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- inactive, on 05/12/2008, -5/+116Over 10 years of work, and they've just released an alpha.
Watch out Microsoft, a new cats in town. - skmice2, on 05/12/2008, -5/+108I have to second that, getting rid of Registry would be great. What I would also like to see is much better sand-boxing and elimination of ActiveX.
Even though ReactOS doesn't do this (it aims to replicate the functionality), it is a great project and I hope that it will become successful. - bumcheekcity, on 05/12/2008, -8/+96I've been following ReactOS for about 3 years now, on and off, and it's gone nowhere. It's a great idea, but it just doesnt have the support, both in terms of people and money, behind it that both Linux and Windows do. It's got good ideas, but it's just nowhere near useful at all. Hopefully, people posting things like this will mean more people see and get interested in it.
But at the moment, you can't game in Linux, and you can't do pretty much anything in ReactOS. - fanclerks, on 05/12/2008, -4/+63That's why they should pull an Apple. Start with a completely new code base that doesn't utilize a registry or ActiveX. Start with a solid foundation and build upon that. For backwards compatibility, use virtualization. Most computers now a days are powerful enough to run that sort of environment. They can also take the opportunity to build a faster and slimmer OS. There's so much cruft left over from the 9x and prior days that is slowing down the core OS. Improve the driver model too. Yeah, it would cause everyone to redesign their programs and start over, but it needs to happen. This always having to be backwards compatible with stuff that is over 10 years old is killing Windows.
- IphtashuFitz, on 05/12/2008, -6/+49Unfortunately the vast majority of Windows software wouldn't be able to run without ActiveX and/or the registry. Doing away with these (which I would also love to see) would require a significant amount of work not only by the engineers at Microsoft but also by the engineers at most software companies.
- NJank, on 05/12/2008, -3/+35ReactOS is just bad policy. With ReactOS, you leave yourself vulnerable, and only respond after problems occur. We need: PreemptOS!
- Pogojoe, on 05/12/2008, -10/+43Snorg Tees girls looking good today
- evillawngnome, on 05/12/2008, -5/+34Because it's poorly designed and difficult to use?
- Kappa00, on 05/12/2008, -3/+29WINE is not a ***** emulator.
/troll - burnstyle, on 05/12/2008, -3/+26http://www.reactos.org/en/index.html
reactOS site - Sheco, on 05/12/2008, -2/+26And you forgot to mention that ReactOS uses Wine and even hacks Wine and submits the patches.
- MattB123, on 05/12/2008, -0/+23I want ALL the buzzwords in my OS!
- arjie, on 05/12/2008, -1/+24Wait, guys, aren't we missing something? The ReactOS and Wine teams were helping each other out loads the last I knew. So if ReactOS ever reaches a state where it can equal the windows API, then Linux will automatically have all that through Wine, no? So where's the Linux vs. ReactOS argument?
- Surfrock66, on 05/12/2008, -3/+23The perfect OS needs more cowbell.
- MioTheGreat, on 05/12/2008, -5/+29There's nothing wrong with the registry itself. It's a useful place to put system-wide settings, while avoiding a number of problems that things like flat xml files have (DOS attacks, per-key security, parsing speed, etc.), and it's absolutely vital to the operation of COM.
It's been abused, certainly. No one will deny that, but I'm not sure getting rid of it is the way to fix the problem. - Nougat, on 05/12/2008, -0/+20Then it would be called WINFE.
- haydentech, on 05/12/2008, -1/+21The number of incorrect facts in your comment is amazing. First of all Wine is not an emulator -- in fact that's the name of the project! Wine Is Not an Emulator. Get it? Second, it's laughable to say that Wine and Reactos have no bearing on one another. The majority of Reactos code is Wine code, which is synced constantly. Instead of running Wine in Linux, it's basically running it under the ReactOS Windows-like kernel.
- antoniuk, on 05/12/2008, -16/+39Just like Chris Pirillo, John Dvorak is a blight on the computer industry. These two hacks need to vanish and never again consult, comment, op ed, or in any other way lend they useless information to the masses.
- Murdats, on 05/12/2008, -0/+19it must use web 3.0 to produce synergy in the paradigm while using an active matrix to optimise the cloud for social networking.
- willgonz, on 05/12/2008, -3/+23Actually there are a lot of problems with the registry and even Microsoft has admitted it was a bad idea. The registry is a resource hog. Just to open Notepad requires thousands of keys to be read. Go and grab a copy of NTREGMON from www.sysinternals.com (now owned by Microsoft) tell it to filter out everything except notepad.exe. Start the capture and run notepad. See all those thousands of keys that must be read. Now imagine opening a bigger program like photoshop.
- CodeCobalt, on 05/12/2008, -4/+23Just me, or does everyone else agree that the only thing MS would go "back to work on" would be sueing the pants off of anyone and everyone?
- thcobbs, on 05/12/2008, -2/+20/me watches joke fly harmlessly above fredmv.
- inactive, on 05/12/2008, -2/+22by fully emulating the functionality though it allows for others to add in the features that they want.
However lets say that today they had something 100% XP compatible. It would be a tough sell to get people en masse to use it, the average person just does not care. Of the ones that do care, many would get a prebuilt system which includes a windows license. MS has an edge in that reactos is trying to clone their operating system, so if MS comes out with new features and all that reactos has to then copy, which will cause them to lag somewhat in this arena.
It is my belief that unless they (anyone who develops for it) add in new features and create a compelling reason to use it it wont be that popular. For most people the ability to get the code is meaningless because most computer users are not developers. Most people in general would rather have real than immitation and that is exactly how it will come across. Remember most computer users are only using it to use a web browser, email client and maybe some games or word processing type apps. They dont care about politics of software, the dont care about licenses, they dont care about who wrote the code, they dont care about many things that geeks may care about or even understand.
Not saying its a bad thing only saying that its not a giant threat to MS. - TheZorch, on 05/12/2008, -22/+42You have hear of Wine and Crossover Linux, right? Both allow you to run Windows based applications and games in Linux, and now it supports Direct X 9.0c and you can even install DX9.0c in Wine to improve performance and graphical accuracy.
- mikedoth, on 05/12/2008, -2/+20Just wait for HaikuOS.
- houndeyex, on 05/12/2008, -2/+17I'm sorry, but you're an idiot. Whatever Microsoft does for Web 3.0, Linux is going to do just as well. Web 3.0 is a bunch of hype anyways, and not the point of this article.
- frostbyt, on 05/12/2008, -12/+29With Wine 1.0 on the way for Linux I hate to say but this is a dead project.
- ToadLeg, on 05/12/2008, -0/+14It will be web 3.0 capable as soon as the tubes are widened to fit the bit of size 3.0 through.
- evillawngnome, on 05/12/2008, -3/+20So Dad has to supervise me if i want to make real changes? A well commented plaintext config file trumps the documentation hell that is MS any day of the week.
- matschig, on 05/12/2008, -1/+15No kidding
- ArielMT, on 05/12/2008, -2/+15It was the creation of the registry that led us from the so-called .ini hell into the registry hell. Before then, the single point of failure was win.ini, which an ungodly number of third-party developers also felt the need to muck with, though with consequences not nearly as disastrous as a corrupt registry. Seriously, why do Windows XP and Windows Vista need registry entries telling it that the executable file format .exe is supposed to execute itself?
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/837334 - XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950505 - Vista
http://filext.com/faq/broken_exe_association.php - all versions
And COM is another ring of hell entirely, according to many Windows developers. It's as necessary to Windows as a bicycle is to a fish. - neko, on 05/12/2008, -0/+11So modern Windows applications don't share shared libraries?
Hilarious. - piesforyou, on 05/12/2008, -1/+12My ass is Web 3.0
- MioTheGreat, on 05/12/2008, -0/+10Actually, the VP in charge of the Windows Architecture team (Rob Short), when asked the question "do you ever wish the registry had never been developed?" answered something like "I don't regret the registry was developed; It's unfortunate that the registry was overused"
http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=1488 ... - fredmv, on 05/12/2008, -8/+19Problem is, there's already a Linux distro by that name (now called Linspire).
- TheFinaleofSeem, on 05/12/2008, -2/+12Don't worry. If it gets too good, Microsoft will either sue them or make great effort to break it with future releases.
- rowjimmy, on 05/12/2008, -0/+10yeah right, like that's gonna work without a flux capacitor
- kipmartin, on 05/12/2008, -3/+15MOST musicians love having a small footprint, easy to use, cheap, high quality digital recording studio at home. the plugins available out there are astounding. the basic software is good out of the box, and its compatible with bigger suites.
i use it for working stuff up before hitting a protools studio for a real recording. high quality demos. but i gotta say--sometimes the garageband demo, with care and diligence, would work fine.
dont put garageband down--it works as intended and more. its the best deal for under a grand. im willing to bet there are indie albums/tracks done on garageband out there with repectable sales.
hmmmm.... - OneAndOnlySnob, on 05/12/2008, -2/+11Wrong topic... ReactOS is no more Linux than Windows is.
- synyster, on 05/12/2008, -0/+9when did you upgrade it?
- evillawngnome, on 05/12/2008, -5/+14Garage band? REALLY? THAT'S your music suite of choice?
- Stonekeeper, on 05/12/2008, -1/+10I believe that linux+wine can do more than reactos. I could be wrong of course.
- inactive, on 05/12/2008, -1/+10Remember folks the point of reactos is not so that you can run windows programs like you can with wine+linux, but so that you have a windows operating system. The goals are similar but not identical, and all the comments about how wine+linux is somehow better overlook the fact that some people do not want to use linux in the first place.
The two products are trying to give people choice, a freedom, a simple pleasure of being able to decide what you will run on your own computer, instead of someone else telling you. The fact that some prefer linux as a base and wine to enable windows apps is fine, just as its fine that for a decade someone has been working towards writing a clone of windows. There are differences in how you administer each of those systems, there are differences in how you diagnose and resolve problems. Some may feel more comfortable with one operating system while others with another.
Its not all about conformity, its not all about everyone doing the same thing the same way all the time. People should actually be free to make decisions for themselves and not have one group tell them they are idiots for choosing something different. Oh wait we arent talking about the election in this thread. sorry :P - JMellissa, on 05/12/2008, -0/+7I whole-heartedly agree with eliminating the system registry. The windows system registry allows so much in the way of machine corruption that its value is no where near the magnitude of its risk.... especially with the lack of complete documentation and deterministic tools.
- inactive, on 05/12/2008, -0/+7Stateless computing is the future. Virtualize the registry and call it day. Vista makes a half hearted attempt at this, but the reality is that the ENTIRE registry needs to be virtualized. It also needs to be stateless. Which means that a user can no longer bork up their computer as the "real" registry is only modified with proper permissions only in very specific instances.
- inactive, on 05/12/2008, -1/+9that's cool but what about desktops?
- aladrin, on 05/12/2008, -0/+6I always hear something about Wine's difficulties: They are trying to hit a moving target. ReactOS is in the same basket, there.
Luckily, Vista has slowed that target way down... There's no need to emulate Vista or DX10 yet because there's not really anything being written specifically for them.
You are also correct that the average person does not care how the computer works, or what ideals it is built on. They just want it to work 100% of the time. ReactOS's only hope of 'beating' Microsoft is to create a more stable, usable product... I doubt that's going to happen when their basic plan is to copy imitate MS's work as closely as possible. - khyberkitsune, on 05/12/2008, -1/+7You can't game in Linux? What the ***** has id Software been doing all these years, then, huh? And ReactOS doesn't have money because it's a FREE project. Jeeze. Unless you're actually developing for it (which I am) shut your mouth.
- xutopia, on 05/12/2008, -2/+9On OS X each application checks as it is started (or as I close it) to see if there is an update for it. It is responsible for updating itself and it's libraries. Sure it's not as elegant as sharing libraries across multiple software packages but at least if I want to copy an app to my laptop it's as easy as dragging and dropping.
- inactive, on 08/26/2008, -0/+6"Of course this hypothetical new Windows has an advantage in being... more polished than Linux"
How so? What about this vague concept of a hypothetical Windows rewrite would necessarily make it more polished than Linux? -
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