The ReactOS team is proud to announce the release of ReactOS 0.3.11. This
release has been delayed by quite some time due to various blocker bugs
which manifested each time we tried to release. A lot of time has gone into
hunting down these bugs and various steps have been taken to try to ensure
we don't hit this problem again. This isn't to say we don't have a lot of
new and exciting features in this release. Two of which stand out are the
huge changes to the Memory Manager and another leap forward for the sound
stack
It's difficult to sum up all of the changes which have taken place in the
memory manager short of saying it's been almost a total rewrite. These
changes have not only brought a much more stable and reliable component, but
also now includes support for ARM processors. ARM memory management units
(MMU's) are handled in an entirely different manner than that of x86 and
x86-64 MMU's, however the ARM Mm component has been written alongside the
x86 component with various areas sharing code when possible. Further to
this, these changes bring much improved compatibility with WinDbg. WinDbg
support is now at a level where the majority of everyday features are
working and tasks which previously seemed so distant using WinDbg, such as
stepping through the kernel, listing process threads or dynamically editing
memory are now working. We're now at a level where having PDB's (Microsoft's
debugging symbols) would make debugging the reactos kernel a similar
experience to debugging the Windows kernel, with the added advantage of
source mode.
For the technically inquisitive, here
<http://www.reactos.org/wiki/index.php/ChangeLog-0.3.11#MM> are the Mm
changes in this release
The sound stack continues to see extensive work throughout all areas. This
release brings with it support for wave recording and mixer support such as
volume level adjustment and muting. Improved core component compatibility
with WinXP means that more components now run within Windows and goes some
way to showing the level of compatibility the sound stack is now achieving.
Compatibility and stability changes have been continuing throughout the
entire operating system with a great deal of fixes coming from the Wine test
framework used to ensure application interface compatibility.
As this is the 0.3.11 release, we felt a certain degree of nostalgia towards
'Windows 3.11 for workgroups' and added a fun easter egg in tribute. See if
you can spot it, the older generation will surely have no problems
Along with the rest of the 0.3 series, this release is still considered
alpha quality software so it may not run all your apps or run on your
hardware.
Changes summary
A detailed consolidation of all changes can be found in the changelog
<http://www.reactos.org/wiki/index.php/ChangeLog-0.3.11> . A sum up of some
of the more important changes is as follows:
* A rewrite of the kdcom kernelmode library which is now much more
compatible with the Microsoft version. This allows for improved built-in
support for WinDbg
* Support for delay loaded dlls has been added in our build tools,
providing delay loading functionality for our shipped libraries
* Support for Chinese and Korean fonts has now been added
* A new handler has been written for setting and getting system wide
parameters (see SystemParametersInfo API), now making it much more complete
and compatible with the Windows implementation
* A selection of application compatibility improvements can now been
seen, including Opera, Open Office, Firefox 3.5, VLC1.1 and skype
* For fun, a new Spider Solitaire application has been added
* Synchronization of most of the Wine usermode DLLs and some Win32
subsystem code shared with Wine
VirtualBox install note
A bug has surfaced meaning that installing ReactOS in VirtualBox will result
in a hang when loading the USB driver, unless the VM has 256Mb RAM or more.
To counteract this, either raise the RAM from the default 192Mb or disable
the USB device. We have created a preloaded VirtualBox VM for download
incorporating this workaround. Apologies for any inconvenience caused.
During the previous edition of the Free and Open Source Software
Developer's European Meeting (FOSDEM) <http://fosdem.org/>, several
alternative FOSS Operating System projects
(Haiku <http://haiku-os.org/>, ReactOS <http://www.reactos.org/>)
shared booths, but there were discussions about going beyond presenting
each projects on its own, and instead seek cooperation. Recently, at
the Google Summer of Code mentor summit, other OS projects gathered and
formed the Rosetta OS group <http://code.google.com/p/rosetta-os/> to
work on driver sharing.
This year, the FOSDEM (in Brussels, 6-7th February 2010) will host the
"Alt-OS" devroom on sunday from 9:00 to 17:00, organized by members of
the Rosetta OS project.
This devroom is meant as a place for Free and OpenSource Alternative
Operating System projects to share ideas and work on topics like:
* distinguishing design and features,
* device drivers and how to share them,
* sharing code for internal components,
* internal usage of other FOSS projects to build upon,
* application portability,
* interoperability,
* file formats,
* extended attributes...
We are interested to hear about your OS projects, how they are
designed, and what they could eventually share for other projects'
benefit.
In addition to all FOSS OS projects, any application project that is
seeking new target platforms is invited. Featured projects will include
participants from the Rosetta OS project which charter <http://code.google.com/p/rosetta-os/wiki/RosettaOSCharter>
matches our devroom goal.
As time allows, we are also interested in transversal subjects in
cooperation with other devrooms. As an example, possible topics could
include:
* unusual package management with the Crossdistro room,
* standardization of GUI elements and behavior with the Crossdesktop
devroom,
* scalability with the Embedded devroom,
* ways in which BSD drivers were reused in your project,
* concerns about porting Java,
* Gallium3D port progress reports...
The format of the talks can vary, from 45min large speech to 15 min
general project presentation, or hand-on hacking session.
= Proposals =
Proposals should be sent to François Revol by mail: revol(a)free.fr
Your proposal should include:
* duration (in 15 minute blocks -- please stick with that granularity,
as it will make the schedule somewhat easier to follow for visitors),
* activity title (please try to be descriptive, there are ~250 talks
at FOSDEM during the week-end ;)),
* a short abstract (1-2 paragraphs),
* a longer description if appropriate,
* optionally a list of links to the project website or similar
* for each speaker:
* the speaker's real name,
* a short overview of her bio in a couple of lines,
* optionally also a longer bio,
* optionally a picture (please send it to us as 128x128 PNG),
* optionally links to her website, blog, ...
Plain-text format is preferred by the FOSDEM team, it makes their life
easier, something like:
------------------
John Doe
john.doe(a)example.org
John is currently working as a freelancer and spends most of his free
time contributing to various opensource projects, most prominently on
libjohndoe.
John currently lives in England with his wife, 2 kids and a bunch of
kitten. He loves spending his time walking around in the woods, and
of course kitten. He has a masters degree in kitten science, which
helps him a lot with coding.
blog: http://johndoe.example.org/blog/
attached: john_doe.png
------------------
= Deadline =
The deadline for submissions is 2009-12-25, please try to stick to it.
Acceptance notification on 2009-12-31.
= Organization =
The room provided by the FOSDEM team has:
* room number AW1.105 with 48 seats,
* a video projector with VGA cable,
* wireless internet.
We will try to provide a wifi router with ethernet ports for
demonstrations since we know many projects do not have functional wifi
drivers yet.
We will also try to provide a laptop to load your slides on if you
can't use your own machine.
It is advised to see with your project supporting associations for
possible reimbursement of travel and hosting cost, since the FOSDEM
team cannot help there. Attendance is free however.
Also remember to check other devroom calls as well as the call for
lightning talks <http://fosdem.org/2010/call_for_lightningtalks>, for
subjects that might not fit our topics of interest.
= Projected schedule =
9:00 Welcome (15min)
9:15 "Rosetta OS" project
morning project presentations, design...
afternoon more projects, workshops...
16:45 Closing (15min)
Hi,
as last year, I'm trying to organize a shared non-linux devroom at
FOSDEM, to exchange on subjects like cross-platform drivers, porting
woes...
We didn't get it last year, but this year the FOSDEM team wants to
organize a "distro miniconf" and force them to share devrooms instead
of each having their own, to free rooms to other projects. I believe it
should be possible either as part of the distro summit, or outside.
If you want to participate in a non-linux devroom make sure you fill
the form:
http://fosdem.org/2010/call_for_developer_rooms
quoting you would like to be part of a "non-linux" devroom, either as
part of the distro ones or separately.
If enough non-linux projects request a devroom maybe we'll get one...
Here is what I filled, you should probably reuse the name:
---
* devroom name: Alt-OS (Anything-but-Linux-disTro Operating System)
* devroom description:
Talks and workshops about alternative (non Linux based) opensource
operating systems, in the purpose of sharing experience on application
ports, common driver development and design differences.
Possible talks include :
- POSIX & *nix compatibility coverage of alternative OSes (example
from Haiku...)
- *nix app porting tricks (autoconf, ...)
- OSSv4 port considerations
- status of the NetSurf port to Haiku
Possible workshops include :
- porting a command line application to Haiku
- porting a FreeBSD network driver to Haiku
- native hello world GUI application on Haiku
* devroom related URLs:
http://www.haiku-os.org/http://groups.google.com/group/rosetta-os?pli=1http://opensound.com/http://netsurf-browser.org/
* comments/remarks:
It could either be done as part of the distro miniconf, or as a
separate room. We would actually welcome discussions with distro
projects too, on subjects like package management for example.
Possible projects interested in joining in:
RTEMS http://www.rtems.com/
Minix http://www.minix3.org/
AROS http://aros.org/
ReactOS http://www.reactos.org/fr/index.html
Syllable http://web.syllable.org/pages/index.html
Other participants in the Rosetta OS (discussion group about non-linux
FOSS OSes) http://groups.google.com/group/rosetta-os?pli=1
---
I'd suggest you also fill the form to show the orga how much demand
there is for it.
We'll get an answer by 2009-11-29.
You can also ask for a booth:
http://fosdem.org/2010/call_for_stands
I just sent the Haiku request.
The general call for participation:
http://fosdem.org/2010/call_for_participation
Note the deadline is november 22nd, so be quick!
François.
This starts on Monday.
So nobody's going??
Shocker .... I'll have to drink on my own then.
Ged.
From: Ged Murphy [mailto:gedmurphy@gmail.com]
Sent: 27 October 2009 15:41
To: 'ReactOS Development List'; 'ReactOS General List'
Subject: Microsoft PDC
I'll be attending this year's Microsoft PDC in Los Angeles and I should be
there between 16th November and 20th November.
If anyone else is going and wants to meet up for a chat at the conference or
a beer in the evening drop me a mail.
Cheers,
Ged.
I'll be attending this year's Microsoft PDC in Los Angeles and I should be
there between 16th November and 20th November.
If anyone else is going and wants to meet up for a chat at the conference or
a beer in the evening drop me a mail.
Cheers,
Ged.
I just got ReactOS installed on my 300MHz AMD K4 with two 1.2 gigabyte
hard drives previously holding MS-DOS 6.0. After the installation
sucessfully completed (i thought), I booted up, and it said
"FREELDR.SYS NOT FOUND"
"Press any key"
What should I do? I read somewhere that this is caused by a messed-up
MBR, but I have no idea how to clean it. Help? I would like to test
compatibility and stuff, but I can't if I don't get this working in
the first place!
Jake (dats me)
I just got a free AMD K6 computer, and would like to know how well
ReactOS would run on it. Contacting the member who posted on the Wiki
about it revealed that he no longer exists.
Thanks,
J
Hi,
I decide to join the mailing list to comment on this announcement and the
way it has been treated. I've been following the development of this project
and had a good hope it will develop into a full mature soon enough.
However the replies of Marius Przybylski and Zachary Gorden showed me that's
far from being the case. Sorry you guys, you may not agree with the guy who
did, but treating someone who's done something for the project with the kind
of responses you had is highly immature and just plain stupid. It only harms
the project and confort the opinion that's it's not a friendly environment
to work in. Wonder why there isn't that many devs maybe?
I have little hope you'll actually understand that or act on it but we'll
see...
Francois Prunier
Please remove me from the mailing list - I did take my name off some
time ago but it obviously didn't get actioned!
Regards Roger Williams
wilsr(a)internode.on.net
