For readers unfamiliar with the project: it's been in alpha for 24 years, although it now targets Server 2003/XP instead of Win95 which it originally did in 1996.
My goal is to get Avid Pro Tools 7 working on bare metal ROS. Partially successful attempts thus far: install is going smoothly, but the software doesn't launch. I get the nostalgic Blue Screen of Death and usually end up re-installing the entire OS. I assume it is a driver issue since PT of that era (2007-ish) requires a dedicated audio interface (the Mbox).
But I need PT a few times a year, so I'll keep trying.
I can also state that compared to version 0.4.7 (the first one I tried, iirc), the current non-nightly build 0.4.13 ran way more smoothly for me, at least on the GUI side. Issues with mouse stalling are gone, etc.
The "EPIC WIN!" threads on the ROS forum [1, 2] are fun to follow. Based on that, the OS seems to be quite usable for a range of cases.
I also liked the "What's the point?" threads [3, 4]. My respect to the developers for taking the time and patience to explain.
All in all, I keep hoping and installing new versions. I like how clean the system feels -- or, maybe this is the case with many systems when you don't bother to add Internet connectivity. Without wifi, every OS feels quiet and calm.
True, I haven't filled a report yet; will look into this next time, probably when ROS 0.4.14 is released.
Pro Tools, at least in its early versions, tends to show its moods even on a well-tuned Windows system. So I was almost sure that it won't run in ROS out of the box. I was actually surprised to see it installing so smoothly. My guess is that the driver for the audio interface (Mbox 2) needs some attention.
Every time I’ve tried it, it falls apart within minutes of using it. You’d think after 20 years of development it might be somewhat stable but I guess not.
IMO, the is a monumental underestimation of the man-hours put into make Windows as compatible as it is, even ignoring the fact that Microsoft's engineers are/were highly skilled.
I like the ReactOS idea, but I think it will take decades to be compatible enough - and I'm even talking about enough.
If the objective was to run obsolete software, I personally had to distribute resources, I'd just do assign them to Wine. It's surely much more productive to make software compatible on a per-case basis, rather than writing a whole operating system with the objective of being compatible.
But I'm not disappointed in ReactOS because it's not fully compatible. I'm disappointed because it's not stable.
(Or was, last time I tried a couple of years ago.)
I think they should go for rock solid stable first.
Then people could build on it. It's perfect for embedded, Point-of-Sale etc where the vendor want to keep their codebase untouched but hop off the Microsoft bandwagon.
> I like the ReactOS idea, but I think it will take decades to be compatible enough - and I'm even talking about enough.
It has been under development for decades. That is more than twice the time it took to develop Windows 95. I've tried ReactOS a few times over the years, and it has never worked for me.
I know of two specific examples of ReactOS code that as of a couple years ago were identical with Windows code. There are likely other instances pointing to a non-clean-room implementation.
We've banned this account - it's not ok to mimic someone else's username like that, but it's especially not ok to add sockpuppet accounts to a thread you're already in. Doing that will get your main account banned as well, so please don't do that again.
not really a fair comparison, windows 95 had the advantage of not having to be developed from the ground up to retain perfect binary compatibility with blindows 95
Very curious to see how far it's come for practical usage.