Ros-dev March 2008

ros-dev@reactos.org

15 participants
11 discussions

Trying to push ideas (again:) )
by Alexandru Lovin 25 Sep '08

25 Sep '08

Hello everyone, Aleksey suggested that I discuss this here, on the mailing list. First and foremost, these are enhancements to do for later, much later (what I would want for the next release is support for RAID / SCSI controllers). But I know that a developer doesn't actually keep something in his plans unless he's figured out a way to do it. I will paste and add additional comments to each of my suggestions. 1. Compatibility with every version of Windows, from Vista until Windows 3.1/ 3.11 That means applications written for 3.1 should work flawlessly on ReactOS, just like apps written for any other Windows. This is probably not hard, as at least XP does the same thing. However, drivers for Windows 3.1 most probably do not work. If the user actually has hardware that was left unsupported since 3.1, he should be able to use it. The same goes for the combination Vista-only driver / old Windows '95 or Windows 3.1 application. oiaohm said it's not really possible because VxD drivers are not well documented. So, maybe in the distant future, maybe when Linux devs will have reversed VxD's on their own. Just don't forget this. 2. Compatibility with DOS** This will probably not mean DOS drivers, as probably any hardware with DOS drivers also has some sort of Windows drivers. It would only mean application compatibility. However, applications with direct access to hardware will probably have to remain used from within DOS (e.g. BIOS update software). The major thing are games here. The ideal way to run DOS games is: - anything requested by the game is interpreted and passed on to the ROS API - Glide commands are interpreted and passed on to OpenGL or Direct3D, resulting in maybe a better image quality, via the use of features OpenGL has and Glide doesn't. - software rendering requested by games should be interpreted and passed on to OpenGL or Direct3D, again resulting in a better image quality. Of course, this will probably result in a compatibility layer, like you suggested. - redbook audio commands should be passed on to ReactOS, who will read in analog mode or digital mode, depending on what the ROS global settings are for that specific optical drive. My own thing about Descent, quickly: the game tries to access file " 1.midi" but ReactOS plays "1.mp3". I have all the mp3's and will provide them whenever needed in order to make this happen. This will transform the old Descent for DOS in the CD version, that had redbook audio tracks. Such enhancements were also created for Tomb Raider 1, by Paul that created Glidos ( www.glidos.net ). Please see http://www.glidos.net/retext.html?lang=en and http://www.glidos.net/audio.html?lang=en Whenever Tomb Raider 1 asked for certain textures / audio data, it was "hijacked" or "redirected" to the better textures or audio files. Certainly, this DOS compatibility layer would probably need a Glidos-like application to control various specific settings from various DOS applications. Another DOS related thing would be a command prompt (terminal?) in ReactOS that has drag'n'drop, copy and paste functionality. Still oiaohm: for the distant future. Got it, understood it, I just want to convince you to keep it in your plans. oiaohm even said a compatibility layer already exists. 3. Processors as a devices, in Device Manager * * For example, let's say a PC has a Pentium 4 at 3 GHz, with HyperThreading. Windows XP reports this processor as two identical ones in Device Manager. ReactOS should also do that. Apart from Windows, if the user does a right-click on a processor as a device, in the Device Manager tree, and chooses the Properties page of the processor device, that page should also mention the SPEED of the processor. More than that, it would be a blessing to also see the L1, L2 and L3 cache size, FSB and multiplier, like those SiSoft Sandra / Everest applications report. Maybe even further, the instruction sets supported - MMX, 3DNow!, SSE, etc. oiaohm again: can be done, but not right now. Stability and usability beat extra information. Got it, too. Bug 2644. 4. Clustering I discussed this with oiaohm and he said it's doable, as soon as ROS gets Active Directory Server. Only clustered in terms of processing power, the user has more machines in a cluster and he still sees ROS the normal way, it just works faster because there are more processors available. No hard drives in some sort of JBOD, and 3D data is only handled by the "master" machine(otherwise you need about 10 GB/sec between machines), the one the user actually interacts with. This is what he said would be the limitations. I have other details for this, but since it's very far away, it wouldn't make sense to bring them up right now. 5. Driver extraction tool I already got one, DoubleDriver, that backs up the drivers for devices in the device manager. I was thinking about the hardware that only gets drivers from Windows Publisher (like my MSI Starkey 2.0). Users would need one. Again, oiaohm said replicating a freeware tool is not high on the list. I'm fine with that. 6. A Windows Media Center equivalent **WMC doesn't do much. Just lists program schedules, can do scheduled recordings, is able to duplicate streams so that you may record whatever you're watching. It stops suddenly while doing a "record once" capture, when it should have waited for the user to say stop (it happened on Vista Home Premium, on a HP laptop). It has a "touchscreen" kind of interface, that would probably be great on an actual touchscreen, works ok when using a PC remote control, but is kind of stupid when using the mouse. It can record from one channel and let you watch another channel if you have at least two TV tuners in your computer. Naturally, ROS should do this with "n" TV tuners. It doesn't have composite or S-video capturing, like the vast majority of TV tuner software out there. It only captures in Microsoft's special "Microsoft recorded TV Show" format, extension .dvr-ms I think (no AVI capture, no mpg capture). It won't let you specify how the tuner provides sound from the antenna/cable signal to the sound card (PCI audio, internal cable, external cable, and if any of the last two, what sound card channel it is). While watching, it should be easier to find out what channel you're on, and what the time is, via some sort of OSD (on-screen display) that appears when you move the mouse or something, just like in WMC. The recording should not be affected by this (i.e. the OSD shouldn't show up on the recording if you moved the mouse, again just like in WMC). While watching, it's not possible (or at least not easy) to jump directly to a specific channel, it may only be used as a TV (next channel, next channel...). If the user tries to switch channels while recording, he gets "warning, you're recording, if you switch channels it's going to stop, you want that?" It should just stop, or at least let the user specify that he doesn't want to see that message again somehow. It doesn't let the user specify exactly the framerate, video size, video standard...just the country of origin. And, as an example, Romaniaofficially uses the PAL D standard on "air" broadcast, that you can get with an antenna. But cable providers use PAL B, which is the German official standard. So, in WMC a guy with cable from Romania must say he's from Germany or else he won't hear anything! All of these should be properly implemented in ReactOS Media Center. Apart from them, "ROSMC" should have all the deinterlacing options and deinterlacing-method autodetection routines from Dscaler. That program also offers a whole lot of other image improvement things, like a good enough TV station logo killer and image de-noising that actually works. Even better than Dscaler, REMEMBER the settings the next time the user runs the program. Maybe also provide the user with basic video editing functionality, meaning most of the features from VirtualDub (the one I find most important is the ability to edit a film with "direct stream copy", meaning it just copies the video and/or audio stream, it doesn't re-encode it. Edit as in cutting parts of the film. In this scenario, the ability to go frame by frame is also very useful). And since it's the Media Center and not the Media Player, this should be the application that rips audio cd's or audio dvd's. Most of all, it should be "cluster-aware." Regardless of ROS being cluster aware or not, this one should be. oiaohm said this is not your job, but a job for other projects. He pointed me to MediaPortal. I e-mailed all of them (Virtualdub, Dscaler and MediaPortal) but I doubt they'll combine the three projects. Still, that's why John User still buys Windows. Linux is all over the Internet (docs all over forums, drivers all over sites, applications all over sites as well). Instead, Linux has "cool" stuff like "mousespedometa" (measures the speed with which you move the mouse). Some people don't even have Internet to get what they need (X servers, for instance). To be a Windows alternative, it should contain a lot of things Windows has. 7. Running on 16-bit systems like 286/386/486 in a "ReactOS Essentials" (equivalent to a stripped-down XP) mode * * It should be the same operating system, but in 16-bit mode only. That's an ideal scenario and I'm sure it cannot be done no matter how good the programmers are. So, what can someone do on a 286 ? Listen to mp3's ? No way. Listen to audio CD's, yes, and hopefully digital playback, too. Watch TV ? Yes, if the user can find an ISA TV tuner (ATI made such tuners, but they required a PCI ATI video card, and if you have PCI why not get a better tuner?). Record TV shows ? Not on that kind of computer. Browse the internet ? That may be possible, with some really outdated, 16-bit browser, like the Internet Explorer for Windows 3.1. And I don't know how many sites will work on it. Play games ? Yes, either old DOS or Windows 3.1 ones or the ones that come with ReactOS, written in 16-bit especially for this mode. Join a hive as either master or slave ? Hopefully it will be possible, but probably in the year 2015 at least. Use office applications ? Sure, if the user can find that last Microsoft Office or maybe Microsoft Works version compatible with Windows 3.1. Run a web server ? I know a guy who had a server running on a 386 system, on Windows 3.11. So yes, it is possible, only I don't know what software he used to actually serve the data. Act as a router ? Again, hopefully. That is, if the entire network is on 10 megabit, because I don't think there are ISA 100 megabit network cards (ISA bandwith is not enough). 2D graphics ? It was possible in Windows 3.1, why not ? Maybe the first Photoshop versions actually were 16-bit. 3D graphics ? The first 3D Studio Max (that is, 3D Studio) was for DOS only. That probably means 16-bit right from the start, and that should mean yes, you can do it, with the DOS compatibility layer. Web design ? If you can find a 16-bit application, yes. A separate ReactOS for 16-bit only, or just all the 16-bit functionality included in the normal ReactOS ? Things look better when it works out of the box, but it's a waste of space to include applications written for 16-bit only. People that really need the 16-bit version will not mind paying extra attention to actually download this one and not the normal one. Besides that, ReactOS is free. And the presence of such a version would mean a selfless devotion to people. An act of charity for real. Allowing people to use their computers and do as many modern things as possible on them. An open source Windows 3.11 with better compatibility and adherence to standards. Compatible with all the 9x and ME. Has been tried in Free Win 95, oiaohm said "dead and staying that way" about it, but maybe VxD documentation and whatever else you would need will appear (or be reverse engineered by someone). Once a bigger effort will be done, the missing info is probably easier to uncover. Those are my suggestions. They are not for now, they are not easy to do, etc. Just don't discard them, please. Alex

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A question about SepCreateSystemProcessToken
by Xiaoming Gao 24 Mar '08

24 Mar '08

SepCreateSystemProcessToken calls ObCreateObject like this: Status = ObCreateObject(KernelMode, SepTokenObjectType, NULL, KernelMode, NULL, sizeof(TOKEN), 0, 0, (PVOID*)&AccessToken); the ObjectAttributes parameter is set to NULL,and ObCreateObject passes ObjectAttributes to call ObpCaptureObjectAttributes like this: Status = ObpCaptureObjectAttributes(ObjectAttributes, ProbeMode, FALSE, ObjectCreateInfo, &ObjectName); and in ObpCaptureObjectAttributes ,there's a check condition that checks if ObjectAttributes is NULL, if ObjectAttributes is NULL,it will cause ObpCaptureObjectAttributes fail,and then cause ObCreateObject fail,then cause SepCreateSystemProcessToken fail,and the return value of SepCreateSystemProcessToken will ever be NULL. Could someone explain why???am i wrong??

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ReactOS 0.34 (Installation CD) issues
by Bernd Blaauw 23 Mar '08

23 Mar '08

While installing and using ReactOS 0.34 (on Windows XP Professional with VmWare Workstation 6.03) I'm experiencing a couple of issues. - Are there any new requirements to install ReactOS? 586+ with 64MB for example instead of earlier 486+/16MB ? - Are there any new requirements to bootup ReactOS? 586+ with 64MB? would/should swapfile work with lower amount of system memory installed on the machine? - Are there any new requirements to use ReactOS? 586+ with 64MB? Does swapfile work? - Is commandline-only supported on machines with not enough memory installed? Ofcourse booting from CD has to be supported on the target machine, either natively or through tricks like Smart Boot Manager or GRUB(-4-DOS) (or FreeLDR even?). The actual trouble I'm having is completing 0.34's installation process with Dutch language and USA keyboard layout (which isn't default, you seem to prefer Belgium keyboard layout by default, which might be just as strange as a Dutch keyboard layout by default. Those keyboards hardly exist at all). It seems to hang on this machine at a random moment of time during the file copy phase. In the end, I cannot install FreeLDR to diskette (empty WinImage 1.44MB diskette image), nor can I return to previous screen to select "install to harddisk". My goal was having a FreeLDR bootdisk in case I mess up the partition bootsector. Anyway, using English as installation language and its defaults, I can complete SETUP properly. While in ReactOS booted from harddisk, opening a simple console window (CMD) and doing DIR A: results in a blue screen (instead of a message like "no floppydrive installed") Same issue as known earlier I guess - non-working floppydrive(r). My old FreeLoader diskette is based on a FreeLDR bootdisk that Casper Hornstrup(?) had available at the time. It's available from http://odin.fdos.org/odin2005/ Booting the diskette, pressing CTRL-C, then doing a simple COPY /Y C:\FREELDR.SYS A:\FREELDR.SYS does the trick for updating FreeLDR from 2.xx to 3.xx, resulting in being able to boot ReactOS 0.34 from a diskette. Strangely enough no single DOS tool/command can handle FREELDR.INI (copy, ren, del, edit, all fail) - any idea why? Last of all, SHUTDOWN doesn't shut off the computer (guess you want to be sure everything in cache is flushed?), and LOGOFF won't allow me to get out of entering my username and password. Looking forward to a ReactOS with OpenOffice and FireFox 3.xx in a while, Any help, ideas or recommendations much appreciated (as well as pointing me to the correct mailinglist if it shouldn't be ros-dev) Bernd Blaauw

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Reactos booting to CLI
by Marc Piulachs 19 Mar '08

19 Mar '08

As we know Windows (at least till Windows 7) was designed to be a GUI based operating system. All applications can safely assume that the windowing subsystem is running. Windows/Reactos can run native applications without starting the windowing subsystem like usetup during 1st stage setup but of course without having access to Win32 apis as Win32k is not loaded. AFAIK win32k is designed to be the main subsystem and is the responsible of starting the windowing subsystem so my question is . Would be technically possible to have a striped win32k version without the GUI code? + command line enabled winlogon, syssetup etc.. so you can boot and run cli based applications like cmd.exe ? what other parts of the boot process relay on having the GUI running? It's more of a design curiosity question rather than a real request Regards, Marc

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Regarding Tsonic OS (2)
by David Eckert 15 Mar '08

15 Mar '08

whoops, -fairview, i meant the FBI lol :P -- -David W. Eckert

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Regarding Tsonic OS
by David Eckert 15 Mar '08

15 Mar '08

With regards to Tsonic OS, It would be very advisable at this point to get all DNS information and ISP information and report this individual(s) to either their ISP or Fairview, or perhaps both. -- -David W. Eckert

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Re: [ros-dev] Hello , we are searching for people with programing skills for the operating system Tsonic OS.
by Mark Tempel 13 Mar '08

13 Mar '08

Two things: 1) Please take me off your list. I know that you pulled my email address from the reactos mailing list. Since your project is not reactos, I'm not interested in hearing about it. 2) Posting links to leaked Microsoft source code in any forum related to reactos shows a complete lack of good judgment, and a lack of knowledge of recent reactos history. I certainly hope that you don't intend to try to check a derivative of leaked Windows source into the reactos tree. That would taint reactos and make it vulnerable to legal action (at least here in the US). Further, since you are acting as a spokesperson for TonicOs, and are passing around links to stolen Microsoft intellectual property, I would consider TonicOs already tainted. Please take conversations about leaked Windows source to some other venue. --mark On Wed, 12 Mar 2008 12:44:18 -0800 "Tsvetan Banchev" <tsvetanmail(a)gmail.com> wrote: > http://[cut]/Windows_2000_source_code > http://[cut]/Windows_XP_Source_Code > obtained from a friend inside ms ;) > > rar password needs cracking, working on it now. could >take a few days. if > anyone's got a high end machine it'd be appreciated if >they could use a RAR > password recovery app to get it.

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Re: [ros-dev] [ros-diffs] [fireball] 32667: - Fix build.
by Steven Edwards 13 Mar '08

13 Mar '08

Hi, On Wed, Mar 12, 2008 at 2:07 PM, <fireball(a)svn.reactos.org> wrote: > Author: fireball > Date: Wed Mar 12 14:07:32 2008 > New Revision: 32667 > > URL: http://svn.reactos.org/svn/reactos?rev=3D32667&view=3Drev > Log: > - Fix build. > > Modified: > trunk/reactos/ntoskrnl/ntoskrnl-generic.rbuild > > Modified: trunk/reactos/ntoskrnl/ntoskrnl-generic.rbuild > URL: http://svn.reactos.org/svn/reactos/trunk/reactos/ntoskrnl/ntoskrnl-gen= > eric.rbuild?rev=3D32667&r1=3D32666&r2=3D32667&view=3Ddiff > =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= > =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= > =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= > =3D=3D=3D Diffs have been broken since the recent email problems. Is there any estimate on when/if this is going to be fixed? Thanks -- Steven Edwards "There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come." - Victor Hugo

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Re: [ros-dev] [ros-diffs] [greatlrd] 32652: part 2/2 for implement GetAppCompatFlags left todo implemented set AppCompatFlags
by Aleksey Bragin 11 Mar '08

11 Mar '08

Why did that big chunk of MS's support database text got into our codebase? Even not edited, so that I can read up about "tax form 1040 would not print correctly" in ReactOS Source code? What is the use from it? If you wanted SO MUCH, you could at least edit it, or ask someone to edit it for you (we have quite a few people in our team). But then, I could insert half of WDK docs into the kernel source code and drivers source code (which in fact would violate copyrights, since it would not even be fair use). Providing URL is quite enough, though, if I don't mistake (I'm not up to date with their position), Wine is already removing URLs from source code because they should be kept somewhere else. Source code is source code, not a collector to store everything. There is no point in sticking various garbage into reactos source code with a note "so it doesn't get lost", we've come over that point quite a few years ago. With the best regards, Aleksey Bragin. On Mar 11, 2008, at 3:09 AM, greatlrd(a)svn.reactos.org wrote: > Author: greatlrd > Date: Mon Mar 10 19:09:23 2008 > New Revision: 32652 > > URL: http://svn.reactos.org/svn/reactos?rev=3D32652&view=3Drev > Log: > part 2/2 for implement GetAppCompatFlags > left todo implemented set AppCompatFlags = > > > Modified: > trunk/reactos/dll/win32/user32/misc/stubs.c > > + /* NOTE : GetAppCompatFlags retuns which compatible flags should > be send= > back = > > + * the return value is any of http://support.microsoft.com/kb/82860 > + * This text are direcly copy from the MSDN URL, so it does not > get lost > + > *--------------------------------------------------------------------- > -= > -------- > + * Bit: 1 Lots of text here > + = > > + return ti->dwAppsCompatibleFlags; > } > = > > /*

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Small suggestion
by Heis Spiter 10 Mar '08

10 Mar '08

Hi, after r32615 and r32623, I send you this mail in order to find some volunteers to remove all remaining $id from files and also to update FSF address in files hearders. Thanks in advance to the volunteers. Best regards, P. Schweitzer

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Ros-dev March 2008