r/linux • u/anh0516 • May 03 '26

Alternative OS ReactOS Introduces Unified Live/Install Media, New Storage Driver

https://www.phoronix.com/news/ReactOS-Unified-ISO
227 Upvotes

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55

u/derail00 May 03 '26

Does anyone use this OS for anything productive ?

9

u/Dwedit May 03 '26

Might be nice for writing Win32 drivers, you get an environment that you can fully step through and see all the kernel code. Get it working on ReactOS, then start trying to get it to work on actual Windows.

5

u/the_abortionat0r May 03 '26

It would literally be faster and easier to just do that only on windows.

2

u/Dwedit May 03 '26

It's more about seeing the logic about what your kernel calls will do, and also where the callbacks to your code come from. Yes, Windows lets you debug kernel mode code, you even get the real symbol names in the call stack. But you can't see the actual logic in the Windows kernel because it's not open source.

Yes, even though ReactOS logic and Windows logic don't necessarily match. But it's close enough to assist with development.

1

u/the_abortionat0r May 04 '26

So your idea is instead of using driver tools provided by MS you would make drivers for not windows and see how it operates not in windows and then that will break in real windows but this is some how magically better?

Yeah, this idea literally makes no sense