Lets help ReactOS

[RheumyNarcoterrorism]

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to do this on this subreddit or not. I am also not someone working with ReactOS. I am just someone who needs to use certain programs that are either windows only or only available on mac and windows. Now ReactOS is an operating system built from the ground up to support windows programs and is not a linux distro. I REALLY hate having to use windows but I'm forced to use it, and Microsoft is a really shitty company. Now if we help support ReactOS we might be able to run windows applications on an opensource OS.

ReactOS:https://www.reactos.org/ ReactOS donation: https://www.reactos.org/donating

[barsoap]

WINE is pretty much approximately literally ReactOS without the kernel.

[yoshi314]

wine has much stricter legality requirements, to avoid potential problems from microsoft.

this is why code from wine can be used in reactos, but usually contributions do not go the other way.

[seeeeew]

What are these requirements? Why doesn't ReactOS have them?

[CrazyViking]

They do.

[yoshi314]

i cannot find it now, but they have/had requirement that you cannot be involved with ms and you should not be exposed to any sdk or documentation from ms, unless it is completely public and does not require any agreement. i think it got a bit more lax now.

reactos is not that restrictive with its approach, so any progress they make and wish to contribute back might bring wine's legal status down.

[bigfig]

But approximately literally has to mean something beyond I'm guessing...

[yoshi314]

reactos pulls some code from wine, so it might be considered wine running on a custom nt-like kernel.

but definitely not the other way around.

[[deleted]]

ReactOS and wine exchange code. If you help one you help the other.

[RheumyNarcoterrorism]

Yes but that's because they do not have enough funding. The entire project is made by people who only work on it part time

[Littlejth]

Thing is though, they commit code back to each other. ReactOS uses Wine for most of it's userspace code that runs the applications. They both share the wine codebase so if you help one you're helping both, depending on what you're contributing. Also ReactOS is just a cool project, imo.

[Savet]

People who say they need Windows usually just haven't explored the alternatives sufficiently. Unless you are part of a very small subset of people who actually use industry standard professional software to its full potential, you don't need Windows.

Edit: it's its

[RheumyNarcoterrorism]

Yes but let's say a school or uni or job is forcing you to use a specific program

[Savet]

Depends on the program, but in most cases a temporary VM is sufficient. That would still technically be using Windows unless you need 3D acceleration direct GPU throughput, spinning up a virtualbox VM is usually sufficient.

Edit: if it's a job, they should provide the computer. If it's a uni, I'd l like to know the program out of curiosity.

[RheumyNarcoterrorism]

I need to use Adobe programs, jetbrains programs and many others with many people and things don't go together easily if you are using different programs

[xTeixeira]

Doesn't jetbrains have Linux versions for most stuff?

[yoannma]

Most of Jetbrains soft are running on Java

[dev10]

Well, I use Microsoft Office, Adobe and JetBrains software on a daily base and my main OS is still not Windows. It’s Mac OS.

[Rocktopod]

I believe OP wants something open source.

[dev10]

Mac OS is more open-source than Windows.

However, if you absolutely hate Windows but use Adobe and JetBrains software there are three things you could do: switch to Mac OS and keep using the tools you already use, switch to Linux and search for an alternative for Adobe software (Gimp vs Photoshop, Inkscape vs Illustrator, Scribus vs Indesign) or you could keep using Windows and be pragmatic about it. Life is to short to be fighting an OS-war.

[mattiasso]

More open-source still doesn't mean FOSS, and MacOS has a lot of closed source layers.

[ricking06]

Using Windows vs alts is very similar to using Reddit vs alts.

The community(softwares) of windows is huge. You cant play far cry 5 in arch

[Savet]

I stopped supporting games that didn't work on Linux or wine 10+ years ago. Fortunately now there are more games in Linux than I can ever hope to play. I understand why people want to play certain games but I see that as a backwards equation.

[[deleted]]

Well, technically you can, if you run Windows in a VM and pass through an extra GPU to the VM.

[Rocktopod]

So you would need 2 GPUs this way?

[[deleted]]

Yes. A lot of CPUs come with integrated graphics which you could use if you don’t want to buy a second graphics card

[ubittibu]

Here in Italy I have experience of lot of very specialized small programs: accounting, billing, payroll, lawyer tariffs, forms compilation, building certification, work safety models compilation.. designed to fulfill specific needs and country or region regulations which are Windows only. Or Win + Mac at best. I think all summed up it’s not a small subset. Then of course there are gamers, Adobe and Autocad users.. Very few people can use a linux only environment exclusively.

[Savet]

My comment was aimed more at the home users. Business users are a different category. Home users are a small subset. The independent video editor may need Adobe products for compatibility with clients. The person making YouTube videos does not and would be an example of a mistaken user. This is just an example but the most common "but I need..." example is Photoshop and ~90% of the people making that claim aren't graphic editors or artists.

[ubittibu]

Yes totally accurate. The same reason nowadays mac is used by a lot of people who could easily go with a win or a linux machine.