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GNU is Not Unix Operating Systems Software Windows

ReactOS Now Runs Abiword 62

Posted by timothy from the when-vms-is-too-manstream dept.
martijn-s writes "Reactos will now run, amongst other programs, AbiWord, IrfanView and its own Explorer clone. Screenshot here. I keep getting amazed by the quality of the code that is coming out of this project..."
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ReactOS Now Runs Abiword More

ReactOS Now Runs Abiword

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  • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @10:34PM (#9047679)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • I have mixed feelings about this... it's nice to see somebody working on a replacement for Windows that your average L-user will want to use (Because it will run all their L-user software) and look like their L-user operating system.

      But, at the same time their efforts could be better used to improve the Wine project. I still can't get Wine to run IrFanView.

      I'd like to see ReactOS and Wine get together and share their code and ideas. It could really help to improve both systems. It can't be that hard to

      • Ummm . . . (Score:5, Interesting)

        by erikharrison ( 633719 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @11:44PM (#9048145)
        Well. To clarify I guess . . .

        Wine and ReactOS *are* sharing code and ideas. Wine is really a reimplementation of the Win32 API, and ReactOS is working with them both to improve the Wine DLLs as well as port those DLLs to the ReactOS kernel.

        Wine does work with native Windows DLLs, and so will ReactOS (may now, not sure). As for how hard it is to emulate Windows, it's hard. The Windows runtime is a twist maze of libraries all alike, and it's not just source compat were after here, its binary compat.

        And as for lusers and their software, the disadvantages of a closed system have been widely discussed here on /. This could allow companies to upgrade at their own pace, rather than at Microsoft's, and allows public code review for security holes. This isn't just lusers, this is large corporate installs of NT gaining a signifigantly different and more flexible upgrade path.
      • First, why are you using IrFanView under Wine in Linux when any distro has a number of comparable image viewing/editing utiliies? Very bizarre...almost troll-like. Anyway, to answer your comment:

        ...their efforts could be better used to improve the Wine...

        From the ReactOS website:

        Why don't you help the Wine project instead?

        Actually we work very closely with the Wine project. Wine probably has a lot more in common with ReactOS than with Linux. The Wine project has the goal of implementing the entire wind

    • It's been quite a few years since I was active on their mailing list.. in those days people were still arguing over the minor details. I can't remember why I unsubscribed, but it's nice to know that they're alive and well and doing a wonderful job.
      Congrats ppl. :)

  • ReactOS (Score:1, Troll)

    by Drakker ( 89038 )
    Isn't copying Windows rather useless? If you want something that works like windows, why not simply use windows? Or why not use a window manager like IceWM?

    Why copy a bad interface anyway? I thought that everyone should have learned that copying Apple at least gives you a much better interface. :)

    Seriously, I don't get it, if you make something new, you might as well try to do it different, or improve on what already exist, not simply clone something.

    Last point, I think that the failure of the Wine proj

    • Re:ReactOS (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Isn't copying Windows rather useless?

      Isn't learning Windows rather useless?

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:ReactOS (Score:4, Insightful)

      by FlipmodePlaya ( 719010 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @10:55PM (#9047824) Journal
      I think the point is to make a free Windows. The idea is having a free way to run Windows applications perfectly, the copycat interface is probably just a way to attract those farmiliar with Windows who do not wish to pay for it. Aso, Wine Is Not an Emulator...

      • A "free" Windows? Please. If you bought a PC there is a pretty good chance that you have Windows already, no? Dual boot your system if you want to run Windows. If you don't want to use WINE, you're dual booting to ReactOS.

        Don't get me wrong though: ReactOS (and WINE) are amazing technical developments, but this whole concept of the need for a "free" Windows seems silly.

    • Re:ReactOS (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The goal is to give lasting freedom to as many computer users as possible.

      We can do this by:
      a) making a better product and trying to get people to change their habbits
      b) making the same product at a better price
      c) both

      MS and the MPAA are trying to block us off, so we have to try multiple avenues. We have GNU/Linux, GNU/Hurd, WINE, DotGNU+Mono, Reatos. People work on them because they're fun to work on, and the more the merrier.

    • Re:ReactOS (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ComputerSlicer23 ( 516509 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @11:27PM (#9048034)
      Remember the goals here. First, it's they are trying to be binary compatiable with Windows, so applications and drivers will work exactly the same.

      In particular the version of Windows they are working on is old, and has been EOL'ed. So you can no longer get support for it. It'd be novel to have a version that was fully compatible, and you could have the source to keep up to date with bug fixes.

      Second, they aren't trying to be like Wine. The Wine project is orders of magnitude harder then ReactOS (in some ways). Wine is attempting to make a translation layer from Win32 calls into a Posix/UNIX/Linux environment. That's a whole heck of a lot harder in a number of ways. Things are set absolutely in stone, and can't be changed. On top of all that, at points they get stuck because they are attempting to emulate kernel space functionality in a userspace application a lot of the time.

      ReactOS, can make map kernel space things to kernel space things. They can map user space things to user space things. They already have the entire design, and a known model to follow. That's a lot easier then Wine in terms of implementation. Wine is attempting to live withing a much harder set of constraints then ReactOS. However, ReactOS does have to actually implement an entire OS (so it might be a wash). I know I'd rather try and make ReactOS go, then attempt to make Wine work the way it does.

      Finally, part of the reason Wine has so many problems, is it started out as a Win3.1 or 3.11 tool, doing 16-bit applications. Now it's moved on to covering a half dozen versions of Windows (at least that many). They also support multiple platforms, and are attempting to be reasonable portable.

      The other thing I'll be interested to see is if the ReactOS guys can manage to make it run on MIPS, Sparc, x86, x86-64, Alpha, and any other random platform you can think of. It'd be interesting to see what all they can come up with.

      Kirby

      • One of the nice things about ReactOS is that they are working with the wine project. System level libraries etc have already been written so it makes sense to use them. This is a great bonus because it means the two projects can feed of each other and that cant be a bad thing.

        Wine is a tall order admittedly but it just gets better and better. There is plenty of mileage to go before it really approaches the same level of compatibility as real windows. You can run most of the usual business apps MSOffice etc

    • Re:ReactOS (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Elledan ( 582730 )
      "Seriously, I don't get it, if you make something new, you might as well try to do it different, or improve on what already exist, not simply clone something."

      I think you fail to see the potential of this particular project.

      If a project like ReactOS results in a viable drop-in replacement of Windows (NT, 2k, XP), while adding many of the benefits of OSS (e.g. Linux), it may ultimately end up destroying (a good part of) MSFT's market share of desktop OSs, as few companies and individuals will see the ne
      • as few companies and individuals will see the need to pay for 'Windows' (the OS).

        Don't forget that one of the things that puts those very people off FOSS is the fact that it is free: free means no support, nobody to sue when something goes wrong, no way to show your shareholders that you're spending money wisely.

        ReactOS will only be a sucess as a "drop in Windows replacement" in industry if it manages to do everything in the same way as windows, look the same as windows and have a company sat there offer
        • Does MSFT even offer support for its products? I was under the impression that support to companies who went with a MSFT solution is provided virtually solely by third-party companies with no relation to MSFT.
          Things are even worse for home-users (esp. OEM), who either have to rely on the helpdesk of the OEM they brought their PC from (e.g. Dell, HP), or subject themselves to the knowledge of family-members, friends, and similar.

          With OSS OSs like Linux and *BSD there are many companies willing to offer su
        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • This (MSFT losing a significant part of its market share) matters because it would be the first time in many years that such a huge shift in the desktop market occurs.
          I didn't imply in my post that this would directly benefit the end user, but only used it as an example of one of the potential effects of the success of a project like ReactOS.

          But indeed, indirectly it would likely benefit end users.

    • Re:ReactOS (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      If you want something that works like windows, why not simply use windows?

      Because you also want to use free-as-in-speech software?

      Why copy a bad interface anyway?

      Slashbot groupthink doesn't like the Windows interface, but plenty of people do. That's why Gnome and KDE also copy it.

      I think that the failure of the Wine project...

      Aha, I understand now: you're a filthy troll. What failure of the Wine project? Did all the developers commit mass suicide while my back was turned? Nope, looks like the
    • Because one day Microsoft will ban you from using anything that resembles what you now call "Windows". In the interest of providing you a better service, of course, and nothing to do with trying to get more revenue.
      Or Microsoft will die. Computer companies are short-lived things, compared to their customers.
  • I've seen this screeshot a long time ago on some japanese site [osdev.info].

    When I saw that, I was absolutely stunned. The last thing I saw of ReactOS they barely had a GUI. Is it the cooperation with WINE that makes this quick progress possible?

    • Re:Olds? (Score:5, Informative)

      by GvG ( 776789 ) <ge@van.geldorp.nl> on Tuesday May 04, 2004 @08:29AM (#9050026)
      The code we re-used from Wine certainly helps to speed up development. But we can't re-use everything and have to develop a lot of stuff ourselves. For example, Wine uses X11 primitives to do BitBlts (bitmap copying). Since ReactOS is not X11 based we had to write that stuff ourselves. Also, in Wine, everything is in userspace, while ReactOS follows the NT4 (and later) design where there is a split between userspace and kernelspace, with most of the work actually being done in kernelspace. Still, we try to co-develop as much stuff as possible with Wine. Ofcourse, since Wine has been around much longer and the number of Wine contributors is larger than the number of ReactOS contributors most of the shared code originates in Wine. Ge van Geldorp, ReactOS developer.
      • Your name looks very dutch. :-) Are you?
      • Since there is less code, is ReactOS FASTER than, say, Windows NT4 or Win98?

        • Re:Olds? (Score:2, Informative)

          by GvG ( 776789 )
          No, not at this moment anyway. We're concentrating more on getting the features in than on speed.

        • Re:Olds? (Score:1, Informative)

          by Marxist Hacker 42 ( 638312 )
          Spoken like somebody who doesn't remember programming in less than 16kb of memory.

          Hint: speed and size are INVERSELY porportional. You can create fast code, or you can create small code- but small fast code requires Steve Gibson [grc.com]

  • Repost of a previous comment: (Score:5, Insightful)

    by truefluke ( 91957 ) on Tuesday May 04, 2004 @06:09AM (#9049510) Homepage
    Some others have asked the same question as others have here: Essentially: "Why Bother?"

    Here's the URL of my answer (a comment), (the comment) [signalnine.com]... from an article preceeding slashdot's posting by several days [signalnine.com]... I'll even paste it (my reply) for you if you're adverse or too lazy bother to visiting signalnine.com...

    I still think the POTENTIAL for having a 'free' platform to EASILY port your code to is a good thing. We have no idea what might become of Windows (as we know it) once Longenhurden manifests. This project, I think, offers a small amount of comfort to businesses (think enterprise and small biz, too) who have invested exorbitant amounts of programmer-time and dollars on in-house, 'vertical applications'. They may not need the lastest whiz-bang Microsoft 'features' (that MS says we can't do without). Even if they can't implement all of say, DirectX for gamers; or .Nyet, (I say this because of the potential of land-mine-infested patents...c'mon you KNOW MS isn't benign, ADMIT IT!), running a 'cheap' Delphi application that does your check processing/imaging on NT 4 or Win2k is a VALID REASON for this effort ('what we have right NOW works just FINE, thank you'). There might yet be good cause to dread at what's coming up on the horizon. Just my 2 cents. Was that rambling? I tried to write something lucid and coherent. Sorry if I failed. I'm very tired as I write this.

    • This project, I think, offers a small amount of comfort to businesses (think enterprise and small biz, too) who have invested exorbitant amounts of programmer-time and dollars on in-house, 'vertical applications'.

      Though I'm admittedly intrigued by ReactOS' idea of shooting for NT 4.0, why pour resources into an already unsupported platform? Isn't the .NET platform, targetted already by the open source Mono project [go-mono.com] a better use of resources?

      In the Mono case, we've even got a relatively good breaking poin
      • I have been following the project for four or five years now.
        Damn cool idea. IMHO

        The argument he was putting forward above is that what gets in the way of replacing XP or the .Net platform is twofold:

        1) Microsoft will probably, or even just possibly at some point come out and stomp mono (and any similar .Net replacements)into the ground. best not to aim for that really.

        2) Microsoft has stopped support for NT, and will at some point stop it for 2k. People (or more likely, business) use NT and 2K. People
      • That the platform is not supported is not a good reason, because the question is: Is the platform being used ?

        So you want to reproduce the platform exactly in order to be able to support it; If you have people and source code to work with, you might for example get USB support running on NT, or support for even newer devices.

        You could do this for fun, to be able to use old software or for software archeology.

        Ever tried running vmware under ReactOS running linux running Wine running CoLinux ?

  • waste of time (Score:2, Interesting)

    by tanakan ( 737750 )
    Why on earth are people with so much talent wasting their time trying to re-do existing things !!! Why don't they try to do something new ? A free NT may be a good idea in some way, but by the time ReactOS is 100% compatible with NT5.x, microsoft will have new features, new incompatible things etc... therefore ReactOS will be again behind them and will have to catch up with all the new stuff. In a situation like that Microsoft have the interesting job, because they invent new things and concepts andReactOS

    • Re:waste of time (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Why don't they try to do something new
      The single thing which determines the ultimate success of an OS is the number of applications available for it. MS-Windows at the moment has by far the most apps available. I'm not claiming that each and every one of those apps is the best or that there are no alternatives available for e.g. Linux, I'm simply claiming that more apps are available for MS-Windows than for any other OS.
      What ReactOS tries to do is tap into that vast amount of available apps (and drivers t
      • My view on ReactOS is similar to what is going to happen with Doom3 or Half-Life2 for exemple. Those games will come with several new graphical improvements, which have not been seen so far. That will be something really new regarding the current games that are on the market...and that's the reason why everybody (well, every gamer) is looking forward to them. Then, after the release of those games, a lot of new games will appear but with no improvement at all. They will just be clones of Doom3 or HL2 and th
    • Your argument -- almost word for word -- was probably used over a two decades ago when RMS started the GNU project to build a Free UNIX. The exact same reasons why the GNU project was started [gnu.org] apply to why the ReactOS project should exist.

      Today we have Linux. Who knows what we'll have ten years from now if ReactOS can keep up the good work?
    • Others have replied thoughtfully, now consider what is happening in the proprietary Unix market due to the introduction of Linux and the free BSDs. Sun is hurting, IBM is considering dropping AIX, SCO has become a litigation company, HP and Novell are going full steam ahead with Linux.

      In the meantime Microsoft is forging ahead with new versions of Windows that don't seem to add much to what the customer wants. Does XP innovate with respect to win2k? I'm not sure. Will Longhorn be any good when it is releas
  • Good enough to run some Windows apps. I wonder if it is effected by the same Malware and Security breaches that Windows has, or if it is immune to it? If it is the later, I would be very interested in seeing ReactOS run more Windows applications in the near future.

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