2 Dec
2013
2 Dec
'13
1:42 p.m.
Greetings:
I haven't posted on the forums or anything for a good while now, but I still keep tabs
on the mailing lists and such.
On similar lines as Mr. Ionescu's suggestion, a separate disk could be made that
includes a collection of drivers, which for binary blob/licensing reasons (or simply
because including all of them would inflate the release ISOs too much) can't be
distributed in the official ReactOS release. It could be called "Windows Offline
Drivers Disk" or something, nominally as a utility for people installing Windows on a
computer not connected to the Internet (which can actually be a pain in the ass,
especially when Windows can't find the driver to my USB WiFi adapter to connect to the
Internet because Windows didn't ship with drivers for it and it's not connected to
the Internet to access Windows Update but my Ethernet cable isn't long enough to go
across the room and someone else is currently using it anyway), so that it has
functionality with Windows systems separate from ReactOS, thus dodging the "are the
drivers for Windows or ReactOS" issue. During second
stage of ReactOS installation there could be a prompt asking if the user would like to
insert the Windows Offline Drivers Disk or (other media) to search for drivers. (Or if
the computer is connected to Internet the disk could be streamed from whatever site hosts
it like how Download Manager does it with other apps, if that doesn't create a
separate issue.)
I suggested something vaguely similar a long, long time ago on the forums to address the
issue of ReactOS not shipping with a lot of drivers, so this conversation rung off a dusty
bell in my head.
If this is only an issue for a few select drivers then a separate disk might be
overboard. Hope I'm not intruding by posting here, just thought I'd add my two
cents. :)
-Joshua Bailey
On Sunday, December 1, 2013 8:08 PM, Alex Ionescu <ionucu(a)videotron.ca> wrote:
Imo, up to me, we ship with minimal drivers to get to 2nd stage, and then wipe everything
with the WDK sample project.
Or we simply don't provide a bootable all-in-one CD. We make two separate downloads
and somehow make an easy-to-use "slipstreamer" that builds the final CD. How to
do this at conferences or with pressed CDs is another matter.
I agree all of these solutions are ugly, and as Nuno says, also not guaranteed to work (in
the end, it's up to a judge or jury to decide).
Best regards,
Alex Ionescu
On Sun, Dec 1, 2013 at 4:08 PM, Colin Finck <colin(a)reactos.org> wrote:
Aleksey Bragin <aleksey(a)reactos.org> wrote:
_______________________________________________
Ros-dev mailing list
Ros-dev(a)reactos.org
http://www.reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev
To conclude,
our existing fastfast totally sucks. cdfs does too. Fixing
them is a waste of time. Rewriting them - good project, but noone will
use that driver.
So what is the alternative? Shipping ReactOS without any FAT driver? ;)
The license discussions have already evolved to a point where we know
that we can't possibly include the MS fastfat example code in our tree.
What has happened to the FullFAT-powered driver project in the meantime?
Some years ago, it was still praised in high terms and even ready to
implement journaling on top of FAT
(https://www.reactos.org/archives/public/ros-dev/2009-July/011902.html).
- Colin
_______________________________________________
Ros-dev mailing list
Ros-dev(a)reactos.org
http://www.reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev