Recently the ReactOS project released the much anticipated 0.4.15 update, making it the first major release since 2020. Despite what might seem like a minor version bump from the previous 0.4.14 release, the update introduces sweeping changes to everything from the kernel to the user interface and aspects like the audio system and driver support. Those who have used the nightly builds over the past years will likely have noticed a lot of these changes already.
A notable change is to plug-and-play support which enables more third party drivers and booting from USB storage devices. The Microsoft FAT filesystem driver from the Windows Driver Kit can now be used courtesy of better compatibility, there is now registry healing, and caching and kernel access checks are implemented. The latter improvement means that many ReactOS modules can now work in Windows too.
On the UI side there is a much improved IME (input method editor) feature, along with native ZIP archive support and various graphical tweaks.
Meanwhile since 0.4.15 branched off the master branch six months ago, the latter has seen even more features added, including SMP improvements, UEFI support, a new NTFS driver and improvements to power management and application support. All of this accompanied by many bug fixes, which makes it totally worth it to regularly check out the nightly builds.
I hope they can implement DirectX 12 and GPU driver support, so that I can fully shift to ReactOS for my videogames
Its getting harder to tolerate windows. 7 was the last “good” version, 10 I tolerate but 11 I refuse to install
Windows 10+ is a virus.
spyware
Spydows 10 and Super Spydows 11
If you like Linux so much then just wait for your games to be released on that platform? Simple as that.
The like for one doesn’t necessarily have to do with the dislike for another. Just because I see windows as a mere shoehorn for gamelaunchers doesn’t make gamecompanies budget for another OS – whatever that might be – bigger. There, I added grey to the “colour” palette.
proton is really effective.
Nobody mentioned Linux.
Get my Upvote.
I had planned to switch to Win10 at some point before M$
– abandoned it
– made local installs ever more difficult as time marched on.
As it stands I’m still using win8 with open-shell which makes it pretty much like win7
It’s kinda nice to have the same OS session running for month without any restarts (just suspend/sleep & resume) :-)
Still on Win8.1 + OpenShell too, except a couple of machines for which critical drivers (e.g. WiFi) were only available for Win10/11, so went for 11. Reading comments above, maybe I should have installed 10 instead. “But this one goes to 11!”
id probibly still be on 8.1 if newer hardware had driver support. its easier to use them on linux.
What is the benefit of using ReactOS over Linux+Wine ?
ReactOS is using some parts of Wine codebase… That makes me feel like it’s quite likely for everything that works in ReactOS to eventualy be working in Wine. Except for drivers and similar kernel mode stuff. Once the reverse engineering / reimplementation of APIs is done and the code is publicly available, it’s probably not a big deal for other FOSS projects to incorporate it or be loosely based on the ideas.
“What is the benefit of using ReactOS over Linux+Wine ?”
Some people get sick of Linux, its architecture, don’t like the hype, the community and its glorification of “Mr. Penguin” ? Just an idea. 🤗
Hmm, it’s just a tool, which might be easier to use – I don’t think you have to really interact with any particular community to use it, you dl an ISO, install it, and these days in most distros, never see any penguins anywhere?
“Linux and the very long filenames,”
this is the weirdest Linux criticism I’ve ever heard
Windows puts spaces in filenames and has a hard character limit in its filesystems (including parent paths! good luck with a few nested Git repositories!).
I just ran through the primary OS directory (/usr) and the longest file I found – including all its parents – was 90 characters.
Windows blew past that in like, the first couple entries of “Program Files (x86)”.
This is more of a reply to @Joshua above, but I wanted to chime in and say some of what you wrote is valid opinion, however there are some key points that are factually inaccurate.
“Windows uses registry, while some Windows programs have one single INI file – like in the old Windows 3.0 days.”
– Yes, that’s correct. Windows uses a big centralized registry for the bulk of its settings, So does Linux actually, just not in the same way or to the same extent. It’s called gconf or some equivalent depending on the GUI of choice, the rest is usually stored under /etc/application/ – It’s also the source of a lot of slowness on windows, due to it being a massive choke point for the system
“Also, Linux can’t just run an EXE file like Windows can.”
This is inaccurate. Linux executes binaries just the same as every OS. It really depends on the type of executable you download, the confusion may be coming from dynamically linked binaries that require shared libraries, Vs. Static Binaries which do not. the .app of Mac OS is actually an application bundle, it’s an archive that contains the compressed binary file and some metadata files, sometimes libraries. .exe files are also similar, some may even use shared system libraries, others may bundle them. the differences here are mostly semantics and API stuff.
LInux has a few equivalents to this, .appimage being one, and Flatpaks being the alternative to ‘package managers’ (these are sandboxed/containerized applications that bring their own libs)
“there are too many permissions on Linux and the settings scattered in about 1000 config files.”
Ignoring the obvious Hyperbole, there really aren’t that many, so this is also inaccurate.
Read, Write, Execute. – Per user/group
Windows has UAC, Group policy, etc. Linux (And Mac) Have User and group permissions that accomplish the same goal.
“Meanwhile servers of Linux distributions do loose old files after merely 8 years or so.”
No, that’s also inaccurate. Any distro worth its weight in iron oxide has an archive, archive.debian.org in your example is where you will find the 15+ year old packages for long since moonlit distros.
“Also, good luck compiling an current application source on an older distribution….”
…. Good luck doing this on any OS? I mean, it’s possible, but at some point you’re going to hit problems with missing dependencies or CPU extensions (Like SSE2,3) on any OS, it’s called progress.
That said, Backports are a regular thing, especially on LTS releases.
“(…)very long filenames, the endless parameters etc.(…)”
so just rename the file? if having your stuff named someApplication Copy copy copy copy copy (4).exe is your jam instead of SomeApplication.Version_BuildDate_Source.exe then you do you lol.
Joshua just wrote one of the best point for point criticisms of Linux ever. I’m definitely in the ‘its a tool crowd’ so fon’t really ‘care’, but Ive definitely run into difficulties with linus that he outlines.
@ron
your rebuttal points either fail to address the criticisms @joshua made or prove the point depending on which you look at.
Some people need to get out more.
It’s all good Joshua. You can calm down now. You did provide a comment at least twice as long as the article. Lol
All these are tools to achieve a goal. Much like food to each goes to their taste.
I have used Linux since the early 90s and have been impressed with its stability compared to windows. I still use it for my daily driver and have a dual boot laptop for field work.
I make more money supporting Windows and Microsoft antics than any other OS. Partly due to its poor coding practices: mostly, because it’s a monopoly. I would think someone who has a disdain for American products as noted by your other comments would prefer an OS from a European creator; but again like food Windows monopoly is more palatable.
Thanks to the author for updating us on the latest ReactOs
Hey, I had been asked. The least I could do was to provide a detailed response. 😃
“I have used Linux since the early 90s”
That explains a lot! So you’re hardened against all the oddities of Linux, probably and got used to it.
Personally, I started with Linux a few years later and it was very difficult to use.
You had to be familiar with swap partitions.
Had to manually configure Xserver from command line (aka bash, shell etc).
My Sound Blaster card hung the Linux system when switching to full duplex mode. Or was it other way round?
Then there had been missing inodes, because EXT2 couldn’t handle a sudden power outage.
There was no journaling. It took EXT4 to make that standard.
In the 90s, Windows NT 4 and OS/2 Warp were much more reliable than Linux, I think.
Professionals had Solaris, HP/UX and other Unixes that were more reliable.
Heck, even Windows 98SE ran more stable than Linux 2.1 (?) distributions and older.
Unless you had a Pentium Pro Dual-CPU Workstation with 128MB RAM, SCSI drives in a RAID and your own UPS. ;)
” would think someone who has a disdain for American products as noted by your other comments would prefer an OS from a European creator; but again like food Windows monopoly is more palatable.”
I wouldn’t call it disdain, I feel no hate whatsoever.
I just think that the country is sorta unreliable, irresponsible, unpredictable. Or crazy. At the moment, at least.
And it’s not me alone, there are similar voices from all over the world.
I mean, the last election alone.. It shocked the whole world.
The US citizens had experienced the canditate before, they knew how the candidate is, what the candidate was up to and capable of.
Yet, still, they voted for him again and his friends, gambled happily with the well being of the whole world.
In some eyes, that’s selfish and irresponsible.
That’s as if we Germans had voted for “uncle Dolfie” twice,
after realizing what a monster he really is. Just saying..
I won’t say that we’re without flaws or morally above (there’s no national pride), but we do try hard not to repeat the mistakes (“never again”).
That’s why I’m/why we’re more vocal about the matter, I suppose.
The current political situation is like in late 1930s/early 1940s.
And the sad thing is that the same guys who brought us democracy are now about to loose it. Tragic. 😢
Here, that’s what RIAS Berlin used to have aired on sunday:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmWacQofYlA
“I believe in the inviolability and dignity of every human being.
I believe that all people have been given by God the equal right to freedom.
I promise to resist every attack on freedom and tyranny, wherever they may occur.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rundfunk_im_amerikanischen_Sektor
i kind of want a simple operating system that receives updates without succumbing to feature creep. neither linux nor windows is a simple os. some distros are exceedingly bloated. i miss the days of dos when it was possible for a single person to know the entire thing.
Try RTEMS, it can be made to run parts of toybox.
Haiku has entered the chat
I like the idea of Haiku but so far have failed miserably at getting it to run on my, admittedly low-buck, test mule. What about Haiku do you do you find noteworth? Maybe it’s worth a shot at trying it again.
i have never had a good experience with wine. at least not until proton became a thing.
Until ReactOS is ready… Why not try the Wine compatibility layer under Linux? Or the PlayOnLinux compatibility layer? That way you can you use Linux for most things, then use the compatibility layer for your games and other Windows-specific programs? Or if the games aren’t too resource-demanding then set up Windows 7 inside a VM, isolated from the internet, and run Linux as your host OS.
Hi, WINE also runs on Mac OS X, err, macOS.
BSD and Solaris are supported, too.
This is very much the year of the Linux desktop. Check out Zorin OS; it’s pretty, easy to set up and use, and it just works. Also has built-in Windows support through the non-emulator Wine.
Its been the ‘year of the linux desktop’ every year for at least the last 20. And likely will be every year for the 20 as well.
Oddly enough, I actually like win11 more than win10. HOWEVER, that’s only after using a debloat script to remove all the garbage MS put in.
Which version of Windows?
I vaguely recall Win95 kernal but I’m not any clearer after some website reading.
Windows Server 2003 (XP) compatibility but it also includes some Vista+ groundwork since a lot of the userspace stuff is based on the Wine project
I think they were targeting 2003 so vaguely XP
AFAIK and from the screenshot. NT 5.2 is XP SP2
Every O.S maker must pass the DOJ requirements in order to be sold in the U.S and elsewhere.
It’s not like the u.s juridiction will let any o.s maker sell what he wants…
If you’re not adoubed by the DOJ and DOD (which capitalize on the fact to can access any computer by backdoor to grab what they want )
Don’t forget that information is the key in the world…
“Every O.S maker must pass the DOJ requirements…” [Citation needed]
buys aluminium foil futures
Tariffs made more expensive.
Sure. And I had to license my pet cat with the “Ministry of Housinge”.
Good thing linux is free, then.
Dozens of people wasted two decades of their lives making a half-baked clone of Windows XP, which itself is totally obsolete and irrelevant in 2025.
🤡pen Source
There are a lot of multi-million dollars machine reliably working in the wild since over two decades who would disagree, hoping for a compatible successor OS that can buy them more time, and being open would allow them to stay relevant.
You´d be surprised what one can find on production lines, hospitals, power stations …
its no different than linux though. linux has been worked on for decades at this point and its only just now starting to become usable. you can say the same about windows, each version is just a major update of the previous. all of the above are just ever expanding codebases that accrete bloat and are loaded with cruft.
Only just now starting to become useable? Did you just buy your first computer or something?
really depends on what you are using it for. i love programming on linux, but try running your adobe or autodesk applications. open source replacements were not great. gimp is almost as good as photoshop was. the real loss was the muscle memory i had built up in ps, 3dsmax, etc. blender still confuses the hell out of me. wine was very hit or miss for a long time. proton is a new freaking era entirely and kills the gaming excuse in decisive fashion. kde plasma also give linux a windows 7 feel that i really like. if all you have ever run is open source then linux has been usable for about 20 or so years. linux has been useful in network infrastructure and the internet for a lot longer, windows just didn’t have the necessary security at the time (perhaps still not).
>programming on linux
With its abysmal font rendering? No, thanks. ClearType on Windows has been a thing since mid 2000s and still no linux distro can match it.
This is the only way an OS can grow & develop – just as a child becomes an adult. Not perfect, but growth does not stop, either. Who can be surprised by this?!
Interesting. I tried ReactOS more than 15 years ago and at the time it could run things like IrfanView, AbiWord, VLC player, Visual Basic, Delphi 3 and my favorite emulators.
Which makes sense, because ReactOS uses files from WINE project and vice versa.
The Direct3D support for 2000/XP guests in VirtualBox 6 and earlier was being done using WineD3D files, for example.
It probably also worked so well thanks to ReactOS as a testbed, maybe, which is like a self-running version of WINE that needs no Linux.
I was thinking recently after reading people talk about lacking Linux drivers for some things Windows has good support for, that it would be interesting for Linux to add a compatible API for Windows drivers then they could be used when no better option is available.
I had heard of ReactOS before but didn’t really know what it was.
Now I look and it seems like the most extreme extension of that. Glad to see someone working on a FOSS Windows compatible OS. Hope they make some major progress since Windows 10 is dying this year and Windows manages to continue getting worse.
linux doesnt really have drivers, it has kernel modules, so running something not already in the kernel would require you recompile the damn kernel. granted linux has a system for handling that in a way that is not too dissimilar from installing drivers, but thats more of an obfuscation. the kernel compiles in the background and most users dont know they did it.
windows solved this with a partially modular kernel. frankly its a better way to do things. but the direction windows is headed renders that point moot.
You don’t have to recompile the kernel to build a module, that just happens to be the way most modules are distributed.
That’s true. But using external modules wasn’t a piece of cake either.
I remember using modprobe and using external modules not always works as expected.
alot of toxicity on this topic for sure and a lot of linux haters
i see it as fair and valid criticism. fact is no modern operating system can meet everyone’s use case, so they give you everything including the kitchen sink. i believe that the job of the operating system is merely to provide the basic foundation upon which applications run, rather than to be the application.
linux at least gives you some lightweight distros, there is the ltsc branch of windows but they make it hard for normal people to obtain (only available for enterprise licensing). retrocomputing enthusiasts understand the value of having an operating system that is possible to know inside and out.
windows was at its best in the 2k-7 era (though vista is the exception). where it was lightweight and stayed out of your business for the most part. if ms would sell single licenses of ltsc for the minimalists out there, we would have little need for reactos. even then its nice to have options. i dont think linux has peaked yet, its always getting better. but some of the more normie distributions seem to be picking up the same kind of bloat and bad decisions that windows has accreted. but thats a distro problem not a kernel problem.
Vista wasn’t that bad actually, but it had been perceived as really bad because of hurt feelings (egos) of the ordinary users.
Especially among gamers, who had invested in a fast processor, big HDDs and fat graphics cards – but not memory!
In essence, the lack of a Shader Model 2 compatible GPU and a high memory requirement was the culprit:
By the time Vista was out, people didn’t have enough RAM (512MB minimum, 1GB+ for real world use).
Their GPUs weren’t able to run Aero Glass, either, so the CPU had to do heavy lifting.
Long story short, it was same as with OS/2. Another powerful OS, which required lots of RAM.
In late 80s, ordinary people couldn’t afford 4 MB of RAM for OS/2 v1.1.
In early 90s, ordinary people couldn’t afford 8 MB of RAM for OS/2 Warp, either.
I remember how people in the 90s had complained about OS/2 Warp being sluggish, when in reality their computers were just underpowered.
Sure money wasn’t cheap, but if they couldn’t afford it they
should have accepted the consequences or should have stayed at DOS 3 and Norton Commander.
Same was with Windows 3.0, which had been the victim of criticism when it was new.
Because some old farts with their 1 MB machines or 8088 processor didn’t have had best experience.
Those with a 286/386 and 4 MB of RAM were quite positive about it, since they could run it in Protected-Mode and have megabytes of memory.
Windows 7 was also so succesful because it came out when users had owned upgraded PCs that finally could run Vista properly.
It built upon the failure of Vista, essentially.
Vista later got Service Packs and Platform Updates that made it very Windows 7 like, except for still being stuck to WDDM 1.0 driver model.
PS: About Windows Me..
In parts it was very unstable because it was sold as an upgrade only.
And anyone knows what can happen if Windows is being installed upon an older version; it can be very messy.
If Windows Me installation was done from scratch, under DOS, from a blank HDD (no Windows dir, but bootable) then Windows Me was more stable running.
Unfortunately, only a minority did a fresh installation of Windows Me.
thing i remember about vista was horrible file copy performance, that got better with 7 but that may have been the ssd i installed it on. think i was still on spinning rust at the time. it was so bad it felt like a downgrade (i was on xp64 pro and that was pretty snappy).
Vista tried to compress/decompress files on-the-fly for better ethernet performance. Even on a local copy, apparently.
That’s why it was very slow, it caused a lot of processor load.
On a hot-rod PC, the copy performance wasn’t as bad.
“alot of toxicity on this topic for sure and a lot of linux haters”
It’s their own fault, in parts at least. Linux users are always so pushy and make fun of everyone, acting as if they’re above everyone else.
Like the Amiga folks used to be, who always attacked PC users out of nowhere.
They’re like their idol, Linus, in this respect.
Or Mac users who saw Steve as their messiah. Mac users aren’t as vocal, though.
I think that explains why some people are simply tired about the Linux topic after so many years.
It’s almost always same old story: A new Windows problem occurs and someone screams “use Linux instead!”, “I move to Linux!”,”I”m so glad I have Linux! LOL!”
And after around 25 years non-stop it really is no fun anymore, it’s just annoying.
It’s annoying like that bully in every school that no one likes.
LOL. I am guessing you weren’t around when Windows fanboys were lashing out at “Linux Lusers”, or talking about how Linux could never beat Windows and would disappear after a few years back in the late 90s and early 2000s. It was ugly. The Windows fanboys were vile. We Linux users back in those days just didn’t think paying thousands of dollars for applications we wanted was justified AND we didn’t believe in piracy. You probably also missed the days when Windows users were always repeating highly vulgar comments about our supposed lack of masculinity and the need to pay SCO the $699 fee as they supposedly “owned” Linux.
I have been using Linux since 1994. I dropped Windows completely by 2006 as it was able to do everything I cared about. I only returned part-time to Windows for two things. FL Studio (great music making application) in 2016, and VR via Oculus Rift-S which was not supported under Linux, in 2020. I use Windows 11 for both of those currently, and unlike to doofus Windows users who can’t stop professing their love of Windows 7 (ick) and Windows XP (double ick), I am far better and deeper of a Windows user than most of them. And I still prefer Linux because it just works better all the way around. From a technical perspective, the design of Linux is better under the hood and only recently have a lot of mistakes been made (the move to systemd for little real value, and the loss of X window system to that garbage pile Wayland that is making the same mistakes that Windows did with putting graphical drivers in kernel space for better performance).
No OS is perfect. I preferred Windows ME as it got nearly everything right. My experience with that was because I DID install it new and not as an upgrade. I hated Windows XP. The UI was terrible and ugly as sin. Windows 8 finally had a great UI when they got rid of the tired Start button and moved to more of a touch screen interface. But then they went backwards because their users couldn’t cope. On Ubuntu, I have rolled with the changes even if I dislike them. XWayland and all the breakage. Yuck. systemd and all the stupid choices (but at least it’s straightening out after over a decade). Pipewire, currently broken for me with a lot of applications but showing promise.
In terms of UIs, the choice is Linux is what I love. I hate KDE. It is too Windows-like and nearly as ugly and inflexible. I prefer Gnome 4, it is better thought out and touchscreen friendly like Windows 8 was. I also love tiling window managers like i3 for my day job as it is far more efficient to be able to work without a mouse most of the time. There are tiling window managers that will work on Windows, but they’re far less user friendly because Windows applications aren’t designed to work that way. Just overall Linux desktop environments and window managers are far prettier than any version of Windows. The fact that some MS utilities in Windows are still using their Windows 95 look is kinda sad.
The bottom line here is that fanboys of any OS are goofballs. I am not a fan boy, but a loving user of Linux for over 30 years and someone who just finds Windows to be a third rate experience for most things. I accept there are other who have had the opposite experience and have zero desire to convince them otherwise. I just disagree with them is all and they can never, likewise, convert me to their way of thinking because they’re wrong. Those are facts that are irrefutable to both sides of that argument.
So what is the point of promoting hatred of either side? Your take is that Linux users are hogging the limelight and spreading hate (even though only a fraction of a percent of all computer users use Linux as their daily driver on the desktop) is incorrect. The Windows side of the house has been far more aggressive and unkind, historically. We Linux users simply use and benefit from the use of Linux because we made the effort to do so. And we lead by example so that others see what we do and ask, “what are you using to do that”? At that point we’re happy to share the love. That is what Linux is about.
Windows, for those that care about the importance of OSes (yes, hardcore tech users actually love the OS itself on both platforms) is usually more about how much money was spent on hardware and software and the performance gains. Much less about freely accessible software (even though there is a lot more of it for Windows these days than there used to be but it is somehow not a selling point), and freedom of information.
Piracy is still a thing in the Windows, unfortunately. I fully believe that if a company wants to charge usurious rates for their software, they should be able to, and they should be relegated to a small user base because of it. I don’t think pirating their software hurts them, but it is ethically bad. This is the main reason I moved to Linux, my hatred of piracy. I wanted Photoshop 4, but I couldn’t justify the cost. I wanted Adobe Premiere but I couldn’t justify the cost. I wanted Steinberg Cubase VST 24, and while I paid nearly $900 for it in the 1990s, I couldn’t justify the cost of the endless upgrade cycle for new features at high prices.I also couldn’t justify pirating any of that.
So… I moved to GIMP which does everything I need for photo editing. I learned the harder to use but much more versatile Cinelerra (Yhank you and RIP GoodGuy) video editor for my video editing and compositing needs. I moved to Rosegarden+Ardour+JACK on Linux as the alternative to Steinberg Cubase and ASIO for about ten years. All the money I saved over the decades meant I was able to buy MORE hardware and higher end hardware to do MORE with my machines than I could with Windows. Also, Linux legs you use your hardware for much longer with no real performance hits. My oldest, still running and usable Linux machine is 15 years old.
My move back to Windows for FL Studio was saved by the relative inexpensiveness of FL Studio and my already existent audio hardware. PCVR was just expensive no matter how you approached it back in 2020 and continues to be. The Meta standalone experience is underwhelming on the Quest devices. But had I tried to do VR in Linux it would have been far more expensive (due to the hardware) and it would have been limited to only some VR games/applications. So as much as I would love to do VR on Linux, it just isn’t really happening. Which points to another thing I have noticed. Linux devs seem to have become fossilized. There is plenty of room for new stuff that they are just ignoring or rejecting because they don’t have “the itch”. For example, all OSes should have voice assistants in this day and age. Mycroft is about the only thing that had some development and got spun off to OpenvoiceOS which is currently highly flawed. I was surprised that there seems to be little interest in it with the general attitude being, “Ah… Who needs a voice assistant. The CLI and GUI are all that is necessary”. That would not have been the attitude back in the 90s and early 2000s. The same with GUIs. While Gnome 4 supports tablet use pretty well, it isn’t ideal out of the box and could stand for some improvements. But again, “the itch” doesn’t seem to exist maybe because convertibles and touch screen laptops aren’t that common.
And the griping about AI that I have seen from Linux users is shocking. If anyone should be a proponent of AI, it should be the Linux world. That is what most of it is built on, and there should be simple installations for it for the average Linux user. Instead, I see a lot of, “No way am I ever wasting my time with that hot garbage” comments. The hates for AI is inexplicable. It will usher in a new era of machine-human integration that a lot of us have been waiting for, for decades. What’s not to love about being augmented?
So as you can see, I am not what you characterize as the “mean” Linux user trying to bully others. If other people want to make poor choices, they are free to. I won’t stop them. I won’t argue with them. I won’t insult them. I WILL accept that they prefer something that I do not. And I will accept that they dislike something they don’t clearly understand. That is their own limitation which is completely understandable. By the same token, I don’t hold up Linux as the perfect OS because it has its shortcomings. It is just that there are fewer shortcomings than Window or MacOS, which is why it is my preferred OS for nearly everything. I have also completely objectively pointed to the primary value of Linux for me: saving money on software and spending it on hardware + longevity of systems that you can’t attain with Windows systems. I am your typical Linux user, not some caricature of an angry basement dwelling “Communist” guy who can’t get a date and engages in attacks on Windows users. Those guys are far and few between and generally suck at Linux.
tl;dr
“I am your typical Linux user, not some caricature of an angry basement dwelling “Communist” guy who can’t get a date and engages in attacks on Windows users. Those guys are far and few between and generally suck at Linux.”
Hi, sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.
And I honestly haven’t though of you as a communist. Still don’t.
I haven’t even made that connection mentally.
In fact, here in Germany being called a “Kapitalist” hurts much deeper.
It’s a real insult, makes you feel guilty and ashamed.
That’s at least how I feel about it, can’t speak for my fellow citizens.
Hm. I have to ask others about it..
Also, I don’t think bad about open source.
ReactOS is open source and I think rather positive about it.
I just think that it’s unfair that Linux always gets the credits for open source.
Why not GnuChess? It’s from 1990 and older than Linux.
As a 3 year part time user/full time Fan & Student of Linux, I am met by the Linux user who graciously encourages me and everyone else to try their fave distro, and is then wondrously catapulted to the other side of the barricade where they can sneer and piss at us because we ask endless questions, don’t understand the grudgingly offered answers, and then don’t demonstrate the expected appreciation for their time and effort on OUR BEHALF!
(Can I Get AN AMEN!)
I started with a 286 desktop and Dos 5, fully clueless. Then added Windows 3.1… WOW. I Was NEVER any kind of expert. But I read and absorbed knowledge from PC MAG, and others. I paid $200 for an ISA-bus USRobotics 56K dial-up MODEM, and I could fax my typed invoices directly from my desktop to a fax machine at accounts payable! Suddenly my world spun in greased grooves! It was a thrill then, and still is.
Having used every release of Windows thru Win10, I am now disgusted by Microsoft and its goal to force Win11 on ME.
LINUX is my new daddy.
So for those of you Linux pros who don’t want to share knowledge with us neophytes, please DONT. If you enjoy doing so, please DO. And bear with us, please.
“alot of toxicity on this topic for sure and a lot of linux haters”
Or let me put it this way, I see some parallels between Linux fan boys and Christian missionars of 19th century.
Both groups want you to “convert” to their confession.
That’s why I wonder for more than 20 years if Linux is a sect of some sort, like Scientology.
That’s why I don’t “embrace” Linuxso easily and try to remain sceptical, not following the mainstream.
Besides, there are alternatives such as BSD (multiple versions) and BeOS (Haiku) and the Amiga OSes.
Niche systems like MenuetOS or KolibriOS are usable on secondary computers. Laptops, single-purpose PCs etc.
It’s not fair that Linux gets all the fame every day.
Linux is dead because BSD and Hurd already exists. Plus, I hate most things because it’s too mainstream.
Like I listen to only super obscure black metal bands because of their obscurity.
black metal isnt all that obscure anymore. i rebelled by downloading the complete works of judas priest. i regret nothing. well maybe turbo.
It’s mostly this Joshua fellow.
But hey, it’s a different POV at least.
Sorry for being so chatty! 😅
Can the OS run Fortnite/SketchUp/Stable Diffusion/PrusaSlicer on my RTX3080? Y/N
im not even sure if reactos has 64-bit yet.
Reinventing the wheel here to put it bluntly. WINE and Proton adds a near perfect compatibility layer to linux. Everything else can go into the virtual machine.
How about putting all this talent and energy into an actually competent open source nvidia driver for linux?
I think the same about the many “useless” Linux distros.
Instead of people wasting their lives on Linux they could do something meaningful for humanity.
What I think is good about ReactOS is the fact that it is free.
There’s no one who can “pull the plug” remotely.
The original, MS Windows, by contrast can be shut down from the far.
Considering the current news from the staates, it’s within the possibilities that this scenario can become real soon. Nothing is impossible anymore.
Thus, the dependecies from US companies should be kept at a minimum.
Because, even if they’re “good” their authorities can (and will) force them to do really mean things.
As an European, this worries me a lot considering how many PCs and industrial systems are dependent on Windows architecture here.
Moving some of it to an older, but equivalent and politically neutral platform would be worth a consideration.
And ReactOS can do that, in principle.
It can use Windows drivers (I tested it with NT 4 drivers about 15 years ago) and doesn’t require them to be signed drivers.
Systems running proprietary machine control software on Windows NT 4, 2000 or Server 2003
can perhaps also be re-installed on ReactOS, with little to no modifications.
If needed, original Windows DLLs can be copied over to ReactOS.
Surely, ReactOS isn’t a substitute to Windows gamers, though.
But it doesn’t have to be, either. Windows as a walking DirectX12 runtime can remain on a dedicated gamer PC.
I first used a unix in 1980. The issue un-raised here, it’s the same, after 45 years.
Name something else as complex as an OS you use everyday that works remotely the same as it did 45 years ago…
45 years ago unix seemed great. Compared to its competitors it was small and orthogonal. As a budding C-programmer, dam near the only game in town. That didn’t last long, Lattice-C arrived and win 3.1 soon thereafter.
C was THE reason to use a unix, yet GUIs quickly claimed the future. The unix-wars left the camp divided and unable to cooperate on a GUI, which instead became a mantra on the supremacy of the command-line. Yet, despite this “Supremacy”, it got completely hammered by Win3.1 (cue the bring-out-yer-dead sketch, unix is “feeling better”).
Unix-cum-linux missed the future-of-computer-usage, has not recovered to this friggin day. Linus’s commentary on why there isn’t, and never will be, a decent gui-option under linux are spot-on.
A linux-aficionado will attack the windows-registry, their ranting off-base because the registry isn’t-the-point. The point IS ControlPanel, demonstrated by all the win-cloning efforts being post-win95.
So, back in the late 80’s I worked at an automaker, trying to wedge workstations in the brief window they were kicking pc’s in the dirt. Curious about the label in the ibm-mainframe-side-of-the-house of “system programmer”. Found out, much to my shock, they were needed to install-the-os. Os’s so byzantine there wasn’t really a standard boot-image, configuration was a days/weeks long effort before anything was remotely usable, a cosmic shit-ton of patches to be applied, and no small amount of custom scripting. 60’s/70’s levels of tech on display, writ large.
Even today, linux looks much closer to those “simpler” times. As evidenced by “containers” ubiquity in production linux. Deploying a containerized application is “system programmer”’s job. That containerization is a necessity demonstrate the baroque level has been long passed.
And here is a final point…what fraction of the linux-community have their parents running linux? It is good to have a big laugh once in a while, don’t you think?
” Yet, despite this “Supremacy”, it got completely hammered by Win3.1 (cue the bring-out-yer-dead sketch, unix is “feeling better”).”
Windows 3.1 had printer drivers and scalable fonts (3.0 had Adobe TypeManager).
It was a bit better suited for office use, thus.
Also, it ran on a humble 80286 PC with 1 megabyte of RAM.
Though 2 or 4 MB or more were more practical in terms of workflow.
OS/2 1.3 was comparably capable, but lacked multimedia support.
Windows 3.1 had it – even on a 286 in Windows Standard-Mode.
But yeah, a mainframe OS makes for a lousy wordprocessor. :)
That’s why CP/M and MP/M had been so beloved on early PCs.
This video sums it up pretty well, I think. It’s a parody.:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVO8RU9h88k
“And here is a final point…what fraction of the linux-community have their parents running linux? It is good to have a big laugh once in a while, don’t you think?”
May I give you and others here an advice? Don’t do that.
Don’t make your family members aware of Linux, let them run Windows and stay on Linux yourself.
Or let them use macOS, that’s even better.
It causes less headachess and maintenance than Windows.
Or tell them that you’re a professional Linux guy for years now who knows little about modern Windows, a consumer product.
Be humble, no need to lie. Just play down your PC competence in this regards, even if it hurts your ego a bit.
Why? In order to free yourself from trouble and saving from others taking advantage of you.
There are many people, family members, friends who may start to treat you as a “PC repair man” that costs nothing.
But that’s not even the point.
The point is that they may start to take your help for granted after a while and start to blame you if things don’t work.
Even if you’re not even remotely responsible, at all.
They will treat you as if you’re being paid and as if it’s your duty to do fix their things.
This may slowly turn everything in a provider-customer relationship, which may hurt the friendship or the family life on the long run.
Really, please think about it. It’s meant as a good advice.
It’s up to you if you follow it or not, I don’t know your people after all.
ReactOS looks about the same progress-wise as it did 10 years ago. I think it’s competing with Guh-Noo HURD for the title of slowest-developed meme OS.
Gówno TURD, duuuuude 🤣
I dream about mac os 7.1 and meybe 7.3
add national language, better audio and network (irda too) and fit in calculator or watch