Jonathan Andrews wrote:
 With a bootable linux ISO you get a full network stack,
functional USB support, detected UDMA IDE drivers, Vesfa FB X11 etc etc etc... with the
windows installer you get a kernel, a few utils and a pretty inflexable installer.
 
that's going to change
 Would it not make more sense to write an installer
thats based on a bootable Linux image
 
no, it wouldn't. It has to be a ReactOS image