ReactOS

[jeremy101]

What do you guys think of ReactOS, and would you use it once it comes out of alpha/beta stage? What are your opinions on it? In my opinion, I think it is a wonderful OS and it will succeed once it is finally released! For those who don't know, ReactOS is a free, open-source OS based on the design of Windows XP/2003. It is an awesome OS, if you ask me!

[frabjous]

I've only used it in a virtualbox, but I've yet to get any Windows application to work on it, even ones that work fine in wine. YMMV.

[lisati]

I haven't looked at it for a year or two, but when I did, it looked interesting. It seems to have been in alpha for quite a while.

[unknownPoster]

It's taken years to get to where they are, which isn't very far if you ask me, when there are projects like Wine and CrossOver.

It will take a long time before they have anything worth using seriously.

[Linux_junkie]

I've been looking at the website for reactOS for about a year and I'm surprised at how slow its being developed. In fact I'm tempted to download and install it and see if I can help with bug fixing and try and get its development moving.

Once it becomes stable and can run most if not all Windows software it should be a real competitor to Windows.

[BrokenKingpin]

I don't see the point really. Linux satisfies all my computing requirements. If you want to run Windows applications and you can find an alternative, just run it in Wine. Even when ReactOS is released, it will probably just have the same issues as Wine.

And if you are really that dependent on Windows applications, just use Windows. It isn't free, but it is not that hard to get a legit licence as it comes on almost every PC/laptop.

[snip3r8]

I tried it a few months ago and got a BSOD in five minutes on virtualbox...at least that windows feature works

In terms of functionality it pretty much supports the same stuff wine does,things that dont work on wine also don't work on reactOS,so its pretty much a stand alone wine

[Mozenrath]

I've tried ReactOS over the years, and I've seen very little progress. It's just not a usable OS. I've gotten Firefox to work, but Silverlight and Flash wouldn't work or would crash everything.

It was an interesting project years ago, but I don't see the point anymore when you can get both the benefits of Linux and the ability to run Windows applications with Wine.

[IWantFroyo]

If the .exe's can install natively, then it's either based on WINE, or is structured like Windows and will get sued by Microsoft.

If it succeeds and isn't sued, it might be a real option.

[racie]

What do you guys think of ReactOS, and would you use it once it comes out of alpha/beta stage? What are your opinions on it? In my opinion, I think it is a wonderful OS and it will succeed once it is finally released! For those who don't know, ReactOS is a free, open-source OS based on the design of Windows XP/2003. It is an awesome OS, if you ask me!

Personally, I don't think ReactOS will ever even get to beta. I've come across it before and while I applaud their work, it doesn't seem to be going anywhere. According to Wikipedia, the first official alpha came out in 2004. It's made very little progress since then. I wish I could help, but I know nothing about programming. Part of the reason why I believe it's going nowhere is the extreme difficulty it takes to develop ReactOS. Even if they do finally get somewhere with the project, the line of Windows OS's will be too far ahead for ReactOS to serve any purpose.

If the .exe's can install natively, then it's either based on WINE, or is structured like Windows and will get sued by Microsoft.

If it succeeds and isn't sued, it might be a real option.

Well, it's not based on Wine, but I believe does utilize it a bit. It is structured like Windows, but it is written completely from scratch. Here's a quote from their website:

Developers have not looked at Windows® source code. They have used the public documentation of Windows® OSes. They have made several tests to understand how Windows® works. In fact, ReactOS does the same things Windows® does, but not exactly in the same way, because they haven't the same source code. All code in ReactOS is under the GNU GPL (General Public License).

Besides, it's been around for a while now. If Microsoft saw ReactOS as a threat and felt like suing, they would have done so already.