Exactly. WINE is a compatibility layer.

Yeah, for example Wine doesn't even try to emulate hardware.

ReactOS shouldn't have any more compatibility than Wine. In fact, it will probably end up with less, due to limited hardware support.

This site Has compatibility lists for just about everything you can imagine, but your setup may work better or worse for a given program.

Edit: And by emulate hardware I was referring to running device drivers and such. The only piece of software I've EVER seen do that for win drivers on linux was ndiswrapper, and that's only because it's so specific on what it supports.

So XP is still my best option for installing on the secondary partition if my primary concern is running these older games.

Yes. ReactOS can't even run the windows wget port. 😛

Windows XP was the greatest operating system ever made - I am using it right now. DShiznit should definitely install it. I am just sad to see that it is slipping into obsoleteness.
Windows Vista and 7 are pretty good too.
As to Windows 8: It is tolerable,as long as you only use it part of the time! 😛

I have been unsatisfied with Ubuntu and do not see it gaining any ground. The reason is because I do not like the basic system - there is no way they could change it so I could like it. Mostly (but not exclusively) I like programs to be .exe and the OS to not be based on a terminal.

I do NOT secretly like the appearance of Mac. To be honest, I secretly like the appearance of Windows 3.1.

I agree that by forcing a tablet OS on desktop computers, Windows is splatting its consumer base all over the place, plus they are not likely to gain much ground in the tablet market.

Windows CE 1 was a very bad OS operation-wise, but looked good. Windows CE 5+ looked bad, but operated better than CE used to. Even then it looked more Windows-like then Windows 8.

I don't think anybody will like this post. ☹️

False, unix was (Or OS/360 depending on how old you are)Unfortunately, when you have to actually *use* it, it's a PITA. What do you have against ELF? Also, Ubuntu is arguably one of the most terminal-independant distros out there. Unfortunately, ubuntu is hampered by poor development descisions (instability, changing ABI). However, linux as a whole is gaining groundYou might want to try out MotifNo, really? They have no chance with iOS and Android already this deeply entrenched.You got that one right.

Not true; Windows XP was better.

That is true. So one shouldn't use it, just admire it from a distance. 🙂

It is arguably one of the most terminal-independant distros out there. And I don't know what ELF is.

In Linux, the file extension does not matter as much as it does in Windows (mostly everything is done through magic numbers as shown with the file command), so programs can have any extension. The terminal is one of the most powerful tools in *nix OSes, so I don't see how an OS based on a terminal is a bad thing other than there is a bit of a learning curve. With practice, you'll find that the terminal is far more efficient than GUI tools.

In what way? Maybe XP was better for your needs but Unix was better suited for someone else. This is heavily a matter of opinion, if not use, of course.

Have you used OS/360 or Unix?

No. But I wasn't arguing, strictly speaking, that XP is better than OS/360 and Unix. I was arguing that it is the greatest OS ever made, generally speaking. That includes the fact that it was widespread, popular, and user friendly.


Yes, Unix was better suited for other people. XP is better because (among other reasons) it has great compatability with most programs, from DOS 5 to Windows 7, and it looks very nice and solid.

Unix is *EVERYWHERE*. It is probably the most profilerate OS *ever*. It is highly popular. In many cases, the only choice is which flavor of *nix to buy. It is also fairly user friendly. Man and info are great.

Linux has compatibility with DOS and windows programs :P. (There are also a surprising amount of programs not written for windows).

Yeah, well, I have little interest in debating proliferousness (?), as I really haven't been everywhere. Even so, I am speaking of desktops, laptops, netbooks, and similar home computers, not other gizmos or one-purpose machines like are often used at libraries or businesses, wherein there simply WAS more Windows XP than anything else. Of course, things also aren't entirely what they used to be...


Yeah. 😛

So true.

One hundred million lemmings *can't* be wrong!

Ah, well, they weren't. Windows XP is wonderful.

XP is a terrible poorly coded mess with security issues galore. It ignores basic permissions on just about everything unless you enroll it in an enterprise domain, and even there it is half arsed security wise. There were sooooo many poor design choices in XP but due to backwards compatibility MS is gonna have to live with many of them for quite a long while.

Just a short list of issues with XP.

Window manager isn't hardware accelerated
The process scheduler is utterly terrible, especially on muti processor systems
It completely ignores filesystem permissions in many places
It defaults to running everything as admin
There are spaces in the standard filesystem hierarchy which breaks so many things
No proper 64-bit support, or even PAE, which means you are limited to <4GB of ram
IE5-7 are utter jokes and 8 is barely passable, and you have to use the IE renderer for many core OS functions, ones that do access the web so using another browser isn't a complete option
Microsoft Update for XP requires using a web browser to get non-critical updates, and is barely usable if you try and avoid using a web browser

There are more but I think this covers a decent chunk of it.

Firstly, as I said, it is getting outdated after 11 years; that covers a lot.
I want everything run as admin, and I want to ignore filesystem permissions.
I support Mozilla Firefox and I am fine with IE 8 for most purposes.
You are right about Microsoft Update, that is not WinXP's fault. That is Microsoft's fault for cutting off support for XP SP2 and Windows Update.
64-bit and multi processor are newer things that I wouldn't expect of Windows XP.

You claimed that it was the greatest operating system ever made, and yet I just pointed out things that were major issues with it that were not major issues with other operating systems at the time of its release.

It was only so "Popular" due to the WinTel monopolistic practices that forced it to be popular. Microsoft already had the monopoly by the 95 days and they were already abusing it ala IE5 killing Netscape and friends. Also if you care about old games 98SE or ME with themes disabled would be much better choices.

Unix and Linux are two very, *VERY* different things. Unix isn't everywhere, it only exists in a relatively small niche now (basically OS X & iOS are the last hold outs of Unix, and even then there's not much left of Unix in them)

Linux is everywhere, though, but then again the most popular operating system in the world is one most people have never even heard of. That would be ITRON.



What? OS/360 isn't the greatest OS ever. It was just another mainframe OS for a specific product in a long line of mainframe OSes. Unix is just a kernel, not an OS, and while Unix is perhaps one of the best kernels ever, at least when it comes to design decisions, it is a far cry from the best OS ever.

Everyone knows the best OS ever is BeOS.

How different they are also depends on how pedantic you're being about the GNU/Linux distinction and whether you're talking about SUS compliance, or SUS certification and actual Unix branding. And it's going to vary from distro to distro.


OS X is pretty damn Unixy under that sexy Apple exterior. I can't say for sure how Unixy iOS is under the hood, but it shares a lot of code with OS X, and I'm pretty sure it's the same core OS with a different set of UI and hardware-related APIs.


What? Unix was definitely an operating system. If you're only talking about the original Unix kernel, I don't think ANYTHING around today qualifies (except maybe HP-UX?). But....Unix isn't "just the kernel".