Re: [ros-dev] [GSOC]GUI first stage installer

[Andrew Green]

Thank you Matthias Kupfer.
After poking around more it is mentioned that "plug&play storage
stack" will be needed. which I'm guessing is no small task.
I would have liked to make  a proposal to do it the proper way.

is there anyone who can tell me what "plug&play storage stack" would take?

Also it might be worth noting that gsoc will replace my 8 hour 5 day a
week job. so i should be spending more than 480 hours on this as an
intermediate programmer with no kernel programming skills.

Is it possible to implement everything(not as a hack)?
And i know it's impossible for you to say, but you have a much better
idea than I do.


On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 7:15 PM, Matthias Kupfer <mkupfer(a)reactos.org> wrote:
>   Hi,
>
>  I have started the 1st GUI-installer frontend and the development has benn
>  stalled at the point of missing library calls for e.g. detecting drives,
>  partitions aso. This is described here:
>  http://www.reactos.org/wiki/First_Stage_GUI_Setup
>
>  The correct way to proceed is to extend the win32-api by functions for
>  setupapi (maybe sometimes it seemsto be necessary to extend the undelaying
>  kernel as well). I still aren't/wasn't able to achieve this and wait for this
>  work until i can proceed.
>
>  At Chemitz Linux Days 2011 Timo Kreutzer pointed out that we can go the easier
>  way and port the install parts from text mode (aka usetup) to the graphics
>  mode. We have to keep in mind, that we use bios-calls aso - means we don't
>  use win32-api functions. This will probably work, but needs to be replaced
>  somewhere in future too. Due to my lack of deep and detailed knowledge I
>  don't feel comfortable with mentoring anyone in this development topic, even
>  if the graphical frontend has been extended by me.
>
>  Am Samstag, 26. März 2011 09:43:51 schrieb Andrew Green:
> >   I was thinking of how it would be implemented. I
> > know the gui mostly
> >  exists in svn. so that simplifies that.
> >
> >  I was thinking that the parts of the project would be setting it up so
> >  that as much code is shared between text-mode installer and gui
> >  installer.
> >
> >  1st stage gui installer should be able to run in windows as well as
> >  ros(this could simplify the install when using windows and make it
> >  easy to test the installer)
> >
> >  Also fixing the functions that are used. As it seems at the moment
> >  disk drives are not appearing as devices. 
>  As mentioned above, I suspect a chain of dependencies for this topic, which
>  leads in frustration like a game with pyramid scheme.
>
> >    I have been unable to find an api that creates
> > partitions. I thought
> >  this would be good rather than manipulating the disk directly as it
> >  may provide the ability to create partitions for any file system as
> >  long as a driver exists. Making it more flexible.
> >
> >  I am also rather excited about this project as the skills that I gain
> >  from this could be used to make the disk manager, and other disk
> >  utilities. 
>  Tools and managers are appreciated as long as they use the intended api like
>  windows. We discourage the development of tools with _own_ (low-level)
>  routines, even if it's faster to realise. For you information, we have such
>  problems with explorer, which should use shell32-api, but in fact implements
>  all functions for it's own. At the end of the day the shell32 is partly a
>  stub and other programs can't use the api calls. Feel free to extend the
>  win32-api to make functions for your tool working.
>
>  II hope that helps a little bit, feel free to ask anyway
>
>  Matthias
>
>  --
>  Matthias Kupfer          phone [phone]
>  Wilhelm-Firl-Straße 21   mobile [phone]
>  09122 Chemnitz, Germany
>
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