Reviews of LoseThos

1. 
   bobad

   Reviewing 5.11 (Aug 5, 2009)

   Interesting, but weird. Too steep a learning curve for all but a few geeks. Even when you learn it, it's not something you would use every day unless coding is your passion.
   
   The author is obviously talented, and should spend his time helping out on the ReactOS project. At least the end product will be useful to millions of people, not just a few geeks.
   
   4 stars for originality.
2. 
   darkwzrd1

   Reviewing 5.08 (Jun 29, 2009)

   Someone needs a girlfriend, other then their Core i7 Processor.
3. 
   losethos

   Reviewing 4.15 (Oct 1, 2008)

   Just to clarify a couple misconceptions the last reviewer spoke of...
   
   First... why are you exploring alternative operating systems if you want them to be like Windows or Linux? It's pointless to make it the same, stupid in fact. See http://www.losethos.com for an explaination.
   
   I will proudly proclaim it is 100% new, different and I claim better. It's for programming as entertainment -- writing new programs, not running programs imported from elsewhere. You can do "hello world" in one line of code and draw graphics on the screen in two.
   
   Files with names not ending in 'Z' on FAT32 partitions can be freely transferred in and out of another operating system you duel boot with and they will be uuncompressed. If you have a file ending in 'Z', copy it to a name not ending in 'Z' and it will be stored uncompressed.
   
   It's 18 Meg because it has a dictionary and the Bible. I didn't want to scare people with a file that is 2 Meg or have it dismissed as too small to be significant.
   
   If it were not 100% new, it could not be public domain. You can do anything you like with it, even make money. You do not need to mention it if you encorporate it into something you sell. You do not need to share code changes with me. You can fork it. You can make a video game that runs on a live CD and sell it. (LoseThos is only 18 Meg (or 2 Meg) and you could make a universal video game CD, independent of operating system because it includes an operating system.)
4. 
   mikeeberhart

   Reviewing 4.15 (Sep 30, 2008)

   Although this operating-system has a few neat things going for it, it has a plethora of negatives that outweigh the positives, and essentially most any average modern computer user will find it beyond frustrating for many reasons. Here are some of my observations:
   
   Pros (Few)
   
   * Small, and perhaps small enough for the code to be understood, should someone wish to make the effort.
   * Responsive for most part, tough given the ridiculous limitations, it is not too surprising that what is there is responsive
   * 64-bit and multi-core ready, though not sure why even bother given how little that functionality can really be used.
   
   Cons (Many)
   
   * JUST PLAIN STRANGE ON SO MANY LEVELS
   * It could not get much more unintuitive (perhaps it is the only OS nearly as bad as BlueBottle Oberon in this regard!)
   * Will not work in VMWARE because it is so completely non-standard in every regard, like...
   * Proprietary file format with embedded binary data (like graphics, etc) that nothing else can read. Thus, even though you can "see" files from FAT system, you can't open/read them without problems (to say the least -- EOF is meaningless to FAT due to how this Losethos uses the characters.)
   * File system is compressed!? And I do not mean ZIP or anything obvious or standard (surprise, surprise)! This requires a custom "tool" program to transfer files from other computers via a "partition", and special tools to decompress, etc. Every file extension ending in "Z" is compressed version of normal. ASZ (ASM compressed), CPZ (CPP file compressed), etc. Basically, the developer feels that you should install this on a dedicated computer, and only use the tools contained in this "OS" to edit anything, etc.
   * Even the bootloader is fricking proprietary weirdness and lameness!
   * Language(s) and compiler-directives, etc are all non-standard!! In fact, it implements its own proprietary C and ASM code and compilers. This is just plain weird, especially given the abundanace of open-source options (gnu, fasm, etc.)
   * No real "GUI" (welcome to the 1980s text-mode 640x480 x4 color!). And, of all whacky things to implement, the "windows" that are drawn using text essentially, also have these insanely annoying Marquee banners at the top showing the file-name you have open or such. I can not imagine what inspired this aside from "look what I could do different" when writing it.
   * No drivers for anything beyond keyboard and mouse essentially.
   * No networking, thus making it impossible to easily move anything to/from the OS.
   * Download is HUGE for what it is (18.6Meg), as compared to a full-featured tight windowing operating system like KolibriOS (MenuetOS fork) that fits on a 1.44Meg floppy.
   
   I give credit to anyone that writes an OS, as it is not an easy task. But, I can not help thinking that the effort is a total waste if it is made into something completely inaccessible to others. If it would just run in a VM easily, and have a non-compressed (e.g., standard FAT) filesystem that would allow for modifications to be easily moved to/from the system, it would be perhaps worth further examination. But, as it is now, I consider the code like the bootloader to be essentially one step above being a virus, as you can not really dive into the code to see what is going on in there without editing it on a Losethos installation.
   
   So, to the author I say: you have great skill writing an OS, but why publish something that is going to be close to useless for so many? It is an interesting piece of work, and may be useful to someone learning how to write an OS, though there are certainly more "main stream" ones out there to learn from.
5. 
   mjm01010101

   Reviewing 3.13 Beta (Nov 27, 2007)

   haha it's worth checking out the demo on the homepage. Man you can tell that guy is a geek! :)

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