Linux

48624 readers

1415 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
No misinformation
No NSFW content
No hate speech, bigotry, etc

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Wouldn't development of ReactOS from a larger community ultimately help ALL OS's? (self.linux)

submitted 6 days ago by Lost_My_Mind to c/[email protected]

42 comments fedilink hide all child comments

So, if you've never heard of ReactOS, it's an alternative to Windows, except it's open source, and reverse engineered.

The end result is, if it works on Windows, it works on ReactOS natively.

Now, as you might imagine, there are some issues with this. The most glaring one being that they're currently in the year 2003. That's the level they're at with software. It's not even emulation. It's running the software natively, and it's written from scratch.

But my takeaway is that Linux running windows apps natively would improve people's hesitation to running linux.

Now since ReactOS is FOSS, any improvements made upon it could then be forked over to Linux. And if someone made a ReactOS fork, that isn't linux, that's good too (as long as it stays open source). Any advancements made by this new theoretical fork of ReactOS could ALSO be forked into linux.

Right now, development is slow, because it's a community driven effort without much of a community. If it had a large and engaged community, all legally reverse engeneering the ways of windows? That would allow basically EVERY OS to have FOSS unofficial native windows support.

So I guess my question is, for an OS that's been in development since 1998, why doesn't the linux community embrace ReactOS?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] timewarp 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Running Windows on a VM requires significant RAM & usually an extra GPU to make both operating systems work anywhere close to equivalent in terms of performance. Even then, the hypervisor can still cause issues with enterprise software and licensing.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Yes but most machines these days have a ton of RAM and 4-8 CPUs. GPU is only required for 3D accelerated work. I think the standard QXL virtual GPU works fine for non-accelerated purposes. No idea how often licensing could be a problem. Haven't had issues myself but I don't use much proprietary stuff. Your standard MS Office, Adobe, AutoCAD stuff works fine to me.