Does ReactOS work like Ubuntu?

[psychobilly freakout]

I came across this website that is a free operating system "like ubuntu" and i was just wondering if it's just as good?

http://www.reactos.org/en/index.html

[Paqman]

From that site:

Please bear in mind that ReactOS 0.3.6 is still in alpha stage, meaning it is not feature-complete and is not recommended for everyday use.


Which means, no, it's nowhere near as complete or mature as Linux.

[Vivaldi Gloria]

and i was just wondering if it's just as good?

It needs 10 years of development to become anything decent. Look how much it took wine to release version 1, 15 years? And since it is not linux, it cannot become as good as ubuntu.

There are good free OS out there. Start looking here:

http://distrowatch.com/

[OutOfReach]

The project was started in 1998, and it is still in Alpha stages. So it is not as stable or fully developed as Ubuntu is. (Also note that ReactOS has Nothing to do with the Linux kernel/Unix/etc, it is it's own project built from the ground up.)

[Sorivenul]

Not at all.

ReactOS works, but is incomplete, in progress, and unstable. The warnings about its "Alpha" status on the project homepage indicate as much. While it has potential to become stable and usable on a daily basis down the road, it is currently nowhere near production.

There are lots of posts on it, as well as other "alternatives" to Linux over in Other OS Talk (which now that I'm thinking is probably where this post belongs). Start there after you visit the afforementioned DistroWatch.

Good luck!

[smoker]

The main goal of the ReactOS project is to provide an operating system which is binary compatible with Windows. This will allow your Windows applications and drivers to run as they would on your Windows system.
from OP link above:

reactos isn't a linux operating system like ubuntu (so not as good!), but give it a try, you may be pleasantly surprised, but as an alpha, don't use it as your main operating system. :-)

[nowshining]

just so the OP and others who don't know - Ubuntu uses testing/unstable apps from debian repos.. and does it's own thing with them via patches, etc...or nothing at all....

[lisati]

Ditto to the feedback already given (it's modelled on MS Windows instead of Linux, and it's still in the "Alpha" stage of development.)

My own experience of it (within a virtual machine) is that it might not be ready for everyone (see the comments by other posters on Alpha): the LiveCD is bootable on my laptop, but when ReactOS is installed as virtual machine it experiences the "blue screen of death" soon after start up, probably because it doesn't support SATA hard disks yet.

[cmay]

reactOS is nothing like linux but there is some tings in it that reminds me of a ubuntu system. the download feature from an repo and the desktop swither. i have tried to run reactOS on a old computer but that did simply not work. everytime i would click someting it went down and screen got blurred and froze forcing me to hard reset it. but i have it on a virtual machine where it works amazingly fast and stabile. the only thing i did not do yet is install programs from my bunch of cd with old windows programs i have not touched for some years now. i just downoaded the things from the internet. but the great thing is there is free basic in the repo so installed that with out any problems over the download manager in reactOS since i have always wanted to learn basic someday. my brother has writen a small article about reactOS in a virtual box you can read if you want. http://brothersofmai.dk/readarticle.php?article_id=2
i test all the alternative systems i find that i think is worth installing on a old computer i do try it out in a virtual box before i burn the iso files the ones that seem to work. it saves me a cd once in a while. i was hoping i could get nexenta os to work but it did not work as i hoped it would. i would say i have tried some few more unstabile operative systems in beta than reactOS but i do not think reactOS will be any good on older hardware than five or six years. maybe in time it will be an option to use for the windows programs that one may have on a cd somewhere. its actually not that bad but i do not want to use reactos as my main operative system when i can have linux. its not that important to me to use the programs i have for windows since its all gpl programs anyway. i have cubase and sonar cakewalk which is recording studio software but its not going to work on wine or reactos anyway. its not even going to work on any other windows version than windows xp.

[jrusso2]

My main hope for reactOS is one day it will be stable enough to run on Linux in a virtual machine and be able to run some Windows apps people need but don't want to buy a copy of Windows to do it.

I know WINE was supposed to do this but its very limited even in its final release.

[I-75]

If you like experimenting, then give it a try. But don't expect much.

[Thelasko]

Just because it's free doesn't make it good. Ubuntu is a true jewel in the rough.

I've played with ReactOS and it needs a lot of work. With respect to usability, it's about as far from Ubuntu as you can get. If you want to run Windows programs without Windows, Wine is superior by far.

[davidryder]

ReactOS was designed to be a clone of Windows, and even designed for Windows apps to run natively. So no, not really like Linux at all other than it's open source.