Comments on Getting started with ReactOS
ReactOS is a relatively new open source operating system that resembles the looks of Windows NT and aims to offer similar levels of functionality and application compatibility. Featuring a wine-based user mode, this system doesn't use any of the Unix architecture, but is a rewrite of the NT architecture from scratch, with its very own FAT32 implementation, and completely free of legal implications. That said, this is not yet another Linux distro, but a unique Windows-like system that is a part of the free software world. This quick guide aims at users who want an easy to use, open source replacement for their Windows system.
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holy f. i hope micros**t doesnot sue. just kidding.
I have a vm for it and installed the essentials to try out an OS such as wget so I could download other apps to try. It took a lot of tries just to get wget to install. It crashed and I had to go back to snapshots else it was toast. I wouldn't use reactos any time soon. I was a bit disapointed it hasn't come further. It has improved but it has been around for something like 6 years and seems kind of slow growth. Seems like 2 years between releases.
This has been in development since 1996 and it's still in alpha stage after 20 years. This is an exercise in futility.
Rome wasn't built in a day. And remember that M-something had lots more money and resources. ReactOS is based really on volunteers and their spare time. I've seen different roadmaps and generally they said that ReactOS 1.0 would have been ready a few years back but... It's 2016 and still v0.4.1 - however putting pesimism aside, I think it's still worth it, it they finally do get to a really stable version I wont have to get rid of my old laptop after all :) it's only 11 years old :)
I would like to know what setup of VM the author used for this article. I use qemu/kvm and although older versions used to work, I am not able to get the latest version to work.
I used Oracle's VM on a 32-bit box. :)
There is an awful lot that isn't working, some that does, works very well. But it is currently targeting XP only, which makes it almost useless.Together wth that, there is a very small team working on this and there is likely to be zero chance that it'll survive is M$ thinks it is getting serious. Quite simply, it's a nice idea, but at the end of the day, it will more than likely end up being a dead product that you couldn't use; even if they move beyond XP.
One of the main /issues/ with the project is that it aims to make everything look, feel and act like the original programs on XP; that alone will give it trademark issues.... the same kind of "dressing", so to speak.
I would love to see this progress, but unfortunately it won't have a hope other than for limited educational purposes which is the only way it can continue to fly under the radar.
I can't even get sounds, aside from the login sound, to play in this OS in VirtualBox. Definitely not ready for prime time.
> Right now, version 0.4.13 looks nice so far, but one has to admit that ReactOS development seems to have stalled.
It's not correct to judge about ReactOS development activity by the frequency of its releases. If you want to see the real picture of activity, better look at the statistics of the public git repository.
I have heard that the ReactOS team had hired a full-time employee to develop their memory management system in about 2020 .It seems that they have tried to speed up the development.