ReactOS

From Computing Knowledgebase

Some time in 1996, a group called FreeWin95 was formed with the goal to implement an operating system that would be a free, Open Source clone of Windows 95. Unfortunately, like many such Open Source projects, stylistic differences inhibited FreeWin95's progress and it never accomplished its goal. By the end of 1997, when Windows 98 was released, FreeWin95 had burnt out.

It was around this time that Jason Filby became project coordinator and called on everyone still subscribed to the mailing list to revive the project. It was decided that the new target should be Windows NT, and that there would be an emphasis on results - on written code, rather than endless talk. The project was renamed ReactOS, since the Operating System's roots grew out of a dissatisfaction with Microsoft's monopoly over the operating system market. In February 1998, ReactOS began.

The first few years of ReactOS were painfully slow, despite the large amounts of code that was being written. Only a few of the developers knew how to write kernel code. It was a time of only a few people writing the difficult kernel beginnings. Later, as the kernel became more complete and stable, and as basic drivers such as the IDE and Keyboard drivers were written, more people were able to get involved in the development.

[edit] Development Goal

The goal of ReactOS is to create an Open Source Windows NT-compatible Operating System.

ReactOS is semi-allied with the WINE project, with code regularly being ported to ReactOS from WINE.

[edit] Current Status of ReactOS

ReactOS is currently distributed under the Lesser GNU General Public License (LGPL)

Today, the kernel has come a long way, and is quite stable. Many APIs are complete enough for higher level work to be done. Substantial work has been done on many libraries and initial networking code is there, but unusable for the moment. A basic implementation of the Graphics Device Interface (GDI) and a VGA graphics driver is paving the way for a GUI. The amount of developers is steadly increasing.

The current release build stands at 0.2.7, with the next release scheduled to be 0.3.0. USB support is coming along, as are migrating away from ROSRTL, and to a new build system, called rbuild, as well as a new Native Development System, using a self-termed NDK.

Soon, subsystems for Java, OS/2 and DOS will be started. Code to support a GUI, with the help of the WINE project, is growing more and more complete every day. ReactOS is set to experience massive growth in the near future.

[edit] Previous Builds

A Full List available off of the ReactOS Wiki will, hopefully, be made available soon, here.

[edit] System Requirements

[edit] Features

Support for IDE Hard Drives, and PS/2 Keyboards and Mice.
Basic GUI and Basic VGA Driver.
Session Manager for use on POSIX, to enable diffent subsystems to run.

[edit] FileSystem Support

ReactOS currently supports FAT12, FAT16, FAT32 and VFAT. There is revived talk about including NTFS support, and Ext2 looks to be the next driver that will be ported over to ReactOS. Other Potential Filesystems, such as JFS, and Reiser4 (Along with adding a Journal to Ext2, thereby adding native Ext3 support), may well be included via the Installable File System.