The ReactOS Project Suddenly Shows Signs of Life
'ReactOS is an open-source operating system that aims to replicate Microsoft Windows, and can already run many Windows applications without modification. ReactOS published a new (infrequent) newsletter to outline recent work. It reveals that progress has slowed down recently, but the project definitely isn't dead. The newsletter also acknowledges the team hasn't put out a new version since the end of 2021, although progress continues. Due to shifting focuses to quality releases, they are no longer on a quarterly release cadence. The date of the next release is not set yet, but according to a huge list of already-implemented changes they aim for it to be a substantial update. The last update to ReactOS was version 0.4.14, released on December 2021. While developers were previously committed to releasing updates every three months, that has since changed and updates will now be focused on quality rather than quantity. For the ReactOS team to be confident enough to release something, it needs to have less than 20 known unfixed regressions while adding new features and functions. Behind the scenes, it looks like things are spinning well. The team specifically highlighted its progress on the x64 port of ReactOS, which went from being a non-booting mess to an operating system that boots up and mostly works. It doesn't run any x86 programs since it doesn't have WoW64, but it's going well.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/23/06/28/212238 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ Mobile +64 22 190 2375 https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/
On Thu, 29 Jun 2023 13:26:56 +1200, Peter Reutemann quoted:
'ReactOS is an open-source operating system that aims to replicate Microsoft Windows, and can already run many Windows applications without modification.'
So can WINE on Linux, but ReactOS also takes on the extra burden of creating its own full OS as well. I’m not sure what the point of this is. They could more usefully put their resources into improving WINE, which would achieve a lot more with less work.
On 29/06/2023 13:47, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
I’m not sure what the point of this is. They could more usefully put their resources into improving WINE, which would achieve a lot more with less work.
"Why don't you help the Wine project instead? Actually, we work very closely with the Wine project and thus both projects actually benefit from each other. We have several developers in both the Wine and ReactOS projects that work on cross-compatibility issues and keeping synchronisation between both projects. Wine probably has a lot more in common with ReactOS than with Linux. The Wine project has the goal of implementing the entire Windows API on top of WineServer. We use these APIs in ReactOS. There are only a few Wine DLLs that cannot be used in ReactOS. These are Ntdll.dll, User32.dll, Kernel32.dll, Gdi32.dll and Advapi32.dll. We have several developers in both the Wine and ReactOS projects that work on cross-compatibility issues between the two projects. It is our view that Linux + Wine can never be a full replacement for Microsoft Windows™. This is due to the separation that exists between the Linux kernel and Wine's graphic device calls meaning that Windows applications in Wine can never operate as quickly as they would on a fully Windows compatible o/s. There is also the issue of Linux dropping 32-bit application support which potentially could prevent 32-bit Windows apps running on Linux in the near future. ReactOS has the potential for a much higher degree of compatibility – especially for Microsoft Windows drivers – which Wine does not address." -- https://reactos.org/wiki/ReactOS_FAQ#Why_don.27t_you_help_the_Wine_project_i...
On Thu, 29 Jun 2023 14:22:54 +1200, Matthias Dallmeier quoted:
"ReactOS has the potential for a much higher degree of compatibility – especially for Microsoft Windows drivers – which Wine does not address."
Finally, an actual point to reinventing the Windows/NT OS--namely, the ability to run original proprietary drivers written for Windows. But doesn’t a lot of this old hardware have Linux drivers anyway?
participants (3)
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Lawrence D'Oliveiro -
Matthias Dallmeier -
Peter Reutemann