r/linux • u/anh0516 • Aug 29 '26
Alternative OS Introducing ReactOS 0.4.16
https://reactos.org/project-news/reactos-0416-released/61
u/SinnohConfirmed Aug 29 '26 edited Aug 29 '26
As someone who likes using Windows XP era hardware for retro gaming, I think ReactOS could be an interesting open source alternative since it strives to be compatible with drivers from the era.
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u/nightblackdragon Aug 29 '26
It seems that this version specifically improved support for graphics drivers. I would give it a try if I had some old XP compatible PC.
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u/jhaluska Aug 29 '26
Even if I don't plan to use them any time soon, I always love seeing progress on alternative OSes.
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u/ruby_R53 Aug 29 '26
same here i could very well try them in a VM later on as they're quite fun to fiddle with
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u/tseli0s Aug 29 '26
I am very happy to see this. ReactOS is invaluable in my eyes for a multitude of reasons. Hopefully, we get to see a beta sometime soon. I'd love to give it a try in my main computer at some point.
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u/MidLifeDIY Aug 29 '26 edited Aug 29 '26
This and HURD. Neat pet projects that don't seem to be too useful. But "Just because" is also fine.
EDIT: Genuinely no shade meant. I've watched these projects for many years and hoped someone chimed with a use case I wasn't aware of. Was a quick post of a passing thought. ✌️
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u/tseli0s Aug 29 '26
ReactOS is EXTREMELY useful. You don't know what you're talking about. It helps with
winedevelopment (Yes, that thing that makes it possible to run your Windows games and programs). It provides a completely free reimplementation of NT that all people can study for free. It is the only hope for old and embedded systems which need an NT5-compatible operating system receiving updates. I can go on for a long time.45
u/coolcosmos Aug 29 '26
It's legally useful too. They're breaking ground in acceptance of open source implementation of closed source software.
To me this is the most important aspect of the project. Long live ReactOS
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u/nightblackdragon Aug 29 '26
It helps with
winedevelopmentWine doesn't accept code from ReactOS even as reference:
https://gitlab.winehq.org/wine/wine/-/wikis/Clean-Room-Guidelines6
u/tseli0s Aug 29 '26
Verbatim code? Of course not. The development effort is what's shared.
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u/nightblackdragon Aug 29 '26
The development effort is what's shared.
It's not. Wine not only doesn't accept code from ReactOS but also code from people that used ReactOS code as a reference for their own.
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u/ArchaneChutney Aug 29 '26
They don’t accept code from anyone who has worked with ReactOS code, even if it’s not an exact copy of ReactOS code. So what development effort is being shared exactly?
This bug is an example of code being rejected because the author looked at ReactOS code, even though the code wasn’t an exact copy of ReactOS code
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u/nelmaloc Aug 30 '26
So apparently they disagree on the clean-room process? Would be nice to have a reasoning.
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u/teo-tsirpanis Aug 29 '26
It is the only hope for old and embedded systems which need an NT5-compatible operating system receiving updates.
I'm doubtful that ReactOS would meet the support and compliance requirements of organizations that use such old and embedded systems.
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Aug 29 '26
[deleted]
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u/tseli0s Aug 29 '26
Half the comments here call it a useless project, dismissing the value of it. I think it's unfair to the developers.
Of course it isn't. seL4 also isn't. Guess what, it's still so useful even though you probably never heard of it.
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u/ThecaTTony Sep 01 '26
But is far from being stable for production usage. I've been following the project for over 15 years and it's progressing at a snail's pace.
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u/LazyCatRocks Aug 29 '26
Yes, how dare people develop pet projects in their own time.
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u/necessarycoot72 Aug 29 '26
who said that people cant develop their own projects?
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u/PixelatedGiant Aug 29 '26
Lots of people get told not to spend time on hobbies that don't make money and aren't inherently social (face-to-face) or keep you physically active. Some people get really bent out of shape about people spending time on hobbies that don't generate value. Irrationally so.
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u/necessarycoot72 Aug 29 '26
OK, but this is a Linux subreddit and op was saying that these types of projects are neat.
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u/PixelatedGiant Aug 29 '26
He was being sarcastic and saying the kinds of things the type of person I just described would. I'm explaining where that is coming from.
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u/ordep_caetano Aug 30 '26
Managed to install this on a vm using libvirtd! I'll test some apps from the windows xp era, that I seldom use.
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u/Veprovina Aug 29 '26
I love seeing such projects, but i wonder, what is the point of this? Does this fill some niche that needs to be filled? Maybe some older hardware that only worked with windows 95 til xp, and just won't work on modern windows?
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u/josegfx Aug 29 '26
I guess its the same "niche" as WINE but with a much bigger scope
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u/pixelbart Aug 29 '26
Wine’s goal is to add the ability to run Windows programs to other operating systems. The best thing ReactOS could theoretically provide is 100% software compatibility with Windows, with no advantage over Windows other than OS licensing costs, which are a small fraction of total operating costs in corporate environments.
The problem with both is that no hardware or software vendor is going to offer any kind of support unless they explicitly provide (and charge for) it, for example when making software compatible with Wine (including testing) is cheaper than porting it to Linux.
There’s no reason to make Windows software compatible with a compatible non-Windows operating system if the only difference is that the other OS is free.
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u/josegfx Aug 29 '26
ReactOS is the one providing the compatibility with the software, not the other way around
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u/skeptical-speculator Aug 29 '26
I love seeing such projects, but i wonder, what is the point of this?
The point of this is to reverse-engineer windows.
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u/Yoksul-Turko Aug 30 '26
It is an open source OS that can run Windows drivers. If you have an old device that has Windows driver, completed ReactOS would just run it. For Linux or BSDs you have to reverse engineer it.
While reverse engineering is more work, you can add new features if possible.
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u/Narishma Aug 29 '26
I have one such hardware. Heck it doesn't even work with modern Linux anymore. I'm currently using NetBSD on it but I wouldn't mind trying ReactOS some time.
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u/Buntygurl Aug 29 '26
While the idea of encouraging empathy for a facsimile of the least user-friendly and most insecure of all PC operating systems ever invented strikes me as profoundly dodgy, right from the start, it's impossible to not respect the energy and effort of those who consistently and persistently make React OS a real thing in the world.
Vast respect.
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u/siete82 Aug 29 '26 edited Aug 29 '26
The big advantage this project promised was full hardware compatibility thanks to native support for Windows drivers. That support never materialized, and in the meantime, Linux has improved so much in that regard that it's practically no longer an issue.
If you add to that the fact that its goal is to implement a version of Windows that's been obsolete for 20 years, I honestly don't see the point in continuing to put effort into that project.
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u/nightblackdragon Aug 29 '26
If you add to that the fact that its goal is to implement a version of Windows that’s been obsolete for 20 years
It's not, some time ago they started implementing support for NT 6+ (Vista and newer) applications as well. It's also not like they can just skip Windows XP/2003 compatibility and start working on Windows 11 compatibility, every Windows release (well except first one) is built on top of previous.
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u/siete82 Aug 29 '26
I mean, Vista was released in 2006. Perhaps the biggest problem is the huge gap between what they've already implemented and the current version of Windows. This project has been in development for decades, and that gap isn't getting any smaller but the opposite.
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u/nightblackdragon Aug 29 '26 edited Aug 29 '26
I said "Vista and newer", not "Vista". Vista reworked architecture and every newer Windows is built on top of that. You can't skip that if you want to have modern Windows compatibility.
This project has been in development for decades, and that gap isn't getting any smaller but the opposite.
It is developed by small group of developers doing it mostly in their free time. It's not surprising it can't catch up to the product developed by one of the biggest companies in the world. Linux and Wine are not ReactOS replacement, they don't and likely won't ever support Windows drivers which is the goal for ReactOS.
Besides even if ReactOS can't catch up to Windows having open source OS partially compatible with Windows NT is pretty useful. There are plenty of open-source UNIX-like operating systems, but not many that are compatible with Windows and others.
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u/siete82 Aug 29 '26
As I mentioned in my first comment, the driver issue is practically irrelevant these days. In any case, ReactOS isn't a replacement for anything either, because it supports almost no drivers or software.
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u/mohrcore Aug 29 '26
Irrelevant?
Try to run pretty much any low-latency I/O processing app through several compatibility layers.
I'm yet to see anyone run any sort of Windows-only DAW with acceptable latency. Even if the drivers on Linux are decent (for most audio interfaces they don't perform as well as proprietary Windows drivers), the app still talks with them as if they were running on Windows, uses Windows abstractions and manages system resources as if they were parts of Windows subsystems.
I think the only way to deal with this is to make the operating system just work the way Windows did. But ReactOS seems to not be there yet.
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u/siete82 Aug 29 '26
And none of that works in ReactOS either. And yes, it's irrelevant to the vast majority of people who don't use niche hardware.
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u/nightblackdragon Aug 29 '26
As I mentioned in my first comment, the driver issue is practically irrelevant these days
Maybe on the desktop but there are various embedded devices or devices that doesn't support anything other than Windows XP.
In any case, ReactOS isn't a replacement for anything either, because it supports almost no drivers or software.
A lot of software works fine as ReactOS Win32 implementation is based on Wine, as for the drivers, ReactOS already can run some Windows drivers, this version specifically improved support for XP era graphics drivers.
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u/siete82 Aug 29 '26
Maybe on the desktop but there are various embedded devices or devices that doesn't support anything other than Windows XP.
Embedded devices are an extreme niche case. Most of them don't even connect to the network. If this is the use case they're trying to address, they've gone way overboard.
A lot of software works fine as ReactOS Win32 implementation is based on Wine, as for the drivers, ReactOS already can run some Windows drivers, this version specifically improved support for XP era graphics drivers.
So what advantage does ReactOS offer me over running the program on Linux with Wine?
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u/nightblackdragon Aug 29 '26
Embedded devices are an extreme niche case.
ReactOS is supposed to cover every Windows use case, the IT world doesn't end with the desktop. Aside from the technical aspects, there's also an educational benefit - there's no better (and legal, aside from working at Microsoft) way to examine the source code of a system based on the Windows NT architecture.
So what advantage does ReactOS offer me over running the program on Linux with Wine?
If Linux with Wine already does everything you need then none but as I said ReactOS is much more than just running Windows applications.
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u/siete82 Aug 29 '26
Of course it has educational value, I don't doubt that. But if that's all it is, they should stop pretending that it could one day replace Windows, because that's not going to happen.
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u/nightblackdragon Aug 29 '26
Should Linux also stop pretending it's going to completely replace Windows as it's not going to happen anytime soon? Should Wine also stop pretending it's going to run all Windows applications on POSIX compatible operating systems as that's also likely not going to happen anytime soon?
They describe ReactOS as "Windows compatible OS" because that's their goal. What should they say about their system: “operating system compatible with Windows (but in reality it isn't and never will be)”? They are not pretending anything, they literally warn you that ReactOS is in alpha state and it might even work on your hardware at all. They never said they are already compatible with Windows or will be in near future.
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u/Ball_Analytics Aug 29 '26
It’s right there on the page linked
> The mission for ReactOS is to “[Run] your favorite Windows applications and drivers in an open-source environment you can trust.” With each release we come closer to fulfilling this goal. We look forward to sharing more developments and progress with you.
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u/siete82 Aug 29 '26
Well, they've failed in their mission. And that's to be expected, it was too big a task. Maybe it's time to move on to something else.
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u/nightblackdragon Aug 29 '26
Desktop Linux failed to become more popular than Windows, some maybe it's the time to drop everything related to desktop and move on to focus on servers and embedded. /s
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u/steamcho1 Sep 01 '26
Desktop linux only started competing with windows in a real way very recently.
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u/siete82 Aug 29 '26
There's a small difference: Linux actually works, ReactOS doesn't.
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u/nightblackdragon Aug 29 '26
Linux actually works
Not for the people that need software that doesn't work outside Windows or hardware that have drivers only for Windows.
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u/siete82 Aug 29 '26
Ok, but ReactOS doesn't work for those people either, or for anyone.
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u/nightblackdragon Aug 29 '26 edited Aug 29 '26
Yeah, not much difference between ReactOS and Linux for them so they could also ask what's the point of working on desktop Linux when it's not going to replace Windows for them.
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u/siete82 Aug 29 '26
ReactOS can't even be installed on real hardware, it supports only a handful of drivers and software, and even that is because it basically uses Wine's code. It's an absurd and misleading comparison.
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u/Banepa Aug 30 '26
ReactOS can't even be installed on real hardware
Why are you making things up, when it's easy to be proved wrong?
ReactOS on Real Hardware in 2025 (0.4.15)
The original Portal? Prey running on ReactOS on real hardware
Longplay | Portal running on ReactOS on real hardware
ReactOS "Open-Source Windows" Project Now Capable Of Running Half-Life 2
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u/yo_99 Sep 02 '26
Does it actually boot now?
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u/KronisLV Aug 30 '26
It looks so peak, the UI, the fonts. I'm certainly just nostalgic, but it's cool that projects like that exist.
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u/rene453 Aug 30 '26
Just come out of alpha. I am ready with 100+ lga 775 pcs. Just a bit more push towards stability
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u/the_abortionat0r Aug 31 '26
That's too new of a platform for react, plus it's never coming out of alpha
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u/emanu2021 Sep 05 '26
ReactOS could fix Windows security and performance loop holes while preserving a large collection of games and software for old and new hardware.
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u/Green_Ad5186 Aug 29 '26
wine and proton are simply much better because they actually work
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u/I_did_a_fucky_wucky Aug 29 '26
This is much more than that though. They have completely different scopes.
Wine and Proton aim to be quick and accessible translation layers, while ReactOS aims to completely reverse engineer the absolute root of Windows.
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u/the_abortionat0r Aug 31 '26
Ok but scope doesn't matter if it doesn't work. That's kinda the point.
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u/I_did_a_fucky_wucky Aug 31 '26
I disregarded that point completely, because neither ReactOS or the translation layers work perfectly. ReactOS is still missing modern API features and has plenty of bugs with drivers and such. Wine and Proton have much higher success rate with running things while yes, very specific apps from god knows where may not work.
The scope is a thing of itself and has nothing to do with how successfully the program is working, but what the program is meant for. ReactOS is for making a fully fledged open-source reverse engineered Windows OS for general use, while Wine and Proton aims to just run Windows apps on Linux.
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u/the_abortionat0r Aug 31 '26
I disregarded that point completely, because neither ReactOS or the translation layers work perfectly
You're intentionally ignoring the fact that wine and proton is production ready where as react is non-functional. Don't try and dance around that fact
The scope is a thing of itself and has nothing to do with how successfully the program is working
Youre the one who brought up scope as some sort of deflection when it was mentioned reactos can't do anything so it's weird to then make a counter point like this.
I agree the scope doesn't matter because react can't do anything
ReactOS is for making a fully fledged open-source reverse engineered Windows OS for general use, while Wine and Proton aims to just run Windows apps on Linux.
Yes and one is successful and the other is reactos.
More specifically reacts original goal was to make an open source NT4 and it failed and continued to move the goal posts while achieving nothing, it's never going to be production ready for any windows tier let alone a modern one so we're just full circle to wine/proton does stuff and react doesn't.
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u/I_did_a_fucky_wucky Aug 31 '26
Whatever man. What I'm trying to say is that we should not compare ReactOS and Wine as some competing software. They try to achieve different things. Is that simple enough for you?
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u/pfp-disciple Aug 29 '26
I struggled getting Wine to run the Hyundai software to update the navigation. I haven't tried Resct, but I'm thinking that it might just with out of the box
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u/I_did_a_fucky_wucky Aug 29 '26
You're better off with spinning up a VM with USB passthrough. ReactOS is still in its infancy
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u/_Super_Straight Aug 29 '26
Why does this os looks like windows 95?
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u/DerekB52 Aug 29 '26
It's a reverse engineered windows experience, aiming to help with software/hardware support that Windows drops.
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u/Dekamir Aug 29 '26
It does come with multiple visual styles. This is similar to Windows 10, but built in Windows XP theming engine.
The layouts look old as they're simply reimplementing the legacy Win32 UI.
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u/the_abortionat0r Aug 31 '26
Because it's a legacy chunk left over from when react started out trying to replace NT4 which it failed to do.
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u/Green_Ad5186 Aug 29 '26
bec they didnt make good ui for it.
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u/crustang Aug 29 '26
What’s wrong with the ui?
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Aug 30 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/sheeproomer Sep 01 '26
Repeat 100 times:
Linux is not a windows variant, it is its own thing. I am willing to learn the lay of the land, when trying out another operating system.
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u/Advanced-Issue-1998 Aug 30 '26
someone please explain why we need reactOS when wine exists
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u/Lundominium Aug 30 '26
Wine takes code from reactos. Some years ago some devs worked on both wine and reactos at the same time.
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u/the_abortionat0r Aug 31 '26
You have that backwards, react uses wine code. Wine has no need to try and do all the other things react tries to do.
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u/Lundominium Aug 31 '26
I can promise you that code went towards wine. It surely also went towards reactos.
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u/brrrrreaker Aug 30 '26
if there was an award for the most pointless project even made, reactos would definitely be a top candidate for it...
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u/Dekamir Aug 29 '26
Jokes aside, I love this project. If you don't know its purpose, you probably don't know how valuable it is. Having a clean room and open source engineered Windows NT is huge if Microsoft drops the ball sometime, Windows is essentially lost. Yes, the last version will probably work, but we will eventually get problems.
ReactOS is for those purposes. Windows is a huge part of PC history, and we need to preserve it, whether we like it or not. You could install that old car diagnostic tool that doesn't work anywhere else but legacy Windows, to ReactOS, and edit the OS yourself so you can fix the problems for your customers, or even yourself.