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  1. Banned
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    nope, not talking about a linux or unix based distribution, i'm talking about a real threat to windows dominance on the desktop:

    http://www.reactos.org/about-reactos

    http://www.reactos.org/

    ReactOS® is an effort to create a Free and Open Source replacement for the Microsoft Windows NT® family that is compatible with both applications and drivers. The NT® architecture has always been highly flexible and powerful and its continued dominance in the computer industry means it is one of the most supported family of operating systems in existence, with its latest iteration being Windows 8.
    As these days operating systems are little more than gateways to applications that users want to run, an open source NT implementation would allow users to continue using familiar programs in a familiar environment. The project seeks to embrace the strengths of the NT family while avoiding many of the configuration decisions that made older versions of Windows vulnerable and maintaining a lightweight environment so that a computer's resources can be dedicated to what really matters to the user, running their applications.
    The main goal of the ReactOS® project is to provide an operating system which is binary compatible with Windows. This will allow your Windows® applications and drivers to run as they would on your Windows system. Additionally, the look and feel of the Windows operating system is used, such that people accustomed to the familiar user interface of Windows® would find using ReactOS straightforward. The ultimate goal of ReactOS® is to allow you to use it as alternative to Windows® without the need to change software you are used to.
    i wonder what the over/under is as it relates to how long it takes MS to sue these guys into oblivion.

    regardless, i wish these guys luck, such an OS would be awesome, being able to use all your existing software and hardware/drivers but never having to buy another windows license or pirate a copy of windows or worry that MS is going to try and force you to upgrade to Win 9 or 10 or whatever they release over the next couple of years.
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  2. Mod Neophyte Super Moderator redwudz's Avatar
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  3. Banned
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    Look up GNU Hurd, which was originally going to be a real threat to commercial Unixes but took so long to come out that nobody cared any more by the time it finally did.

    From the Wikipedia article on ReactOS - "Thom Holwerda of OSNews categorized ReactOS under a family of hobby operating systems that are maintained only by small groups of developers working in their spare time, and lack the financial support of more mainstream operating systems as well as the legacy of formerly mainstream ones such as RISC OS."

    The article says that the way they implemented it should be safe from Microsoft suing them (you can reimplement features as long as you don't copy code), but it also says that Microsoft isn't worried at all about it, calling it "harmless to Microsoft". I'll predict that Android PCs will be a more real threat to Microsoft and sooner than ReactOS, if ReactOS ever becomes enough to be useful to the masses.
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  4. ReactOS -- I haven't tried it recently but a few years ago it wasn't so good. China OS is a Linux fork.

    http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/16/cos-china-operating-system/
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  5. I tried ReactOS last year some time, it was nothing more than a mere toy.
    I don't believe it even had usb support at that time.
    I wouldn't hold my breath on this one, it doesn't appear to be viable...and they have been at it for some years now.
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  6. Member
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    ReactOS has been in development in various forms since the 1990's and has never gotten past Alpha.

    IIRC, development stopped circa 2007 and is supported by their Wiki that reference their Windows NT compatibility (including using NT drivers!) and Win XP.

    Given that even Microsoft can't get full backward compatibility with their previous versions of Windows, it's extremely unlikely that anyone can make a fully functional Windows clone.

    Hopefully, someone will be able to build a 'true' Windows clone. But I don't see ReactOS as being the giant killer.
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  7. Member Seeker47's Avatar
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    Whatever happened to Lindows ? That was generating some hype, several years back. There was even talk of pre-loads, on some systems available at big box stores. Never heard anything further . . . .

    If there ever was a true lookalike, workalike, any of us can just pick it up and easily run with it immediately, Win-killer OS, we would all probably know about it, in pretty short order.
    When in Las Vegas, don't miss the Pinball Hall of Fame Museum http://www.pinballmuseum.org/ -- with over 150 tables from 6+ decades of this quintessentially American art form.
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  8. Lindows became Linspire after Microsoft paid them $20M to change their name. Later it was bought out by Xandros who killed killed it off and later expired themselves.
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  9. Banned
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    Originally Posted by redwudz View Post
    is the "no political comments" comment an advance warning just in case someone feels like going off on an ant-china rant?

    regardless, this isn't the first OS that china has "officially" released, there used to be a Red Hat based distro called Red Flag Linux that if i recall was officially released either by the Chinese government or by a Chinese university with the Chinese government's backing.

    either way, i wouldn't consider using any OS made or released by the Chinese and i'm pretty sure everyone can figure out why.
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  10. Banned
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    Originally Posted by Seeker47 View Post
    Whatever happened to Lindows ? That was generating some hype, several years back. There was even talk of pre-loads, on some systems available at big box stores. Never heard anything further . . . .

    If there ever was a true lookalike, workalike, any of us can just pick it up and easily run with it immediately, Win-killer OS, we would all probably know about it, in pretty short order.
    Lindows was awesome, some former MS executive had started the company after leaving MS and it was easy to use, fast, sleek and overall well done.

    iirc, MS had a problem with them using the Lindows name, there was a pay off of some kind, and it was renamed Linspire and it was still one of the better Linux distros. i don't know whatever happened to them but i'm pretty sure they folded up a while ago.
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  11. deadrat, you have nice sense of humour, as title says "open source windows replacement".

    TuX is lamed when it comes to multi-media, long long way to run... it can not catch it up even in far future. Plus TuX is getting more and more dirty by brand-biased people. Every different flavor favours some with a biased likings knowingly or unknowingly. It is already started fading in market share.
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  12. Member
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    It may not actually be a unix/linux derivative but it depends on Wine, which is a unix/linux program. Their site says it's "written completely from scratch". Horse pucky.

    It may be "open source" (though that can be a nebulous term) but i's a reverse engineered so called copy of a closed source OS.

    Based mostly on a program (wine) that isn't even a VM but just a compatibility layer, and a very buggy one at that. Any reasonably knowledgeable linux geek would use a virtual machine instead.

    This is a joke. If you want to run xp like this, get an xp system image, install linux, run windows in virtualbox or some other VM.
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