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Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Is ReactOS A Serious Alternative To Windows? (reactos.org)

Submitted by dryriver
dryriver writes: So I just discovered the ReactOS 0.4.4 Alpha. I have not tried it out yet, but it seems like this is basically a free, open source Windows replacement in the making. Does anyone have serious experience with ReactOS? Do you think that ReactOS will ever reach the point where you can basically say "bye bye" to Microsoft Windows, but keep using all your favorite Windows software under ReactOS? Will this be able to run Windows Games and DCC software that taps into the processing power of the GPU? Or will ReactOS wind up being "mildly compatible" with Windows software — e.g. basic Office productivity type software works, but professional grade 3D software like Maya/CATIA does not? Thanks.

Comment Acorn Atom (Score 2) 857

by mpilsbury (#54243349) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: What Was Your First Home Computer?
It was an Acorn Atom, with a 1MHz 6502 and 4K of static memory. There was a 4K gap in the memory map after the 4K of memory. So I bought 8 2114s (1K x 4bit I think) and soldered them directly on top of the existing chips, with the exception of the select pin. With the help of a few 74xx chips to do some address decoding and driving the select pins, the new memory was mapped in to the gap. I didn't really know what I was doing, but it worked.

Comment Re:Documentation Shitty so Developers Turn to Web (Score 1) 418

Sometimes, not always, this is the only reasonable documentation that can be written,

If throbTheWangle is a good name, perhaps a self-explanatory name, for a function, then there's little more to say about it. It may be very easy to understand in the context of the complete API, and other documentation. However you can't not document it. That would invite understandable criticism.

There are other circumstances where there's lots more to say, and in that case the documentation should be more expansive.

An API can quite easily, and reasonably, span both extremes. The documentation should say as little or as much as is needed about a particular API, and not feel compelled to conform to inappropriate conventions.

Comment Re:hmm (Score 1) 314

by mpilsbury (#42638093) Attached to: Kim Dotcom's 'Mega' Storage Site Arrives

2. AES-256 is slower than AES-128, but actually slightly weaker. Why, specifically, was AES-256 chosen? 3. What cipher modes are used, and where? I skimmed the site briefly but though some other details were disclosed,

From the API documentation (at https://mega.co.nz/#developers):

"All symmetric cryptographic operations are based on AES-128. It operates in cipher block chaining mode for the file and folder attribute blocks and in counter mode for the actual file data."

Of course their own client may work differently.

UK Think Tank Calls For Fair Use Of Your Own CDs 241

Posted by CmdrTaco from the fair-use-i-think-it's-called dept.
jweatherley writes "The BBC reports that a UK think tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research, has called for the legalization of format shifting. In a report commissioned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, they state that copyright laws are out of date, and that people should have a 'private right to copy' which would allow them to legally copy their own CDs and DVDs on to home computers, laptops and phones. The report goes on to say that: 'it is not the music industry's job to decide what rights consumers have. That is the job of government.' The report also argues that there is no evidence the current 50-year copyright term is insufficient. The UK music industry is campaigning to extend the copyright term in sound recordings to 95 years."

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