Re: [ros-dev] Installing and running ReactOS on modern hardware

[Thomas Mueller]

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

>   [-- 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

[David Quintana (gigaherz)]

This is the Gmail web client, I have no control over MIME encodings, other
than choosing if I want the text as HTML or just plain text.

Some drivers do work, and it is one of the goals of the project, to be able
to use drivers written for winxp/2003 (or whichever version of windows
reactos is targetting, which is 2003sp1 at the moment). I personally use
VMware, and we have had success using many of the drivers from the VMware
Tools CDROM, including SVGA, Mouse, and I think also Network.

Some people have lately shown an interest in making ReactOS bootable
through PXE, sending a ramdisk image over the network, but I don't think
the process is usable quite yet (someone correct me if I'm wrong).


On 25 March 2014 10:25, Thomas Mueller <mueller6723(a)twc.com> wrote:

>   from "David Quintana (gigaherz)"
> <gigaherz(a)gmail.com>om>:
>
> >   [-- 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(a)reactos.org
>  http://www.reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev
>

[Thomas Mueller]

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

>   [-- Attachment #1 --]
>  [-- Type: multipart/alternative, Encoding: 7bit, Size: 9.5K --]
>  Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=001a1137e986d9c67404f56eb6c5 
>   Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 
>   This is the Gmail web client, I have no control over
> MIME encodings, other
>  than choosing if I want the text as HTML or just plain text. 
>   Some drivers do work, and it is one of the goals of
> the project, to be able
>  to use drivers written for winxp/2003 (or whichever version of windows
>  reactos is targetting, which is 2003sp1 at the moment). I personally use
>  VMware, and we have had success using many of the drivers from the VMware
>  Tools CDROM, including SVGA, Mouse, and I think also Network. 
>   Some people have lately shown an interest in making
> ReactOS bootable
>  through PXE, sending a ramdisk image over the network, but I don't think
>  the process is usable quite yet (someone correct me if I'm wrong). 
I think you could choose plain text instead of HTML in Gmail?  Are there any Internet
links or special effects in your messages that require HTML?

A lot has happened with computer hardware since 2003, and winxp/2003sp1 won't support
anything newer, like GPT and USB 3.0, among other things.

But Windows drivers for individual devices would be provided by the manufacturer on CD or
DVD in the package.

If ReactOS might be booted from a ramdisk image, could I use an image I already have on
disk with syslinux, grub2 or grub4dos?  That would be simpler than PXE.

Can Windows drivers provided by the device manufacturer be used by ReactOS when running
under VMware, QEMU or Virtualbox?

How big a file is recommended for installing ReactOS under VMware, QEMU or Virtualbox?

Tom

[David Quintana (gigaherz)]

I guess I'll use Plain text mode, just for you ;P (Being in 2014, it's
a wonder anyone still uses an email client that doesn't decode HTML by
default, and requires you to look at the plain text as an attachment,
but I'm open-minded)

I don't have any strict numbers regarding the VM size. If I recall
correctly, the testbox VMs have 2GB HDDs and 512MB of RAM. ReactOS
could boot with less, but since the memory manager isn't the most
reliable, it's best if you have enough RAM in it so that it doesn't
have to do much paging.

My own VM has two HDDs, one 4GB, for the current installation, and one
20GB, for downloaded files and such. Both are dynamically expanding
virtual disk images, so they are not actually that large on disk. I
usually only reinstall the OS by formatting the main HDD, and try to
leave the other disk intact, although in a few cases, I have had to
repair/format the 20GB disk because it had been corrupted. This means
I wouldn't trust it not to mess with a real disk, if you were thinking
of mapping a partition to the VM.

As I said, SOME drivers do work, others do not.
Look at this page, and its subpages:
https://www.reactos.org/wiki/Supported_Hardware
It has a list of supported hardware devices, which mostly means
supported DRIVERS for hardware devices.

I do not believe ReactOS is prepared for the situation of booting into
a ramdisk, when the source of the ramdisk is an HDD. That is largely
outside of my area of experience, though, so I can't really help much.
(If anyone with more knowledge wants to take over the conversation...)

On 26 March 2014 04:34, Thomas Mueller <mueller6723(a)twc.com> wrote:
>   from "David Quintana (gigaherz)"
> <gigaherz(a)gmail.com>om>:
>
> >   [-- Attachment #1 --]
> >  [-- Type: multipart/alternative, Encoding: 7bit, Size: 9.5K --]
> >  Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=001a1137e986d9c67404f56eb6c5 
> >   Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 
> >   This is the Gmail web client, I have no control
> > over MIME encodings, other
> >  than choosing if I want the text as HTML or just plain text. 
> >   Some drivers do work, and it is one of the goals
> > of the project, to be able
> >  to use drivers written for winxp/2003 (or whichever version of windows
> >  reactos is targetting, which is 2003sp1 at the moment). I personally use
> >  VMware, and we have had success using many of the drivers from the VMware
> >  Tools CDROM, including SVGA, Mouse, and I think also Network. 
> >   Some people have lately shown an interest in
> > making ReactOS bootable
> >  through PXE, sending a ramdisk image over the network, but I don't think
> >  the process is usable quite yet (someone correct me if I'm wrong). 
>  I think you could choose plain text instead of HTML in Gmail?  Are there any Internet
> links or special effects in your messages that require HTML?
>
>  A lot has happened with computer hardware since 2003, and winxp/2003sp1 won't support
> anything newer, like GPT and USB 3.0, among other things.
>
>  But Windows drivers for individual devices would be provided by the manufacturer on CD or
> DVD in the package.
>
>  If ReactOS might be booted from a ramdisk image, could I use an image I already have on
> disk with syslinux, grub2 or grub4dos?  That would be simpler than PXE.
>
>  Can Windows drivers provided by the device manufacturer be used by ReactOS when running
> under VMware, QEMU or Virtualbox?
>
>  How big a file is recommended for installing ReactOS under VMware, QEMU or Virtualbox?
>
>  Tom
>
>
>  _______________________________________________
>  Ros-dev mailing list
>  Ros-dev(a)reactos.org
>  http://www.reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev

[Thomas Mueller]

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

>   I guess I'll use Plain text mode, just for you ;P
> (Being in 2014, it's
>  a wonder anyone still uses an email client that doesn't decode HTML by
>  default, and requires you to look at the plain text as an attachment,
>  but I'm open-minded) 
>   I don't have any strict numbers regarding the VM
> size. If I recall
>  correctly, the testbox VMs have 2GB HDDs and 512MB of RAM. ReactOS
>  could boot with less, but since the memory manager isn't the most
>  reliable, it's best if you have enough RAM in it so that it doesn't
>  have to do much paging. 
 
>   My own VM has two HDDs, one 4GB, for the current
> installation, and one
>  20GB, for downloaded files and such. Both are dynamically expanding
>  virtual disk images, so they are not actually that large on disk. I
>  usually only reinstall the OS by formatting the main HDD, and try to
>  leave the other disk intact, although in a few cases, I have had to
>  repair/format the 20GB disk because it had been corrupted. This means
>  I wouldn't trust it not to mess with a real disk, if you were thinking
>  of mapping a partition to the VM. 
>   As I said, SOME drivers do work, others do not.
>  Look at this page, and its subpages:
>  https://www.reactos.org/wiki/Supported_Hardware
>  It has a list of supported hardware devices, which mostly means
>  supported DRIVERS for hardware devices. 
>   I do not believe ReactOS is prepared for the situation
> of booting into
>  a ramdisk, when the source of the ramdisk is an HDD. That is largely
>  outside of my area of experience, though, so I can't really help much.
>  (If anyone with more knowledge wants to take over the conversation...) 
HTML email is good for when there are Internet links or special characters such as math
symbols that can't be rendered in plain text.

Otherwise, it is just useless freight.

But multipart/alternative seems to be the MS-Windows way.  Automatically unzipping and
executing attachments by default was also the Windows way, until that resulted in virus
epidemics.

There was a message about how behind-the-times ReactOS is, trying to support Windows XP
drivers from 2003, which points up my doubts as to the feasibility of running ReactOS on
modern hardware.  FreeDOS also would do better on an older computer.

My DVD-RW drives are SATA, now I wonder if SATA as opposed to IDE or ATA would be a
barrier to ReactOS, whether a live CD would boot and run.

I would much rather run a live USB because of rewritability.  Considering ReactOS's
immature (alpha) status, many modifications would be necessary to fix glitches.  ReactOS
website points out that ReactOS is not ready for everyday production use at this stage.

ReactOS 0.3.15 installation failed to boot for me either on SATA DVD-RW or IDE/ATA CD-RW,
the latter being on an old (2001) computer.

So I must realize that even if I can build ReactOS from source with the ROSBE, bootability
is not guaranteed.

I don't like the idea of burning another CD every time I want to make a little
change.

Tom