ReactOS 0.3.14 Released With Improved Networking Stack 176
An anonymous reader wrote in with news of the latest release of ReactOS, a project to create a complete reimplementation of Windows. The highlights of this release are the integration of a new network stack based upon lwIP, the ability to build using Microsoft's C compiler, and Wifi support. There are a few options for trying it out (emulator image and a livecd amongst others) and source code over at Sourceforge.
Re:Time to switch operating systems (Score:4, Informative)
At this point I think it's time for me to upgrade from FreeDOS to ReactOS.
FreeDOS has legitimate uses -- I have found it on manufacturers' BIOS updater images.
I, of course, do my updates under Linux with flashrom utility, but I have some taste and sanity, things that most people lose after being exposed to BIOS source code.
Re:Windows 98, finally! (Score:5, Informative)
From reactos.org [reactos.org]:
ReactOS is a free, modern operating system based on the design of Windows XP/2003. Written completely from scratch, it aims to follow the Windows-NT architecture designed by Microsoft from the hardware level right through to the application level.
Re:Time to switch operating systems (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What's the point??!?!?! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Time to switch operating systems (Score:5, Informative)
Also, DOSBox is not only still being poked at, a lot of games on Steam use DOSBox to run.
Re:Windows 98, finally! (Score:5, Informative)
Yes you can. Microsoft created the Windows Academic Program for teaching the kernel internals in an academic setting. You get access to the Windows Research Kernel with source code.
Re:Time to switch operating systems (Score:5, Informative)
DOSEMU is still maintained, though it doesn't get a whole lot of development these days; not a huge deal with it to fix yet. As other replies explained, DOSBox is usually better for games (especially for sound support), but DOSBox has a strict development policy of being only for games, and there's plenty of DOS applications DOSBox does not run and likely will not run in the near future. DOSEMU packages FreeDOS with it and is nearly 100% compatible with all DOS software.
One thing I particularly like about DOSEMU over DOSBox is the filesystem handling. Everything in DOSEMU is mounted as a network share inside of DOS, even the C: drive; this allows you to change around files and whatnot on the native Linux filesystem and have the changes immediately appear in DOS (can't do that with DOSBox). Additionally, DOSEMU has long filename suppport, which is a huge godsend; DOSBox only supports 8+3 names (with its own muddling of non-DOS-compatible names behind the scenes... DOS games don't need long filename support so DOSBox is likely to never support LFNs).
All that being said, I highly recommend avoiding the release version and go straight to the subversion trunk. There are many quite serious bugs in 1.4.0, but I'm not aware of any that exist in the trunk; the developer is rather quick to look into and fix problems when they're reported.
Re:What's the point??!?!?! (Score:4, Informative)