Reactos booting to CLI

[Marc Piulachs]

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

[Colin Finck]

Hi Marc,
ReactOS already had a CMD-only interface, but it regressed.
You can try out the "reactos0.3.0-REL-cmd.zip" package from
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=6553
<http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=6553&package_id=6629>
&package_id=6629.
IIRC, that package was broken a bit, but when the correct settings are used,
it should work.
These are:
*
        /NOGUIBOOT in "freeldr.ini"
*
        Setting the "Shell" registry value to load "cmd.exe" instead
of
"explorer.exe"
Would be cool if anyone could unregress the CMD-only interface in trunk :-)
Best regards,
Colin
  _____
From: ros-dev-bounces(a)reactos.org [mailto:[e-mail]] On
Behalf Of Marc Piulachs
Sent: Monday, March 17, 2008 2:45 AM
To: ros-dev(a)reactos.org
Subject: [ros-dev] Reactos booting to CLI
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

[Filip Navara]

We used to support that. The WinLogon was able to run in CUI mode, CSRSS and
win32k started GUI mode only on demand (ie. if any GUI API was called).
Basically all the components were designed in a way that if you specified
cmd.exe as a shell then the GUI would never be started unless you try to
execute an application which requires it. Quitting the application would
switch back to the console mode. Not sure if and why it was removed...
- Filip
2008/3/17 Marc Piulachs <marc.piulachs(a)codexchange.net>et>:
>    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
>  _______________________________________________
>  Ros-dev mailing list
>  Ros-dev(a)reactos.org
>  http://www.reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev
>

[Timo Kreuzer]

Maybe because of this?
>   [ros-diffs] [navaraf] 17169: Change the module type to
> win32gui. We really don't want to attempt to create consoles at this stage.
>  Modified: trunk/reactos/subsys/system/winlogon/winlogon.xml
>     
Filip Navara wrote:
>   We used to support that. The WinLogon was able to run
> in CUI mode, CSRSS and
>  win32k started GUI mode only on demand (ie. if any GUI API was called).
>  Basically all the components were designed in a way that if you specified
>  cmd.exe as a shell then the GUI would never be started unless you try to
>  execute an application which requires it. Quitting the application would
>  switch back to the console mode. Not sure if and why it was removed...
>  - Filip
>

[Filip Navara]

I am pretty sure I wouldn't have broken that myself :)
- Filip
On Tue, Mar 18, 2008 at 2:11 AM, Timo Kreuzer <timo.kreuzer(a)web.de> wrote:
>  Maybe because of this?
> >   [ros-diffs] [navaraf] 17169: Change the module
> > type to win32gui. We 
>  really don't want to attempt to create consoles at this
> stage.
> >   Modified:
> > trunk/reactos/subsys/system/winlogon/winlogon.xml
> >  
>  Filip Navara wrote:
> >   We used to support that. The WinLogon was able to
> > run in CUI mode, CSRSS 
>  and
> >   win32k started GUI mode only on demand (ie. if
> > any GUI API was called).
> >  Basically all the components were designed in a way that if you 
>  specified
> >   cmd.exe as a shell then the GUI would never be
> > started unless you try to
> >  execute an application which requires it. Quitting the application would
> >  switch back to the console mode. Not sure if and why it was removed...
> >  - Filip
> >  
>  _______________________________________________
>  Ros-dev mailing list
>  Ros-dev(a)reactos.org
>  http://www.reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev
>

[WaxDragon]

2008/3/17 Filip Navara <xnavara(a)volny.cz>cz>:
>   We used to support that. The WinLogon was able to run
> in CUI mode, CSRSS and
>  win32k started GUI mode only on demand (ie. if any GUI API was called).
>  Basically all the components were designed in a way that if you specified
>  cmd.exe as a shell then the GUI would never be started unless you try to
>  execute an application which requires it. Quitting the application would
>  switch back to the console mode. Not sure if and why it was removed... 
I cannot tell you the exact reason why it was removed, but I do know
that /CONSOLE is the replacement for the true, blue-screened console
mode.  At least /CONSOLE still works.
I remember being specifically asked if it was OK to remove the
GUI-on-demand mode.
WD
--
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