from "David Quintana (gigaherz)" <gigaherz@gmail.com>:

> [-- Type: multipart/alternative, Encoding: 7bit, Size: 5.8K --]
> Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=001a1135f7ac55c1ca04f557713d

> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8

> First of all, I'm not an expert when it comes to what ReactOS supports in
> terms of real hardware.

> I believe (someone will correct me if I'm wrong), that ReactOS is not
> currently able to boot from USB, and in fact, will fail to boot at all if
> an incompatible USB controller (which is most of them, I think?) is
> present. Burning a CD-ROM with the setup or livecd images, and possibly
> disabling the USB controllers from your bios config, may give you better
> results.

> I'm assuming that your intention is to try ReactOS in real hardware,
> otherwise it would be better advised to just use VMware, VirtualBox, or
> QEMU, as those work mostly out of the box.

> Ideally, your real-hardware testing platform should have a serial port, and
> this serial port should be connected to another computer with a serial
> port, by using a null-modem cable. This way you could see debug messages
> through the serial port, and interact with the remote debugger driver when
> (more than if) it crashes.

> ReactOS currently only supports FAT32, because it's a simple driver that
> does not need advanced features of the storage system. As the storage stack
> improves, it will be possible to attempt using more complex drivers. We
> already have an EXT2 driver, but last I heard it was not stable enough to
> be able to boot from it.

> That's all I know. If it's not enough, maybe someone with more experience
> can add to it.

Thanks for response, but surely one-part plain text would be better than multipart/alternative?

I could try commands such as drivemap in GRUB 2, but then ReactOS would be lost when trying to boot.

Would MS-Windows drivers work in ReactOS when running from within VirtualBox or QEMU?

I don't really want to try ReactOS on the same disk with FreeBSD and Linux installations that I want to keep intact, might be too hazardous.

I don't have any serial ports but have serial headers on motherboard, could conceivably make a serial port.

FreeDOS can boot from USB stick thanks to recognition by the BIOS/UEFI.

I really would want to install ReactOS to something rewritable; having to burn a new CD for every little change is too much.

With ReactOS being far from ready for production use, I figure I would have to make frequent changes/adjustments.

I downloaded the installation iso for ReactOS 0.3.15, burned to CD, but that failed to boot.

I believe Linux and *BSD are far more flexible in where they can install to than MS-Windows or OS/2.  I hope ReactOS could rise above such Windows booting limitations.

I ran OS/2 from 16-bit 1.3 in 1990 or 1991 to OS/2 Warp 4 in the single-digit days of April 2001.  Then following a crash, on the next boot, CHKDSK, which ran automatically on the uncleanly-dismounted file system, ran amok and trashed everything on the hard drive.  I was never again able to boot OS/2 after that.  Now Linux and FreeBSD capabilities seem to far surpass OS/2 and its successor eComStation.

Tom


_______________________________________________
Ros-dev mailing list
Ros-dev@reactos.org
http://www.reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev