Hacker News Reader

Comment by jeditobe | Hacker News Reader

ReactOS has a plenty of drivers and programs, because the idea of ReactOS is to be 100% compatible with windows 2003+

the driver model has changed pretty significantly in the last 12 years. I think its an interesting project, but other than basic desktop compatibility this just isn't going to be really viable. Basic means...no directx...which means pretty much none of the text and 2d advances from Win7/2K8R2...

There are a lot of no-DirectX operating systems out there which do just fine. Although there is a long history of releasing Windows with DirectX, those versions of DirectX were pretty limited and installing the newer (more powerful) versions used to be only optional, on a per-need basis, before Windows got bloated. Considering that the ReactOS Foundation does not take decisions in the same way as corporations do, it's possible for DirectX to become again just some install-able frame-work (or frame-game if you will). So, DirectX may not be so badly needed as you imply it to be.

EDIT: Somewhat related - regarding OpenGL, ReactOS' decision was to bundle only the version 1.4, because installing the graphic card's drivers will give you exactly the last version of OpenGL your card can handle, that is - if you'd be interested in accessing the card's capacity (beyond what the default bundled ReactOS driver will give you) in the first place. Many folks might not even be interested in such a thing, considering that not every one plays hardcore games, so why bother? Why bloating the entire system with something that can be left as optional?

That's a very optimistic outlook. I hope it works out exactly as you hope.

There no such decision had place, one which would be against implementation of DirectX. From the other side, DX could be just taken and installed.

Any 10gb Ethernets? SAS controllers? Latest server chipsets? Support of NUMA architectures?

If they are binary-compatible with Windows, I guess they can just use the existing ones.

Is that legal? Are Windows drivers distributed in such a way that they can be used with non-Windows operating systems?

Who cares?

I know this is a loaded question but I mean it seriously. The importance of legal aspects is highly varying, from matter-deciding to completely irrelevant. Especially if you have a government of a souvereign country like russia behind you, legal problems about redistribution or usage shouldn't be a big problem.

Microsoft doesn't really own the drivers. Microsoft just provides its DDK, then the hardware vendors who wish to include their drivers along with Windows are forced to provide the sources for the drivers in cause to Microsoft. Otherwise the drivers are usually made and provided directly, independently from Microsoft, by the hardware vendors themselves. Its safe to assume that the condition for using these drivers is something that has to make the hardware vendors happy (which is whatever sells their hardware).

Aren't the drivers for SAS controllers and other server hardware usually written by 3rd parties?

It's possible, I think, that there's some Windows driver SDK code used by most drivers that has conditions on it.

I presume it can load NT closed-source drivers for the first three.

I dont have any of these on any of my home or work PCs or laptops

Yes. I think their attitude is one of NUMA NUMA YAY!

If that's from the O-Zone song, it translates (from Romanian) "you only don't take me" - was it a pun?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com