ReactOS • Hacker News Board

Re: ReactOS

#31

Post by jeditobe » Wed, May 13, 2026, 11:06 PM UTC

deaddodo wrote: post #20

grishka wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not yet but it seems like they've finally started working towards that. Driver compatibility has improved dramatically over the last few years, for one.

Do they finally have a WDM compatible driver stack? For a long time, that was their biggest hamper to being anything useful as a real desktop. If they can pass that hurdle + add WDDM, I'd be willing to take another look at them even if application compatibility remains hit and miss.

Intel, NVIDIA, AMD GPU Drivers Finally Play Nice With ReactOS

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/03/21/1712201/intel-nvidi...

Re: ReactOS

#32

Post by grishka » Wed, May 13, 2026, 11:23 PM UTC

chasil wrote: post #27

jachee wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of pure curiosity, what do you “very much dislike” about it?

There have been some notable discussions here on this subject. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22076348

That's an excellent talk, thanks for sharing it.

And yes that USB gadget thing. I had to use it recently to turn a RPi Zero into a parallel -> USB converter. It's impossible to debug and sometimes makes you question your own sanity. Here's my script that does it: https://github.com/grishka/miscellaneous/blob/master/AVDecod...

Re: ReactOS

#33

Post by AlexBrooks1 » Tue, May 26, 2026, 10:06 AM UTC

deaddodo wrote: post #22

flaburgan wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it actually is even more relevant today than 10 years ago, as the only real production use case I can imagine for it is specialized industrial software written only for XP that no one wants to update to w10 because of the risk of breaking production but which are running on a not supported anymore OS full of vulnerabilities. If really ReactOS achieves parity then that's a possible niche.

That was the argument back in the day too. For people/devices not looking to run Windows XP/Vista. I don't think the metric has ever changed. What has is the scope as Microsoft continues to chug along. But, I believe, their goal is still primarily some hybrid of Win98/Win2K compatibility.

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