![]() ReactOS has been in development since 1996. ![]() ReactOS has been noted as a potential open-source drop-in replacement for Windows and for its information on undocumented Windows APIs. ReactOS is a free and open-source operating system for amd64/ i686 personal computers intended to be binary-compatible with computer programs and device drivers developed for Windows Server 2003 and later versions of Microsoft Windows. ReactOS 0.4.14 running the Firefox Web browser ![]() Hybrid (designed to be compatible with Windows NT family) Rinse and repeat with the next release.Īs a non-hacker I am a bit reluctant to give out advice, but I guess they should shift focus from adding new features to improving basic stability for a while.CD-ROM ISO image, QEMU image, VirtualBox image, VMware image, or source code And it is still very incomplete and extremely unstable.įor end users like myself, a new ReactOS release invariably means that we can download the install CD, install the OS in virtualbox (as in my experience the chances of it even booting on real hardware are very small, also I once saw the installer ruining the partition table of a hard disk, so I am certainly not going to install it alongside any OS I rely on), play with it a little until it bluescreens, which usually does not take very long and then we give up. ![]() Of course, the existence of the GNU project was a major help, just as the WINE project is for ReactOS.Īnyway, if I grant your point, what is the conclusion? That it is totally unrealistic for ReactOS to ever evolve into a viable Windows replacement, isn’t it? After all, what we have at this moment is a project which tries to replicate Windows 2003, an OS that came out 14 years ago and is obsolete today. It seems to have worked for Linux and also for Haiku. Just as Linux (with the GNU userland) exactly recreated (and eventually expanded) the existing proprietary Unices (although it did not aim for binary compatibility as it originally targeted i386 only).Ĭreating a clone of a very complex closed-source operating system is not a piece of cake and IMO is harder than creating your own stuff. ReactOS mimicks Windows at all levels, that includes mimicking all kernel and drivers stuff, registry, Win32 API, DLL loading, etc. When Linux was of the same age ReactOS is today, it was far from perfect, but it was incredibly stable and mature. IMO Windows itself is by far more complex than other OSes, it provides several APIs (Win32 API, COM, DCOM, OLE, DDE, DDK, DirectX, etc.) at OS level, and ReactOS implements several of them at some extent. The reverse engineering stuff done there is amazing!ģ. or are free implementations of some specs (POSIX) though I am not telling that creating an OS is easy, ReactOS has the extra complexity layer of mimicking (at binary level in several layers) one commercial and already existing closed-source OS. Almost all operating systems you described, or are created from scratch based on their own principles, rules, designs, etc. The number of developers and time invested on several of those commercial operating systems is not comparable to the number of developers that work in their spare time for ReactOS.Ģ. Though you are right with all the OSes you described, you are not taking into account several aspects that IMO are very important and make ReactOS special:ġ. ![]() Those are beautiful pieces of engineering rendered as operating systems. BeOS, Haiku, Amiga, SkyOS, *BSD, Gnu/Linux, Mac OS, ios, Planet 9, OS/2, Risc OS, GeOS, Minux, WebOS, Palm OS, symbian ![]()
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