to the wine codebase.
It's not useless nor does it even seek to supplant wine.