Short summary of our September meeting in Sweden, jointly written by JaixBly and Fireball

[Aleksey Bragin]

Hi ReactOS friends and colleagues.

There have been exciting years, I first started to have an eye on the  
freewin95 project. When I first found the ReactOS project and saw  
that they actually gave away free zip-files with files to try it out  
I was eager to test it my self, I first downloaded my first  
“bochs-1.3-reactos-images.zip” the third april 2002, and it worked! I  
was amazed, so I downloaded and tested everything that I could test.  
A long time has gone since that time and I have seen a lot of  
progress during the years, however it's a lot of years, for me about  
nine years of downloading, compiling, testing and reading svn- 
messages. For many people it has been too many years and many have  
fallen away, now however we are close to something that can actually  
be used, the kernel is pretty stable other parts of the OS is  
improving and getting there too.

During the last many years we have had about 100 individuals in the  
IRC channel at all time, it indicates in my mind that we attract as  
many people as we loose, I guess that is kind of the status for our  
project, we should be able to change that in a short while I think.  
If we can release a some real-life applications for our OS we could  
draw some attention that could be permanent and the project could  
really start to grow for real.

I and Aleksey met in Björkvik, Sweden for a discussion on how to get  
the ball rolling, we have some suggestions that could serve as step  
stones for such development. The key is to release a package of the  
project and see to that it can really do that but not everything  
else, for example, a web server, it doesn't need all the OS but the  
ones it needs it has to do really good.

Even with this in mind ReactOS isn't well suited for many real  
applications, so we just looked at a few to see if it would be a way  
to go, you could perhaps suggest some more, and we would welcome  
that, we only have to ensure there isn't too much work to actually  
come to the finish line. Here we present some ideas and what needs to  
get in place to actually make it work.

Webserver
- Network subsystem (mainly tcpip.sys driver, and some winsock  
improvement)
- VNC support (future RDP support)
- Apache/MySQL/PHP support
- XAMPP with toolbox
- WEBMIN

Thin Client (LiveCD or BootCD)
- Re-port our MSTSC.EXE
- Local printing (USB/LPT printer support?)

Please give us your opinion and please also add possible ideas that  
you have and think through what needs to get in place to see it come  
to pass.

Yours sincerely,
Aleksey & Jan (Jaix)
through Jan

[Olaf Siejka]

How will you convince anyone that such setup on ReactOS is of any worth to
be used and what is more important - better to be used over similar linux
setups?
Right now we dont have enough manpower to keep testing ROS on a most basic
level (its over a week, or even more since i managed to discover the broken
resolution change switch... pretty basic, huh?). Starting another target
will either have us split our thin resources over another goal (like arwinss
did beforehand) so if we dont have any more people, we will be forced to
drop work on trunk (our main goal) even futher.

Regards

2010/10/23 Aleksey Bragin [e-mail]
> Hi ReactOS friends and colleagues.
> Webserver
> Network subsystem (mainly tcpip.sys driver, and some winsock improvement)
> VNC support (future RDP support)
> Apache/MySQL/PHP support
> XAMPP with toolbox
> WEBMIN
>
> Thin Client (LiveCD or BootCD)
> Re-port our MSTSC.EXE
> Local printing (USB/LPT printer support?)
>
> Please give us your opinion and please also add possible ideas that you
> have and think through what needs to get in place to see it come to pass.
>
> Yours sincerely,
> Aleksey & Jan (Jaix)
> through Jan
> _______________________________________________
> Ros-dev mailing list
> [e-mail]
> http://www.reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev

[Timo Kreuzer]

Am 23.10.2010 11:21, Olaf Siejka wrote:
> How will you convince anyone that such setup on ReactOS is of any
> worth to be used and what is more important - better to be used over
> similar linux setups?
> Right now we dont have enough manpower to keep testing ROS on a most
> basic level (its over a week, or even more since i managed to discover
> the broken resolution change switch... pretty basic, huh?). Starting
> another target will either have us split our thin resources over
> another goal (like arwinss did beforehand) so if we dont have any more
> people, we will be forced to drop work on trunk (our main goal) even
> futher.
>
> Regards

It's doesn't nccessarily mean extra effords and adding extra stuff. It's
about shifting the current effords into the right direction.
I think one of the first things we should have is self hosting. It would
be great to have a reactos buildbot running on reactos. ReactOS could be
the first real user of ReactOS. Next step maybe a webserver. Well I
think it should be good enough for the forums *cough* ;-) It should
serve as a positive signal, because why would anyone use it, if not even
we use it ourselves.

Another thing that comes to my mind is a Windows system diagnose and
recovery cd. Rootkit Revealer bootcd, something like that. but that
would require loading native ntfs driver etc.

But what we need first is stability, stability, stability.

Regards,
Timo

[Jan Blomqvist Kinander]

> It's doesn't nccessarily mean extra effords and adding extra stuff. It's
> about shifting the current effords into the right direction.
> I think one of the first things we should have is self hosting. It would
> be great to have a reactos buildbot running on reactos. ReactOS could be
> the first real user of ReactOS. Next step maybe a webserver. Well I
> think it should be good enough for the forums *cough* ;-) It should
> serve as a positive signal, because why would anyone use it, if not even
> we use it ourselves.
>
> Another thing that comes to my mind is a Windows system diagnose and
> recovery cd. Rootkit Revealer bootcd, something like that. but that
> would require loading native ntfs driver etc.
>
> But what we need first is stability, stability, stability.
>
> Regards,
> Timo

Selfhosted build server is an excellent idea, it could perhaps generate enough media attention to get things rolling.

I can host the machine, we don't need a monster server for this, we could just use a vPro/AMT enabled workstation to make a build and it could even be remotely installed and configured via internet for updates and reinstallation.

Another area of use would perhaps be some kind of "Retro Game Appliance", some free/open source games packaged as a virtual appliance ready to run directly from VMWare Player/VBox, no direcx or d3d need, just usual graphics and sound.

/JaixBly

[Aleksey Bragin]

Yes, this is a key point, being better than existing setups.
Imagine how it's done with Linux now: You have a preinstalled Linux,  
say, dedicated server. Then you log into it using ssh, do aptitude  
(or rpm, or whatever) install apache2, then install php5, then  
install mysql. Then you go to /etc/apache2/ and start editing  
apache.conf, go to /etc/apache2/conf.d, hack something there. Then it  
doesn't work because it can't resolve fully qualified name, you go  
to /etc/network, edit text files there, then go to /etc/resolv.d to  
set correct DNS servers, then set up correct host name in a dozen of  
different places.
That was just apache2. Then you proceed to mysql, edit hundreds of  
other config files and watching logs simulteneously in /var/log.

I think in the modern world, a person should remotely login via a  
graphics shell into Windows/ReactOS-alike desktop, and configure  
stuff there using Control Panel! Install LAMP using our package  
manager, finetune config using tools like WEBMIN and enjoy running  
your server. The only thing preventing people from using that way now  
because Windows costs real money and Linux is free.

I performed setups of Linux servers I think, hundreds of times, and  
everytime I was bitching about it. Last time was a couple of days ago  
when I was setting up a ZoneMinder server for 5th time, because  
precious Ubuntu package manager sucked, the kernel didn't support my  
capture card without guess what?! recompiling the "kirnel"!! And that  
I had to increase default shared memory size (I spent hours searching  
which line in which config to add for *ubuntu* to recognize that I  
want shmmax to be increased), symbolically linking stuff so that  
apache2 is happy and sees my zm directory.
Certainly ZoneMinder is not available for Windows because Windows  
costs money and is proprietary. It's same reason I have to choose  
Linux everytime I need a server.

If I had the option to use a much better, modern and free operating  
system - I would not think even one second what to choose.

Did I convince you that ReactOS-based servers aren't that bad idea? :)

WBR,
Aleksey Bragin.

On Oct 23, 2010, at 1:21 PM, Olaf Siejka wrote:
> How will you convince anyone that such setup on ReactOS is of any  
> worth to be used and what is more important - better to be used  
> over similar linux setups?
> Right now we dont have enough manpower to keep testing ROS on a  
> most basic level (its over a week, or even more since i managed to  
> discover the broken resolution change switch... pretty basic,  
> huh?). Starting another target will either have us split our thin  
> resources over another goal (like arwinss did beforehand) so if we  
> dont have any more people, we will be forced to drop work on trunk  
> (our main goal) even futher.
>
> Regards
>
> 2010/10/23 Aleksey Bragin [e-mail]
> Hi ReactOS friends and colleagues.
> Webserver
> Network subsystem (mainly tcpip.sys driver, and some winsock
>
> improvement)
> VNC support (future RDP support)
> Apache/MySQL/PHP support
> XAMPP with toolbox
> WEBMIN
>
> Thin Client (LiveCD or BootCD)
> Re-port our MSTSC.EXE
> Local printing (USB/LPT printer support?)
>
> Please give us your opinion and please also add possible ideas that  
> you have and think through what needs to get in place to see it  
> come to pass.
>
> Yours sincerely,
> Aleksey & Jan (Jaix)
> through Jan
> _______________________________________________
> Ros-dev mailing list
> [e-mail]
> http://www.reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev
>
> Ros-dev mailing list
> [e-mail]
> http://www.reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev

[Javier Agustìn Fernàndez Arroyo]

"ReactOS server edition with no GUI, everything is done remotely"
(this was an ancient idea of mine)
*cough*

On Sat, Oct 23, 2010 at 6:19 PM, Aleksey Bragin [e-mail] wrote:
> Yes, this is a key point, being better than existing setups.
> Imagine how it's done with Linux now: You have a preinstalled Linux, say,
> dedicated server. Then you log into it using ssh, do aptitude (or rpm, or
> whatever) install apache2, then install php5, then install mysql. Then you
> go to /etc/apache2/ and start editing apache.conf, go to
> /etc/apache2/conf.d, hack something there. Then it doesn't work because it
> can't resolve fully qualified name, you go to /etc/network, edit text files
> there, then go to /etc/resolv.d to set correct DNS servers, then set up
> correct host name in a dozen of different places.
> That was just apache2. Then you proceed to mysql, edit hundreds of other
> config files and watching logs simulteneously in /var/log.
>
> I think in the modern world, a person should remotely login via a graphics
> shell into Windows/ReactOS-alike desktop, and configure stuff there using
> Control Panel! Install LAMP using our package manager, finetune config using
> tools like WEBMIN and enjoy running your server. The only thing preventing
> people from using that way now because Windows costs real money and Linux is
> free.
>
> I performed setups of Linux servers I think, hundreds of times, and
> everytime I was bitching about it. Last time was a couple of days ago when I
> was setting up a ZoneMinder server for 5th time, because precious Ubuntu
> package manager sucked, the kernel didn't support my capture card without
> guess what?! recompiling the "kirnel"!! And that I had to increase default
> shared memory size (I spent hours searching which line in which config to
> add for *ubuntu* to recognize that I want shmmax to be increased),
> symbolically linking stuff so that apache2 is happy and sees my zm
> directory.
> Certainly ZoneMinder is not available for Windows because Windows costs
> money and is proprietary. It's same reason I have to choose Linux everytime
> I need a server.
>
> If I had the option to use a much better, modern and free operating system
> I would not think even one second what to choose.
>
> Did I convince you that ReactOS-based servers aren't that bad idea? :)
>
> WBR,
> Aleksey Bragin.
>
> On Oct 23, 2010, at 1:21 PM, Olaf Siejka wrote:
>
> How will you convince anyone that such setup on ReactOS is of any worth to
> be used and what is more important - better to be used over similar linux
> setups?
> Right now we dont have enough manpower to keep testing ROS on a most basic
> level (its over a week, or even more since i managed to discover the broken
> resolution change switch... pretty basic, huh?). Starting another target
> will either have us split our thin resources over another goal (like arwinss
> did beforehand) so if we dont have any more people, we will be forced to
> drop work on trunk (our main goal) even futher.
>
> Regards
>
> 2010/10/23 Aleksey Bragin [e-mail]
> > Hi ReactOS friends and colleagues.
> > Webserver
> > Network subsystem (mainly tcpip.sys driver, and some winsock
> >
> > improvement)
> > VNC support (future RDP support)
> > Apache/MySQL/PHP support
> > XAMPP with toolbox
> > WEBMIN
> >
> > Thin Client (LiveCD or BootCD)
> > Re-port our MSTSC.EXE
> > Local printing (USB/LPT printer support?)
> >
> > Please give us your opinion and please also add possible ideas that you
> > have and think through what needs to get in place to see it come to pass.
> >
> > Yours sincerely,
> > Aleksey & Jan (Jaix)
> > through Jan
> > _______________________________________________
> > Ros-dev mailing list
> > [e-mail]
> > http://www.reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev
>
> Ros-dev mailing list
> [e-mail]
> http://www.reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev
>
> Ros-dev mailing list
> [e-mail]
> http://www.reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev

[WaxDragon]

ReactOS Router Edition!

On Oct 23, 2010 12:46 PM, "Javier Agustìn Fernàndez Arroyo" <
[e-mail]> wrote:

"ReactOS server edition with no GUI, everything is done remotely"
(this was an ancient idea of mine)
*cough*

On Sat, Oct 23, 2010 at 6:19 PM, Aleksey Bragin [e-mail] wrote:
> Yes, this is a ke...

_______________________________________________
Ros-dev mailing list
[e-mail]
http://www.reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev

[Bernd Blaauw]

Op 23-10-2010 11:06, Aleksey Bragin schreef:
> Even with this in mind ReactOS isn't well suited for many real 
> applications, so we just looked at a few to see if it would be a way 
> to go, you could perhaps suggest some more, and we would welcome that, 
> we only have to ensure there isn't too much work to actually come to 
> the finish line. Here we present some ideas and what needs to get in 
> place to actually make it work.
>
> Webserver
> Network subsystem (mainly tcpip.sys driver, and some winsock
>
> improvement)
> VNC support (future RDP support)
> Apache/MySQL/PHP support
> XAMPP with toolbox
> WEBMIN
>
> Thin Client (LiveCD or BootCD)
> Re-port our MSTSC.EXE
> Local printing (USB/LPT printer support?)
>
> Please give us your opinion and please also add possible ideas that 
> you have and think through what needs to get in place to see it come 
> to pass.

Let's see, right now you've got a basic operating system without much 
guidance/documentation on how to get things working a bit.

For example, 0.3.12 release allows you to have a working FireFox 
(besides maybe FF 3.6.9's address bar text input issue). Modern youth's 
first inclination: pay a visit to YOUTUBE. Problem: Flash won't 
download/install, the Adobe DLM Firefox plugin is a mess and searching 
for standalone setup program seems impossible at first glance (where I 
got stuck). Some documentation on how to get this working would be nice. 
Ofcourse once that works you'll have people shouting for sound support, 
which is currently work in progress and hopefully a feature of 0.3.13 or 
0.4.0.

Another thing is you might be wanting to show ReactOS as a "standalone 
business computer running a simple wordprocessor and/or spreadsheet 
program". Think latest OpenOffice (LibreOffice?) didn't even start up 
after installation.

Install CD could be nice as supporting Syslinux project's "MEMDISK" 
ramdisks, either by FreeLDR --> Memdisk --> ReactOS ISO , or Syslinux 
--> Memdisk --> ReactOS ISO , to do a fake "boot from cd and run through 
installation process". I think it requires the WinVBlock driver which is 
opensource.

Last show-off idea I could think of is releasing a 1-time LiveCD with 
Ramdisk support integrated (is there a user-configurable ramdisk-driver 
anyway?), and ROSBE and 0.3.12 sources, so you boot into that CD and can 
edit + compile the 0.3.12 sources to your liking, thus 
compiling/modifying files without affecting harddisk. Ofcourse that 
integrated build-environment keeps the option to download other ReactOS 
sources and edit/compile those instead of the standard-delivered 0.3.12 
sources.

I'm not sure how well the Filezilla FTP server and client run at all on 
ReactOS, never had much luck with it despite being opensource and portable.

Not application-specific, but actually shutting down in VMware would be 
nice rather than getting a pre-ATX feeling :)

Your hosting tasks for forums, buildbot, IRC etc seem like a nice goal, 
best of luck with that.

[Olaf Siejka]

Let me add some bitternes of experience.
> For example, 0.3.12 release allows you to have a working FireFox (besides

maybe FF 3.6.9's address bar text input issue).
> Modern youth's first inclination: pay a visit to YOUTUBE. Problem: Flash

won't download/install, the Adobe DLM Firefox plugin
> is a mess and searching for standalone setup program seems impossible at

first glance (where I got stuck).

Opera 9.63 works even better (and much much faster) than any FF version, but
it has its vices as well. It also allows to download the offline version of
flash installer, but unfortunately several new versions crash at install. I
would love to look into the issue... but Ollydbg ring3 debugger is not
working from some time. Tough luck.
> Some documentation on how to get this working would be nice.

We do not have enough people to do even basic testing on regular basis...
talking about writing usability docs is like blasphemy to me. The situation
often changes very fast, so without plenty of additional manpower i would
need to split my time 50/50 from bugs to writing docs (and UPDATING) docs...
To present any real example, the screen resolution change slider bug i found
out the next day it happened, would be actually noticed after 10 days, when
Collibri also stumbled upon it. The choice is yours.
> Of course once that works you'll have people shouting for sound support,

which is currently work in progress and hopefully a feature of 0.3.13 or
0.4.0.

We still need the new/rewritten PCI driver, better HAL and kernel support
especially several FPU functions still missing, THEN we need a new PnP
driver, THEN only we can START clearing and fixing up sound support on real
hardware drivers. We try it a bit now, despite several obstacles, but its
very hard, time consuming and sometimes frustrating. Did I already mentioned
we dont have enough people even for regular testing of known-to work
drivers?
> Another thing is you might be wanting to show ReactOS as a "standalone

business computer
> running a simple wordprocessor and/or spreadsheet program". Think latest

OpenOffice (LibreOffice?)
> didn't even start up after installation.

Not sure about latest version, but there is at least one, very tough
regression, so even the dev, whoose commit introduced it, is unable to deal
with it. Every software has usually a bunch of similar issues. Do i repeat
myself with the lack of necessary manpower?
> Install CD could be nice as supporting Syslinux project's "MEMDISK"

ramdisks,
> either by FreeLDR --> Memdisk --> ReactOS ISO , or
> Syslinux --> Memdisk --> ReactOS ISO , to do a fake "boot from cd and run

through installation process".
> I think it requires the WinVBlock driver which is opensource.

Someone has to do it, test it, find regressions, fix it, maintain it. Got
any volounteers?
> Last show-off idea I could think of is releasing a 1-time LiveCD with

Ramdisk
> support integrated (is there a user-configurable ramdisk-driver anyway?),

and
> ROSBE and 0.3.12 sources, so you boot into that CD and can edit + compile
> the 0.3.12 sources to your liking, thus compiling/modifying files without

affecting
> harddisk. Ofcourse that integrated build-environment keeps the option to

download
> other ReactOS sources and edit/compile those instead of the

standard-delivered 0.3.12 sources.

That idea is so cool! Unless of course, you are aware that current ROS trunk
source weights few hundred megabytes, whereas fully build, it takes up to
4.5 GB give or take 200 MB, so you will surely find plenty of potential
users... My buildbot with 6GB of RAM slowed down to turtle speed when i
tried to allocate the necessary ramdisk... another problem is that ROS will
not boot with more than 3.5 GB of ram and is quite crappy in I/O throughput.
A finisher bug is that rosbe is not runnable on ROS. Also, did i mentioned
that you'd need few people to...

Please do not take this mail as an attempt to bust your ideas, they are
actually very logicall and something one could expect from OS project. Still
it is necessary to view them with perspective of our current state and
capabilities.

Best regards
Olaf

I'm not sure how well the Filezilla FTP server and client run at all on
ReactOS, never had much luck with it despite being opensource and portable.

2010/10/27 Bernd Blaauw [e-mail]