Not sure what concerns me more, the "BSOD" or "Of course".
In the past, this hypothetical OS would be a revolution. But I feel that, in recent years, this gap is not as big anymore and Linux supports way more apps than in the past. Such an OS might even not be relevant anymore, even if it exists.
Do I have a blind spot on this? Is there value in having a "working ReactOS" as of 2026 _for workstations_?
The ideas behind the NT kernels are much deeper than what many Linux fans think of it. Just to give some examples:
- the NT kernel is build around supporting multiple subsystems, even though currently only "1.5" are in active use: the Windows subsystem and WSL1 (the latter has for many purposes been replaced by WSL2)
- the NT kernel is not built around "everything is a file" (a very leaky and very incompletely implemented abstraction that is used in GNU/Linux); instead the central concept is the handle
- the I/O in NT kernel is built around the idea that the API is "completion-oriented" instead of being "readiness-oriented" as in Linux. This manifests in concepts like I/O Completion Ports (IOCPs), Overlapped I/O, ... Since this is a deeply technical topic, I refer to https://speakerdeck.com/trent/parallelism-and-concurrency-wi... (the most important information is in the backup slides (slides 43-54)).
File descriptor, handle. Potayto, potahto.
Under Windows, a lot more concepts are handles than just files, directories, symbolic links, pipes, mail slots, ..., e.g.
- processes, threads
- synchronization objects (mutex, semaphore)
- events (CreateEventEx)
- I/O Completion Ports
- Sections (ZwCreateSection) and Partitions (https://www.geoffchappell.com/studies/windows/km/ntoskrnl/ap... ) for memory
- waitable timers
- GUI components (HWND)
In the end it's all about driver diversity and quality though...
PRO: less telemetry
CON: less battery life
Does anyone here know the current state of installing a browser on ReactOS?
