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
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??
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
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
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
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.
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
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;
> }
> =
>
> /*
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