ReactOS Reviewed in Depth

An anonymous reader writes "NeoSmart Technologies has an incredibly detailed (6 long pages!) and mostly positive review of ReactOS, The Open Source Windows. The review covers the goals of ReactOS and how well it meets them, system stability, application compatibility, kernel design and development, and the networking stack. It discusses the use of WINE in ReactOS' kernel and the effect on both its compatibility and development times." For the visual learners, here are some screenshots."

Re:Too late?

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

While I find the idea of an open source Windows facinating... is it too late?

At the very least, it will be useful for corporations using current win32 stuff who don't want to migrate to vista when XP eols.

(similar to samba really only fulling supporting domains close to NTs eol)

Re:Too late? Are You Serious?!?!?!

[Nom du Keyboard]

With Vista coming out soon, many new applications written will only run on Vista because of the new architecture, driver model, etc.

That seems like a really careless statement on your part. Are you saying that virtually all new applications are being written for an OS that you can't even buy for 6 more months? Boy that's sure going to put a dent in the next 2 quarters earning statements for every major software company.

Oh, and btw, are they writing for 32-bit Vista, or 64-bit Vista?

Re:Too late?

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

corperations? So when XP no longer is supported a coperation will switch to a system thats not 1005 compatabile or very tested and also not supported? Somehow I doubt that.

Re:Too late?

[aymanh]

It's never too late, NES emulators are still being used to this day for example. Even after the release of Vista, many will still need to run legacy Win32 apps, and when ReactOS matures, I think some users will prefer an actively-developed OS over one at the end of its life cycle.

Just a thought.

Re:Too late?

[orasio]

There is actually no need to change to msvista, because most people won't do it.
But MS will try and force them to do it. When MS end-of-lifes winxp, they will have a supported replacement.
Even right now, MS support for XP is no good, for some people who are concerned with security and stuff. With a non proprietary solution, support is a free market, and you are not stuck with the same provider that keep giving you the shaft.
_If_ ReactOS ever comes to be a viable solution, it would be much more sensible migration path than going to msvista, if only because you would have a choice for support, and you wouldn't be subject to MS marketing decisions about the life of your installations.

Re:Too late?

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

a coperation will switch to a system thats not 1005 compatabile or very tested and also not supported?

Somehow I doubt that.

*snort* - I bet you said the same thing about linux (or samba, or bsd, or whatever) back in the day hey? :-)

Don't forget - XP will get extended support from MS for seven years after Vista's release. In the unlikely event Vista is released tomorrow (or hell, even Janurary), its still going to be plenty of time for ReactOS to get tested, support options, improve compatability, etc.

Re:Too late?

[bazorg]

Since most people already have XP who would use this? Or will ReactOS emulate Vista? No, this is not a troll post, but a legit question. This question is as legit as that one that shows up frequently around here: What are the good reasons for people to upgrade to Vista? Having WIN32 compatibility without getting the DRM,and inside properly protected userspace are good enough reasons to want ReactOS instead of Vista...

Not soon enough!

[DigitAl56K]

A free Windows-compatible OS which is not encumbered with all kinds of DRM, backdoors, phone home security updates, Internet Explorer, has native support for all the device drivers that Windows supports, and means that I don't have to learn Linux / migrate all of my current software practices? How can this possibly be too late?

Personally I'd far sooner consider ReactOS than any of the other much touted Linux alternatives. Will that buy me brownie points on /. ? Maybe not, but it's probably true for most people.

Re:Too late?

[IDontAgreeWithYou]

There may not be a need to go to Vista but most people will do it. ReactOS will never be a sensible migration path. You either stay with Windows or you go to something else. No corporation would go to some OS that is a kludgey combination of both!

Re:ReactOS and WINE

[Excelsior]

with many applications working straight away (OpenOffice, Abiword, mIRC, Unreal Tournament, InfranView, PuTTY as some)

When I first saw ReactOS I was very interested, at the very least as a dual-boot for apps that won't run on my Linux desktop. But what runs on it is less than interesting. Take your list:
OpenOffice - runs on Linux.
Abiword - runs on Linux.
mIRC - there are dozens of IRC clients for Linux, some of which are superior to mIRC, IMHO.
Unreal Tournament - runs on Linux.
InfranView - There are better options on Linux, IMO. The only reason I've ever used this app is because 5 years ago there were no good free image tools on Windows. Now, I even use Gimp on Windows.
PuTTY - only necessary on Windows to get at ssh servers running on *nix. ssh is supported by so many things on Linux, not the least of which is the original openssh client.

So, I'm having a hard time seeing any reason to try ReactOS out. Could someone point out something that ReactOS can run that doesn't run on Linux, and doesn't have a better option on Linux?

Eh...

[Vorondil28]

Lots of pages does not a good review make.

I do appreciate the lack of "punch the monkey" adds, but it's still a pretty fluffy review. To sum up:

• Really cool idea.
• App computability is spotty.
• Networking blows.
• The interface looks spiffy.
• Project has promise.

I'm not sure if I even need to install a copy of it to write that much. I did think the insight on the development process on page two was interesting, but overall I think "ReactOS Reviewed in Depth" is a bit of an overstatement.

DRM is Microsoft's secret weapon

[CustomDesigned]

Sure, you can run your open source Windows or Linux OS. But you can't view any of the new DRM media without Microsoft. Of course, even with Microsoft, you can only view the new media when and where they let you. Open source software is only half the answer. Without open content, people will still be compelled to remain a Microsoft slave. Creative commons content is as important as open source software at this point in the war against the Evil Empire.

Very soon, DRM media will include documents created with evil software like Microsoft Office. It won't be simply a matter of decoding undocumented file formats. Reading MSOffice documents without Microsoft software will require cracking the encryption. One can only hope they stay true to form and screw up the encryption as badly as the DVD format. But I wouldn't count on it.

Another defense against DRM office is the movement to require open formats for government documents. That is throwing a monkey wrench into Microsoft's evil plots. If Microsoft is forced to support a way to write readable documents (as inconviently as possible, of course), then at least it will be possible for Microsoft users to send readable documents.

Re:ReactOS and WINE

[bubkus_jones]

I'm pretty sure linux users are not ReactOS's main target. Their target are Windows users who want to stop using Microsoft, but find Linux/BSD too intimidating.

Of course there are more/better Linux options. For one, Linux is vastly more mature, and has a much greater user/developer base. Second, ReactOS is still in ALPHA stage. It has a ways to go before a full release worthy OS, and they (the ReactOS developers) would be the first to tell you.

Win98 EOL

[owlman17]

If ReactOS were only a little more stable, all these people http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/11/ 0218250 [slashdot.org] could easily make the switch almost painlessly. Compared to Linux its almost a drop-in replacement for 98.

Re:Too late?

[Helios1182]

Which means we may see applications that use the proper user privileges at last. Gone are the days of running as an "admin" under 98. Now companies should be able to expect user level rights and write code that respects them.

ReactOS is GOD...

[Khyber]

Seriously, you can run most driversets! I've found it very useful (Emulators run awesomely, most of my games, too!) and very, very, VERY fast. Because of the striped down Kernel there's less CPU being used by the OS, freeing up more for other applications (Games, oh yes, GLASS)

Seriously, by the time vista comes out, People may very well start ditching Microsoft and start using ReactOS. I intend to once the next release of ReactOS comes out, at least for a nice long trial for major testing.

Yeah, sure, and DOS is dead by now.

[DrYak]

There's no such things as FreeDOS [freedos.org] nowadays, which was developped to late to be anything useful, specially it's not used by many people (including hardware manufacturer and corporate IT staff) to build bootdisks [fdos.org] used to flash and upgrade firmwares and BIOSes(1). Neither is it used by computer manufacturer [dell.com] who signed an agreement with a popular OS company that forbids them to sell a computer without an OS.

Whith such an exemple of another old system, we can be sure that nobody will find whatever use for ReactOS, given the fact that Windows Vista will retain no compatibility with a legacy of win32 APPs [wikipedia.org] and has nothing to do with the NT family which is emulated by ReactOS and Wine [reactos.org]. And ReactOS and Wine have stated that they will never [winehq.com], I mean really never [winehq.com] try to implement more modern API like Win64 and thus won't be able to run all the huge amount of 64bit apps [wikipedia.org] that are seen everywhere (and of which most aren't open-source anyway and aren't ported to linux either (2) ).

ReactOS is likely to die and go the Linux/BSD way. Netcraft is confirming it in Soviet Russia. In Korea, only old people find usefulness to free and open alternatives that retain compatibility to commercial versions.

Har, har, har.

1 - bootdisks and -CD are specially popular in big places where you need to quickly upgrade BIOSes and Firmware non-interactively just by pluging a disc. The same can't be achieved from windows yet (there are windows-based flasher, but they can't be deployed thru usual network channels as software update)
2 - Windows 64bits is once again a proof of the supperiority of open-source. The first softwares that was the most easily ported to Win64 API were the open-source one, were the developpement is much easier because of source code availability : 7Zip, Blender&Yafray, Mame, FireFox, PuTTY, POV, VirtualDub, and many other. Where as only a couple of commercial games (because they make nice tech demos in booths) were ported, and almost no commercial multimedia package (although multimedia was supposed to benefit the most from the increased memory address space and was hoped to be among the first ported to Win64).

Re:Too late?

[mrogers]

Unsupported like Red Hat Enterprise? ReactOS opens the door for any number of companies to sell and support an XP-compatible platform, for as long as the customers want.

So what is a "unix"?

[tepples]

Solaris, Open BSD, Ultrix, Irix and so on are are UNIX but with out the brand name. [...] OK from now on I'm using lower case

That's like saying Pepsi or RC Cola is coca-cola in lower case, or an Intel AT compatible PC running a Microsoft Windows OS is a macintosh in lower case. This can only confuse readers. Does your use of "lower-case unix" refer to operating systems that implement the popular parts of the Single UNIX Specification (equivalent to POSIX), or to operating systems descended from the source code of at&t's UNIX OS? It matters, as GNU/Linux is the former but not the latter.