In my quest for emulating various MS Windows apps on Linux I came across ReactOS -> https://reactos.org
After reading the about section and looking at the “why?” behind this initiative I felt that this project is something amazing and worth keeping an eye on.
Everyone knows it’s really hard to run a piece of software that was written for MS Windows on anything else other than MS Windows (I’ve had some success running some stuff on Linux – thanks to Wine – but that’s “some” … most stuff will not work properly)
Their take on this was to run Windows software natively (because ReactOS is a windows alternative) so no emulation, no wine, no fuss which was mind blowing for me.
I prepared a VirtualBox VM (I chose Windows 2003 as the OS inside the VM) then started it using the bootable iso then I installed ReacOS and booted it (whole process took me less than 2 min).
After booting it I started remembering that Windows XP/2003 feeling and proceeded to tweaking and tuning my installation and started installing various libraries and apps using its app manager.
All I can say is that my experience with it was awesome so far – considering this is not a production ready OS – and I’m consindering using it on an older laptop I have lying arround and give it to my children so that they can experience the OS my generation grew up with.
PS. Installation was so easy that I did not even bother to take screenshots or document the steps. You should be able to click next next next and get it running in no time 🙂
Enjoy!