[orionblastar]

Haiku is progressing great. Anyone heard of AROS which is a rewrite of AmigaOS? I try to keep up with free and open source Windows alternatives for the PC.

We need something that even senior citizens can use to replace Windows XP on a system they can't afford to upgrade. Just the basic word processing Internet surfing and email.

ReactOS is progressing as well.

OSFree the OS/2 rewrite seems slower but using the M4 kernel with DOS and OS/2 personalities.

[dingdingdang]

> We need something that even senior citizens can use to replace Windows XP on a system they can't afford to upgrade.

My personal experience from large scale transition from Windows 7 to Linux Mint at work indicates that people ABSOLUTELY can use Linux - the UI is (unlike Win10) stable and things do not move around, settings don't change themselves on upgrades. And, importantly, updates can be set to be silent and automatic.

[zozbot123]

This, so much. All you need is (1) how to backup and restore your data, and (2) how to reinstall the system from scratch should it get hosed. The typical "Windows" way of system administration, haha... but hey, it works. And Debian with an LXDE session is literally snappier than XP, on XP-class hardware! (Just don't skimp on the RAM - less than 1GB doesn't cut it anymore if you're surfing the modern web. And stay on the "stable"/LTS update channel - none of that newfangled "rolling release", bleeding-edge silliness)

[orionblastar]

My father used Linux on a Live-CD when his XP had issues. He used to work at AT&T so he knew how Unix works.

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

> We need something that even senior citizens can use to replace Windows XP on a system they can't afford to upgrade. Just the basic word processing Internet surfing and email.

I am probably one of the biggest naysayers of Linux as a desktop platform, so keep that in mind when I ask: What's wrong with Linux for this use case?

If all you need is an internet kiosk, Linux is fine. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that's been the Linux Desktop's targeted use case for about a decade now because their cultural attitude is that anyone who isn't a C greybeard needs to be bottle fed.

[tracker1]

One of my grandmothers (until she passed) was on linux for about 8 years. I'd update/upgrade about every year or so. It ran chrome, and Wine ran the couple of windows 95 era games she used.

My other grandmother has been on Chome OS for almost as long. Which has been another great option. I do wish that Google had better support for installing/running full Chrome OS on more generic hardware. I find it's just about the best option all around for the novice computer user.

[Fnoord]

If I understood correct one reason it is progressing great is that they're able to (back)port code from FreeBSD. Not sure about the other ones.

The way I see it, it is nostalgia. Which has its value. For ReactOS, it also provides backwards compatibility and essentially is a FOSS and free as in beer Windows implementation. However, there are also progressive OSes such as Nix, Tails, Qubes to name 3, or microkernel-based OSes. These are where the innovation lies.

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

Nix, Tails, and Qubes are all just Linux dude.

[ziotom78]

It's been a long time since I heard of OSFree. Is it still active?

[orionblastar]

I think they had a server crash and moved to a new host.

http://osfree.org/

They have something that boots, but I am not sure if it can run OS/2, DOS, Windows code yet.

I wanted to donate $5 but their donate button is broken.