Chances of current pc specialist laptops working flawlessly with Linux in the future

[Lum]

ReactOS has been around for ages and is *not linux*

It's a free opensource attempt to re-create Windows 9x/NT. There's only really two use cases I can see for it.

1) You are a masochist who really loves the old UI
2) You are running some ridiculously expensive piece of software or hardware that requires NT and cannot upgrade it for whatever reason (doesn't exist any more, upgrade costs £millions, upgrade also requires new hardware that costs £millions) but you don't want to be running an unmaintained OS with known security flaws.

You'll probably end up seeing ReactOS driving gigantic pieces of industrial machinery, lab equipment and probably a few terrible banking applications too, most likely installed on a computer that is so old it still has ISA slots and a proper serial port that actually outputs the correct voltages. Kit that isn't going to run the latest bells and whistles in an OS.

But yeah, if you install it on your PCS laptop, knowing what you're getting into, you most likely fall into the masochist category.

 

[Wozza63]

ReactOS has been around for ages and is *not linux*

It's a free opensource attempt to re-create Windows 9x/NT. There's only really two use cases I can see for it.

1) You are a masochist who really loves the old UI
2) You are running some ridiculously expensive piece of software or hardware that requires NT and cannot upgrade it for whatever reason (doesn't exist any more, upgrade costs £millions, upgrade also requires new hardware that costs £millions) but you don't want to be running an unmaintained OS with known security flaws.

You'll probably end up seeing ReactOS driving gigantic pieces of industrial machinery, lab equipment and probably a few terrible banking applications too, most likely installed on a computer that is so old it still has ISA slots and a proper serial port that actually outputs the correct voltages. Kit that isn't going to run the latest bells and whistles in an OS.

But yeah, if you install it on your PCS laptop, knowing what you're getting into, you most likely fall into the masochist category.

God I hate businesses like that. I'm sure that there are some reasonable cases but in most cases, it's businesses trying to save money when in the long run, the extra costs of maintenance, repairs and replacement of old hardware grows and grows.

 

[Stephen M]

For getting old machines to run quite well there are some decent lightweight Linux distros about, I quite like Salent.These distros are handy for charity stuff, getting computers to schools, often in the third world, where it is just something for the kids to learn on, no need for ability to game or have top graphics and stuff.

 

[Tony1044]

Just to reactivate an older thread, it appears ReactOS has had a new release.

Still an NT4 based GUI but sounds a bit more usable. Caveat: I did download and install it into a test VM but didn't do anything else so it's only based on what I read about online.

 

[Stephen M]

Likewise, although I know someone who has tried it and says it is a big improvement on the initial release although still has a way to go. I never understood why they went for NT, an XP type would have seemed a better choice as one of the intentions was for an OS for people who did not want to lose XP.