How did you know about ReactOS?

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Fraizeraust
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How did you know about ReactOS?

Post by Fraizeraust »

As most of you guys here may know, ReactOS isn't so popular as other OSes thus it's quite hard to find an Operating System that aims to be Windows compatible like ReactOS unless you've found the name unexpectedly and you were curious about it. Or probably a friend of you told about ReactOS and you wanted to give it a try. Or maybe you got laid, chatted around an IRC server or any chat-room place and then someone out of a sudden pointed out ReactOS and you were curious about it.

I'd be glad to hear your story. Please share around! Oh, and here's also my little story of how I've heard about ReactOS:
It all started in the nearly end of the month of December, 2016. Was surfing the web around for FOSS Operating Systems in articles and oddly the name ReactOS pops out claiming to be a Windows compatible, both at low and high level. I was like, hmm, in theory it's great but in practice it's completely a clusterfuck to reverse engineering an OS which has its source code closed, let alone the documentation of some components of the OS being written poorly. Few days later ReactOS seems to bug on my head so I decided to give this OS a try and found an ISO to mount it on a Virtualbox machine. While the OS being alpha and many critical bugs still in the wild, what did it impress me is that they (ROS developers), with the huge amount of work, have made this OS just like Windows. Look, experience, feel. Even in the lowest level as possible, the NT kernel (I know, it's still under development but at least the kernel does its job). In January 2017 I decided to open an account and here I am, whose my adventure within ReactOS and forum has begun! Cheers! :D
a.k.a. GeoB99 -- ReactOS Kernel developer -- My Wiki page
Jester The Computist
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Re: How did you know about ReactOS?

Post by Jester The Computist »

Found it through Druaga1 videos on youtube :)
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Adcock
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Re: How did you know about ReactOS?

Post by Adcock »

I was googling about alternative OS's and then found it. Somewhere here during early 2016.
( I mean I found that post in 2016 )
Although I did hear about ReactOS earlier somewhere around 2014-2015.
But did not take it seriously before 2016 ( I mean before I saw that post in that link ).
Thank you, Fraizeraust. Nice topic.
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oldman
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Re: How did you know about ReactOS?

Post by oldman »

I came across ReactOS some 15+ years ago. I was looking through the GNU website and under the title of 'Alternative Software' I found ReactOS listed as a Windows clone. And if all of you, that have posted so far, had seen what it could do then, you would have walked away, dismissing it as just another DOS. In those days it was just a blue screen and a command prompt; it looked more impressive than DOS, having much smaller text on the screen.
Please keep the Windows classic 9x/2000 look and feel.
The layman's guides - debugging - bug reporting - compiling - ISO remaster.
They may help you with a problem, so do have a look at them.
hbelusca
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Re: How did you know about ReactOS?

Post by hbelusca »

I came across both ReactOS and WINE at the same time in 2005 while I was desperately searching for some documentation about an undocumented advapi32.dll function called EnumServiceGroupW. At some point I certainly tried to google "EnumServiceGroupW source code" or some other black-magic incantation involving the name of "Windows", and that's how both ReactOS and WINE came out from the results. I remember that at that time, this API was stubbed out in both projects. Since then it has been implemented in ReactOS (at least).
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dizt3mp3r
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Re: How did you know about ReactOS?

Post by dizt3mp3r »

I was in my local church at the altar praying...

I had spent the weekend trying to get the wireless networking to operate between windows XP and vista without causing continuous BSODs the second the connection was made. Struggling with relicensing after hardware changes, wireless stack issues, user profile corruptions, GUI changes, system slow-downs, long boot times and struggling with running purchased software that was no longer compatible for any good reason. I dropped to my knees and prayed for a solution.

I found ReactOS before I found God.

However, ReactOS turned out to be a false Prophet, potentially offering so much but actually giving so very little... It was in ALPHA!

I have prayed ever since for ReactOS. Forgive me God!
Skillset: VMS,DOS,Windows Sysadmin from 1985, fault-tolerance, VaxCluster, Alpha,Sparc. DCL,QB,VBDOS- VB6,.NET, PHP,NODE.JS, Graphic Design, Project Manager, CMS, Quad Electronics. classic cars & m'bikes. Artist in water & oils. Historian.
ctasan
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Re: How did you know about ReactOS?

Post by ctasan »

In February 2014, just after 0.3.16 was released, I noticed ReactOS on BetaArchive, and joined there. After some months, I decided to start Community Changelogs in 0.4.1. Sure, we all will have a great journey!
ReactOS Community Changelogs | Admin of ReactOS Official Twitter Account | Admin of ReactOS Turkish Twitter Account @reactos_tr
milon
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Re: How did you know about ReactOS?

Post by milon »

Like oldman, I found ROS about 15 years ago. I loved the Windows platform, but hated the direction changes I saw MS taking (fancier UI that offered less function, certain features disabled unless you paid for a more expensive license, etc). I figured I wasn't the only one who felt that way, did a lot of internet searching, and found out that I was right. 8-)

I can't wait for the day I can reliably use ROS at home and in my business.
ROCKNROLLKID
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Re: How did you know about ReactOS?

Post by ROCKNROLLKID »

I found it years ago through Process Hacker. ReactOS was credited in the about tab and I was curious what it was. When I saw that it was a OS trying to be a Windows system, I thought to myself "this has to be another ZorinOS attempt here". But when I researched more about it, I realized it wasn't even made from Linux, it was made completely from scratch. Ever since then I stuck around.
LuxenDM
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Re: How did you know about ReactOS?

Post by LuxenDM »

I was installing OS after OS on an old 2002 Compaq laptop (That is sadly no longer useable - Screen no longer receives power, and external port is being ignored; fan doesn't ever spin down, so I don't think it is posting, but have no way to verify). Idk why I was, but it ended up I was going through DistroWatch alphabetically. ROS caught my eye, being non-Linux, and the more I read about it the more I didn't want to not try it.
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Michael Long
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Re: How did you know about ReactOS?

Post by Michael Long »

I heard about ReactOS too long ago to still remember how I initially found it.

I read that it's previous name was "FreeWin95" but it's name was already "ReactOS" when I heard the first time about it.

The idea of building a Windows clone sounded good to me but I stopped watching the progress because no version of ReactOS ever worked for me not even getting to desktop (if I remember correctly there actually were some very old versions which at least booted to desktop but with a lot of graphical glitches). :cry:

But somehow the name "ReactOS" was kind of stuck in my head. Sometimes I had to think about this name in situations which had nothing to do with computers at all. The name just popped up in my head for what reason ever and I had sometimes hard times to get the name out of my head again and concentrate on what I was doing. :oops:

The fact that the name came back again and again made me look for the progress of the project from time to time. Now finally the project gets closer and closer to a state where it might even boot to desktop on my computer (and the computer already is kind of old). :) A few days ago I bought a hard disk solely for the purpose of installing and testing ReactOS so I can give it another try, now, after quite some time has passed.
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dizt3mp3r
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Re: How did you know about ReactOS?

Post by dizt3mp3r »

A few days ago I bought a hard disk solely for the purpose of installing and testing ReactOS
Be careful with that hardware! ;)
the more I read about it the more I didn't want to not try it.
I think you meant "the more I wanted to try it" ... pwhew that's a little less complicated.
Skillset: VMS,DOS,Windows Sysadmin from 1985, fault-tolerance, VaxCluster, Alpha,Sparc. DCL,QB,VBDOS- VB6,.NET, PHP,NODE.JS, Graphic Design, Project Manager, CMS, Quad Electronics. classic cars & m'bikes. Artist in water & oils. Historian.
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Michael Long
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Re: How did you know about ReactOS?

Post by Michael Long »

dizt3mp3r wrote:
A few days ago I bought a hard disk solely for the purpose of installing and testing ReactOS
Be careful with that hardware! ;)
Is it reasonable to assume that ReactOS might destroy the content of the hard disc but it's rather unlikely (even though there still is a slight possibility) that the hardware will suffer physical damage? Please don't exaggerate the risk or there will be unreasonable few people who are willing to do testings on real hardware.
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Fraizeraust
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Re: How did you know about ReactOS?

Post by Fraizeraust »

@Michael Long: An OS is a digital software, it is entirely impossible to damage your hardware physically. Heck, it's not like your hard disk would go BOOOOOOM. At most, you'd expect data corruption but for an Operating System harming the hard disk is a myth.
a.k.a. GeoB99 -- ReactOS Kernel developer -- My Wiki page
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dizt3mp3r
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Re: How did you know about ReactOS?

Post by dizt3mp3r »

Be careful with that hardware! ;)
That was a joke Michael - that's what the smiley meant.
Skillset: VMS,DOS,Windows Sysadmin from 1985, fault-tolerance, VaxCluster, Alpha,Sparc. DCL,QB,VBDOS- VB6,.NET, PHP,NODE.JS, Graphic Design, Project Manager, CMS, Quad Electronics. classic cars & m'bikes. Artist in water & oils. Historian.
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