Comment by ikurei | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ikurei | Hacker News Reader

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> if there's something I want an OS to do that Linux can't do, I would be motivated to work on making Linux able to do that thing so I could do that thing on an Open Source OS I enjoy using, rather than work on replicating Windows so I could do that thing on an open source OS I don't enjoy using.

That's a great ethos, but it's not that Windows can do something Linux can't. If you want to play a game/use a CAD made only for windows, are you going to pour years into cloning it? Yeah, Linux has, at least, competent applications for almost every need, but sometimes what you want just isn't available.

ReactOS is shooting for the moon, but if it took off and got to an almost 100% windows-compatible state, I'd be glad to have an Open Source Windows.

If you want to run Windows applications on an Open Source OS, the Wine approach is much more realistic. It's also nicer because for everything that Linux can already do, you don't have to mimic Windows.

Anyway, desktop applications are not that relevant today, and most of those that are (like web browsers, developer tools) are cross-platform anyway.

ReactOS shares a lot of code with Wine. Mostly DLLs. Code flows both ways.

Even if you're never going to use ReactOS, it still helps make wine better.

IIRC, ReactOS is based on Wine anyway.

> Anyway, desktop applications are not that relevant today, and most of those that are (like web browsers, developer tools) are cross-platform anyway.

Yes, but PC games are very relevant. They are the entire reason I have a Windows machine at all.

Exactly. I have some apps that don't run on Linux, like Photoshop and at work the printer driver. It seems that ReactOS is much faster than XP running in Virtualbox, and if Photoshop and that printer driver work in ReactOS, then I'm all for it.

I hope this does provide a better user experience than Wine, because I've tried that, and after a while Photoshop breaks down somehow. Elements on the page disappear, file operations don't work and in the end it all stops. I want something that is stable, and I hope this works better than Wine, even if both share much code.

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