On a side note, _in the context of workstations_, I wonder if a hypothetical OS that reimplements the Windows APIs (like ReactOS, but with perfect modern hardware support) would be better for end users than a Linux distro with a modern DE.
In the past, this hypothetical OS would be a revolution. But I feel that, in recent years, this gap is not as big anymore and Linux supports way more apps than in the past. Such an OS might even not be relevant anymore, even if it exists.
Do I have a blind spot on this? Is there value in having a "working ReactOS" as of 2026 _for workstations_?
> Is there value in having a "working ReactOS" as of 2026 _for workstations_?
The ideas behind the NT kernels are much deeper than what many Linux fans think of it. Just to give some examples:
- the NT kernel is build around supporting multiple subsystems, even though currently only "1.5" are in active use: the Windows subsystem and WSL1 (the latter has for many purposes been replaced by WSL2)
- the NT kernel is not built around "everything is a file" (a very leaky and very incompletely implemented abstraction that is used in GNU/Linux); instead the central concept is the handle
- the I/O in NT kernel is built around the idea that the API is "completion-oriented" instead of being "readiness-oriented" as in Linux.
This manifests in concepts like I/O Completion Ports (IOCPs), Overlapped I/O, ...
Since this is a deeply technical topic, I refer to https://speakerdeck.com/trent/parallelism-and-concurrency-wi... (the most important information is in the backup slides (slides 43-54)).
And you can also argue that that's overengineered (the original NT design docs were posted on here a while ago), that the UNIX model (while much more primitive and simplified) has proven more successful in the real world, and that the original "clean, overengineered" NT design has been buried under a progressively bigger truckload of crap year upon year and is no longer as clean as it once was.
> the original "clean, overengineered" NT design has been buried under a progressively bigger truckload of crap year upon year and is no longer as clean as it once was.
The original UNIX model has (considering the current state of GNU/Linux) similarly buried under a progressively bigger truckload of crap year upon year and is no longer as clean as it once was.
A central difference is: the NT kernel stayed rather clean (the crapload rather happened in the Windows subsystem).
I should have mentioned that I am speaking from a Plan 9 point of view where some of the common mechanisms are provided via the kernel file servers such as /proc.
IMHO with a couple of fixes which allow Linux+Wine to better simulate some specific lowlevel Windows behaviours (like this one recently in the news: https://www.xda-developers.com/wine-11-rewrites-linux-runs-w...)... a Linux distro with a 'Windows personality' (e.g. running Windows Explorer as desktop) should be pretty much indistinguishable from native Windows.
In the end it's all about driver diversity and quality though...
Wouldn't that just be Linux with Wine? It would be less effort to implement further APIs/fix incompatibilities on Wine rather than reimplement a new OS from scratch.
ReactOS is a labour of love and it is heartwarming to see it progress. For more than a decade I lived with the dream of switching to it fulltime from Windows on my personal hardware. Alas, it was not to be, as apple silicon appeared and provided me with an immediate good-battery-life-and-not-Microsoft option.
> Of course it BSODed a few times, but a simple reboot later I was able to continue.
Not sure what concerns me more, the "BSOD" or "Of course".
its goal is to be a fully compatible version of NT5 no?
On a side note, _in the context of workstations_, I wonder if a hypothetical OS that reimplements the Windows APIs (like ReactOS, but with perfect modern hardware support) would be better for end users than a Linux distro with a modern DE.
In the past, this hypothetical OS would be a revolution. But I feel that, in recent years, this gap is not as big anymore and Linux supports way more apps than in the past. Such an OS might even not be relevant anymore, even if it exists.
Do I have a blind spot on this? Is there value in having a "working ReactOS" as of 2026 _for workstations_?
> Is there value in having a "working ReactOS" as of 2026 _for workstations_?
The ideas behind the NT kernels are much deeper than what many Linux fans think of it. Just to give some examples:
- the NT kernel is build around supporting multiple subsystems, even though currently only "1.5" are in active use: the Windows subsystem and WSL1 (the latter has for many purposes been replaced by WSL2)
- the NT kernel is not built around "everything is a file" (a very leaky and very incompletely implemented abstraction that is used in GNU/Linux); instead the central concept is the handle
- the I/O in NT kernel is built around the idea that the API is "completion-oriented" instead of being "readiness-oriented" as in Linux. This manifests in concepts like I/O Completion Ports (IOCPs), Overlapped I/O, ... Since this is a deeply technical topic, I refer to https://speakerdeck.com/trent/parallelism-and-concurrency-wi... (the most important information is in the backup slides (slides 43-54)).
For a better implementation of everything being a file, Plan 9 and inferno come pretty close to literally everything being a file.
- the NT kernel is not built around "everything is a file" ... instead the central concept is the handle
File descriptor, handle. Potayto, potahto.
> File descriptor, handle. Potayto, potahto.
Under Windows, a lot more concepts are handles than just files, directories, symbolic links, pipes, mail slots, ..., e.g.
- processes, threads
- synchronization objects (mutex, semaphore)
- events (CreateEventEx)
- I/O Completion Ports
- Sections (ZwCreateSection) and Partitions (https://www.geoffchappell.com/studies/windows/km/ntoskrnl/ap... ) for memory
- waitable timers
- GUI components (HWND)
And you can also argue that that's overengineered (the original NT design docs were posted on here a while ago), that the UNIX model (while much more primitive and simplified) has proven more successful in the real world, and that the original "clean, overengineered" NT design has been buried under a progressively bigger truckload of crap year upon year and is no longer as clean as it once was.
> the original "clean, overengineered" NT design has been buried under a progressively bigger truckload of crap year upon year and is no longer as clean as it once was.
The original UNIX model has (considering the current state of GNU/Linux) similarly buried under a progressively bigger truckload of crap year upon year and is no longer as clean as it once was.
A central difference is: the NT kernel stayed rather clean (the crapload rather happened in the Windows subsystem).
I should have mentioned that I am speaking from a Plan 9 point of view where some of the common mechanisms are provided via the kernel file servers such as /proc.
pidfd, eventfd, AF_NETLINK, epoll, memfd, timerfd?
You may be interested in https://loss32.org/
This is pretty damn cool.
IMHO with a couple of fixes which allow Linux+Wine to better simulate some specific lowlevel Windows behaviours (like this one recently in the news: https://www.xda-developers.com/wine-11-rewrites-linux-runs-w...)... a Linux distro with a 'Windows personality' (e.g. running Windows Explorer as desktop) should be pretty much indistinguishable from native Windows.
In the end it's all about driver diversity and quality though...
> should be pretty much indistinguishable from native Windows
PRO: less telemetry
CON: less battery life
Wouldn't that just be Linux with Wine? It would be less effort to implement further APIs/fix incompatibilities on Wine rather than reimplement a new OS from scratch.
SteamOS but for more than just games, perhaps?
Photos and videos from the event: https://photos.app.goo.gl/1LrSoM4qNecdmpqh6
I have the feeling that this OS might become to Windows what Linux became to Unix.
People have hoped that for a long while but sadly I don't ever see that happening
Well, I think we need that considering the directions MS wants to go in. Windows isn't even usable for the people who don't hate it anymore.
Driver support seems to me like it could be an advantage over Linux.
Does anyone here know the current state of installing a browser on ReactOS?
I think it has WINEs browser which is webkit based
Wine's recreation of MSHTML is based on Gecko from Firefox
https://gitlab.winehq.org/wine/wine/-/wikis/Gecko
ReactOS is a labour of love and it is heartwarming to see it progress. For more than a decade I lived with the dream of switching to it fulltime from Windows on my personal hardware. Alas, it was not to be, as apple silicon appeared and provided me with an immediate good-battery-life-and-not-Microsoft option.
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