ReactOS (FOSS "Windows") achieves 3D-accelerated Half-Life on real hardware(www.phoronix.com)
135 pointsby jeditobe5 hours ago5 comments
  • theturtletalks3 minutes ago
    Given enough time, open-source will win. Just think about how more and more people are programming and how that will draw them to open-source.
  • NooneAtAll34 hours ago
    something I wondered for a while

    do windows viruses get ported by such efforts as well?

    • TechSquidTV2 hours ago
      Of course. Maybe not successfully but a "virus" is just software. If it runs software, it runs software, full stop. Maybe the same APIs are not available or behave differently, so it may be buggy or non-functional, but that's true of Half-Life here too.
    • shakna40 minutes ago
      WannaCry was able to successfully run on ReactOS in 2025. Most other virsuses do tend to crash, because the memory layout is just a tiny bit different, but yeah, compatibility means compatibility. Lots of malware comes along for the ride.

      However, there is a permissions layer that is more nix than Windows, which means the first foothold is still better than XP - you have to choose to execute the file. Self-running things don't tend to infect systems.

      Its not a panacea, and there is a risk factor. And there aren't a lot of antivirus systems that can run correctly under ReactOS, because they freak out and think the OS is the malware, because they're scanning hashes for Windows, not another system.

      But for a hobby OS, keeping hardware and software accessible after the rest of the world broke access, it still works.

    • augusto-moura3 hours ago
      Some, but not all, most don't. Ideally they would all work, ReactOS doesn't make a priority on being a "safer" option, just an open source option
    • canyp3 hours ago
      Somewhere in the docs they state that they must also recreate whatever bugs the API has, otherwise applications written with those bugs as an (implicit) assumption could misbehave.
    • chadgpt33 hours ago
      Yes
    • naturalmovement2 hours ago
      Maybe worry about Linux malware which is a major problem right now everyone is in huge denial about, instead of throwing shade at a hobby OS emulating a 25 year old version of Windows.

      ReactOS isn't the one that just had one of its package repos owned (again).

      • nvr2192 hours ago
        What's the major Linux malware problem that everyone is ignoring
        • shaknaan hour ago
          AUR got hit recently [0], by what looks like more work of TeamPCP and friends.

          EDIT: Worth noting, Arch ain't hosted on AUR. That's the community side only.

          [0] https://archlinux.org/news/active-aur-malicious-packages-inc...

          • Grombobulous39 minutes ago
            I would still note that this is not some kind of unique problem to Linux. There have been documented instances of malware making it to the Play Store, which is supposed to have a much more rigorous vetting process than AUR and costs actual money to publish on.
            • shakna5 minutes ago
              Just to expand... When the above user is comparing to Windows, who got most of the US government breached, I do think shade against AUR is uncalled for. Its just a community host for packages, comes with warnings, and isn't enabled by default, etc.

              I can still happily upgrade via pacman without fear. Haven't been able to update on Windows without concern for over a decade - the malware comes builtin.

              [0] https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/2024-03/CSRB%20Revi...

      • nvme0n1p138 minutes ago
        Isn't it funny how such incidents on Linux are rare enough that they make headlines, but on Windows that's been the baseline expected state of things for so long that nobody bats an eye anymore.

        Btw if you're running an OS that's never had a malware incident, please, tell us!

  • ajross4 hours ago
    While this is sort of laughable out of context (I mean, Steam on Linux for the last few years has run basically everything with full acceleration)...

    I think what is being claimed, but not explicitly in the article, is that this is running the NVIDIA driver stack (for an ancient GeForce 8 card) directly, as opposed to emulating DirectX at the API level on top of a Vulkan driver.

    • chadgpt33 hours ago
      Indeed. ReactOS is to the full Windows stack what Wine is to the userland Windows API.
    • himata41133 hours ago
      I mean they reimplemented directx without vulkan, that's indeed in a league of their own. wine/proton relies on opengl/vulkan to do anything.
      • ddtaylor2 hours ago
        Wine has had many different DirectX backends over the decades, including one before Vulkan existed obviously.
        • himata41132 hours ago
          All of them relied on translation (ex: opengl). Proton specifically is focused on dx->vulkan.
    • wolvoleo2 hours ago
      I wouldn't call it laughable. ReactOS was not created only to run half-life. It's just one of their many impressive achievements.
    • 3 hours ago
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    • da_chicken2 hours ago
      > While this is sort of laughable out of context (I mean, Steam on Linux for the last few years has run basically everything with full acceleration)...

      Eh. It's sort of like saying FreeDOS is laughable because DOSBox exists. I think that's missing the point.

  • doawoo36 minutes ago
    [dead]
  • alaskahoffman3 hours ago
    reactos has been in development for 28 years and it can run half-life on real hardware. that is approximately how long half-life 1 itself has existed in the first place!