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1. Embed this notice
   mcc (mcc@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 11-Aug-2025 05:05:10 JST mcc

   So, I want to signal flare a project @hikari is spinning up. I'd summarize this project as:

   • Try ReactOS again, but with Linux+Wine instead of the ReactOS kernel.

   You might have heard of ReactOS long ago— it's a project to make a Windows-API-compatible GPLed operating system. It promptly rabbitholed on writing a kernel, which was never finished (as of 2025 no SMP)

   However, Wine is now sophisticated and in SteamOS can run most commercial games.

   Why not replicate that for desktop apps?

   (1/5)

   • fanta 🐌 and Rich Felker repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     mcc (mcc@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 11-Aug-2025 05:30:27 JST mcc

     in reply to

     Hikari's idea was to try running the non-kernel parts of ReactOS inside Wine, and even in a very preliminary test met with decent success:

     https://social.noyu.me/@hikari/statuses/01HYRYZXMSDQHA2NPAFHS31Y9C

     She's now returning to this, and seeking collaborators to try to create a "distribution" or packaging pipeline for a self-contained, all-win32 desktop environment that can be installed atop Linux:

     https://social.noyu.me/@hikari/statuses/01K2AAH9A2MD2GNXHKBTBAWE1B

     Hikari is mainly seeking folks with distro/packaging experience, something she doesn't have. (2/5)

     (All Linux:)

   • Embed this notice
     mcc (mcc@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 11-Aug-2025 21:35:18 JST mcc

     in reply to

     "Version 2", as I understood it, would be to make a actual Linux distribution that acts as a drop-in replacement for desktop Windows, fronting only Windows software & exposing the Linux layer only via VM. (Her reasoning was most of what makes creating a Linux distro hard is compatibility; Android & SteamOS have an easier time because their linux underpinnings are "unstable".) Since I don't intend to go to Windows 11 this is something I'd DEARLY love to exist! But it's more of a daydream.

     (4/5)

     Rich Felker repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     mcc (mcc@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 11-Aug-2025 21:35:18 JST mcc

     in reply to

     Anyway, if any of this is interesting to you and you'd like to try to make it real, email Hikari_no_Yume ( as linked above, https://social.noyu.me/@hikari/statuses/01K2AAH9A2MD2GNXHKBTBAWE1B ). She asked me to be clear about two things:

     1. She doesn't intend to be project lead; she has an idea and a domain name and wants to connect collaborators.

     2. She's not sure whether the right basis is ReactOS Shell or Wine Shell (ReactOS shell is much more complete, but enough of it is broken in Wine improving Wine Shell might be simpler).

     (5/5)

   • Embed this notice
     mcc (mcc@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 11-Aug-2025 21:35:19 JST mcc

     in reply to

     I've heard Hikari describe two different versions of this idea.

     "Version 1" is what she's aiming for currently— something like a `sudo apt-get install loss32-desktop-environment` package for one or more distros that installs a fully Wine-resident DE that shows up as an alternative to GNOME or KDE in your gdm or sddm. I think this could be useful for several reasons, such as making Wine accessible to non Linux heads (I consider myself a Linux power user but have never got Wine working).

     (3/5)

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 11-Aug-2025 21:38:27 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • James Widman

     @JamesWidman @mcc I don't think that's strictly necessary for the functionality you'd want. The bare metal substrate Linux layer being their own thing to host Wine and a Windows mimic DE isn't incompatible with having a namespace running a Linux guest that's a distro of your choosing. There could even be UI/API mimicking WSL but operating this way under the hood.

   • Embed this notice
     James Widman (jameswidman@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 11-Aug-2025 21:38:28 JST James Widman

     in reply to

     @mcc
     like, if i had a system that is like hikari's, *and* also executes linux binaries natively, then i would want to use that as a machine for software development, which would mean the union of e.g.:

     - nice debuggers with GUIs for windows

     - uftrace (linux only: https://github.com/namhyung/uftrace)

     - DTrace for linux

     - tons of experimental LLVM stuff that is linux-only (or initially-linux-only), e.g. https://discourse.llvm.org/t/tpde-llvm-10-20x-faster-llvm-o0-back-end/86664

   • Embed this notice
     James Widman (jameswidman@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 11-Aug-2025 21:38:29 JST James Widman

     in reply to

     @mcc
     > "Version 2", as I understood it, would be [...] exposing the Linux layer only via VM.

     hm...

     i appreciate & respect the motive here (iiuc to prioritize the manifestation of a replacement for windows, which may require some loss of compatibility with userland linux-type stuff)...

     but if there is any possible way to keep native linux userland functionality, that would be very very very very very very [inhale] *very* nice...