Open Source Alternative to Windows - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: jonovid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 02, 2021, 11:30:18 am
content: ReactOShttps://reactos.orgare you not satisfied with Windows In 2021?maybe its the direction Microsoft is moving in.so is ReactOS a true alternative to Windows?its looks very 1998 retro a Win98 look about it.has anyone tryed ReactOS on a home PC?can it run todays video and or audio editor's , PC games esc..? can it run ActiveX for games?-maybe retro games only?or is ReactOS still too deeply in-development to use as an alternative to Windows.be interesting to know if you have used itsee thisReactOS_ Can It Replace Windows In 2021_!alternatives to ReactOS?

author: Benta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 02, 2021, 06:47:32 pm
content: No interest. I changed to Lubuntu 2 years ago. It's plenty "Windows-alike" for my purposes. Games: don't care.But I wonder about the sales plug. Is that really necessary? Makes your "ReactOS" look like snake oil.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 02, 2021, 07:45:17 pm
content: I played around with it a couple years ago out of curiosity and found it to be rather rough around the edges, offering little in the way of advantages over an older copy of the real deal. Interesting concept though.

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 02, 2021, 09:09:59 pm
content: For me it's interesting because I need to run Avoget and other precious Wintel applications.However, ReactOS is limited to what? Windows 2000?

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 02, 2021, 11:41:15 pm
content: Ahah, seeing the title, I thought "huh... Linux?".But yeah. A more direct "alternative". ReactOS is now a very old project, and has never really took off. It's what? 20 years old or so? And still never reached anywhere close to version 1.0...It's of course a lot of work, and was an interesting initiative at the time. But I honestly don't think it will ever be useful.If you need to run Windows apps, your best and most robust bet these days would just be Linux + Wine. Now if this combo is not fit for your purpose for performance reasons, or hardware support reasons, I really doubt ReactOS would be close to giving you a better alternative at this point. So...I'm admirative that some people are still working on ReactOS, though. Given the state of things, it could have been abandoned entirely.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 03, 2021, 09:34:58 am
content: It admit I can't be bothered to watch a 36 minute video about it.I haven't used ReactOS but it's good it has been developed, because it's benefited other projects, such as WINE, which I do use.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 03, 2021, 07:46:12 pm
content: Quote from: Zero999 on July 03, 2021, 09:34:58 amNot that it really matters, it's not a contest... but, from what I remember, I think Wine actually benefited more to ReactOS than the other way around, all in all. Wine also started 5 years before ReactOS.ReactOS shows how hard writing a Windows-compatible OS would be. This is a 23 years old project, and it's still not fully usable. Of course, one of the reasons is all the reverse-engineering that had to be done. Another reason is probably the lack of contributors. I don't think it generated a lot of traction. Possibly, a lot of potential contributors did consider this project an oddball in the open-source world, and were even fearing the project would end up being shot down by MS. As the story goes, there was an audit in 2006 that showed some suspicion regarding the possibly copy of some binary code straight from Windows. This contributed to many developers quitting the project.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReactOS#Internal_auditThe source code seems pretty clean these days. But as I said, I think it's too late. Now, who knows...

author: Lord of nothing
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2021, 10:05:56 am
content: QuoteCan a Software Access Hardware like it work in Win(7)?I use a lot of Software who run only on Windows not on a native Linux. And no I cant change an Application since the have unique features I want, need,...

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2021, 10:28:18 am
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on July 02, 2021, 11:41:15 pmLinux + Wine doesn't support software like Avoget, because Wine is limited to the API interface.ReactOS makes more sense, but I need something compatible with at least Windows XP

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2021, 06:47:51 pm
content: You'd probably be better off just using Windows XP. ReactOS is far from finished, and I suspect it never will be finished. I would not automatically assume it to be more secure than XP, it is of similar age and does not appear to have a great deal of development happening.