I haven’t thought about ReactOS for quite some time. When I first read about it, I got a demo (CD or something?) and ran it just to see what it was about. It didn’t look exciting–basically looked like ugly old Windows classic–but that’s because it’s not supposed to be about looks, it’s supposed to be about compatibility with applications and drivers (!) written for Windows NT. I read an article this morning about the new 0.3.4 release, and I had a thought…

I use Windows only for PS and occasional video editing. I’ve actually learned enough Gimp that I use PS only for composites or photos that really need a lot of help. I do so little video editing that I can’t even remember the name of the software that I use–it’s Adobe’s cheapo home version of Premiere (maybe Premiere Elements?) ReactOS 0.3 is under heavy development and currently only in alpha, but I know it would run older versions of Photoshop, and I know it will run Office 2K3, which has activation crap like PS, so what if I waited until 0.3 was at least in beta and used that as a platform for PS and PE? I know that PSCS3 doesn’t work on Wine because even if you can get it to install and activate, it’s prone to random crashes. Anything up to 7.0 works, but nothing after. I also know that you can’t install CS3 on Windows 98. I know because I tried once in an effort to free up as many resources for PS as I could. I don’t use the OS itself except to run PS, so it didn’t matter to me whether it was 98SE or XP, but PS refused to install on less than (I think) 2000. If, however, I could get it to install on ReactOS, that would be awesome. I have no idea where the driver disc is for my Wacom tablet, but it’s not a brand-new model, so maybe there’s a 2K driver for it, or maybe the XP driver would work. Otherwise, none of my hardware should be a problem (or I wouldn’t think so). XP is only 2K with makeup on anyway.

I’ve got Ubuntu working the way I want it and XP’s been installed for years (largely unused…hehe), so I don’t want to fuck up my desktop. My laptop is also set up the way I like it (now), and network shares work with Samba, so I don’t want to fuck that up, either. P’s computer, however, is starting to throw errors, and he hasn’t rebuilt in years. He claims he’s going to do that, and that he wants me to set up a dual boot with a suitable Linux distro (I’ll believe that when I see it), but if he’s going to wipe his drive anyway, I don’t imagine he’d care if I installed ReactOS on it and tested PS and PE to make sure they’ll install and run. If it worked, then I’d know it’s worth wiping XP off my drive and having to dick around with Grub’s menu since Windows won’t exist anymore and I don’t want to reinstall Ubuntu so Grub will pick up ReactOS automatically. Hmmm…..