26 Jan
2004
26 Jan
'04
5:56 p.m.
It seems the release of 0.2 generated a lot of interest. Most of the
reactions are pretty predictable, either "Why???" or "Wow!!!" with
the
"Wow" ones being in the majority I think.
The website served 1.8 million requests the last 24 hours. At times it
was overloaded, but it seems we have found a set of parameters which
works pretty well now.
Gé van Geldorp.
26 Jan
26 Jan
6:18 p.m.
On Mon, 2004-01-26 at 11:56, Ge van Geldorp wrote:
It seems the release of 0.2 generated a lot of
interest. Most of the
reactions are pretty predictable, either "Why???" or "Wow!!!" with
the
"Wow" ones being in the majority I think.
The website served 1.8 million requests the last 24 hours. At times it
was overloaded, but it seems we have found a set of parameters which
works pretty well now.
Cool stuff! We also hit 43 users on #reactos yesterday afternoon
(according to Royce), which is a new record.
-Vizzini
29 Jan
29 Jan
3:08 p.m.
From: Vizzini
Cool stuff! We also hit 43 users on #reactos yesterday
afternoon (according to Royce), which is a new record.
Checkout the download statistics on
http://sourceforge.net/project/stats/?group_id=6553 too....
26 Jan
26 Jan
6:21 p.m.
The main reason for this, IMO, is because the GUI has been improved. First
impressions count, and screenshots of console apps really don't excite that
many people - regardless of if it's running a Windows-compatible kernel or
not.
Several of my friends turned their nose up at ReactOS months ago because
they just saw it as being basic and maybe even "DOS-like". But since they
saw the 0.2 screenshots, they're impressed and have become interested in it.
There have been the occasional "why?" questions asked by people I've
mentioned ReactOS to, but those people are the kind that pay thru the nose
for Microsoft software and who praise and worship Mr. Gates... Or who eat,
sleep and breathe Linux...
In any case, ReactOS being so popular just goes to show that all the work
that has been put into it is worth it. True, the beginnings have been quite
slow and in some cases unstable, but with every code commit ReactOS gets
better.
Hopefully everything will continue to go smoothly and in the next few years
we'll have a 1.0 release ;)
I'd like to contribute some code again sometime soon, so I might start
working on some winmm related stuff later this evening.
-Andrew
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ge van Geldorp" <ge(a)gse.nl>
To: <ros-general(a)reactos.com>
Sent: Monday, January 26, 2004 5:56 PM
Subject: [ros-general] Interest in ReactOS
It seems the release of 0.2 generated a lot of interest. Most of the
reactions are pretty predictable, either "Why???" or "Wow!!!" with
the
"Wow" ones being in the majority I think.
The website served 1.8 million requests the last 24 hours. At times it
was overloaded, but it seems we have found a set of parameters which
works pretty well now.
Gé van Geldorp.
_______________________________________________
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ros-general(a)reactos.com
http://reactos.com/mailman/listinfo/ros-general
7:20 p.m.
I read a couple of opinions which disliked drive letters.
When time goes by, we shuld think of a nice alternative
9:32 p.m.
I read a couple of opinions which disliked drive letters.
When time goes by, we shuld think of a nice alternative
surely if we are aiming for 100% M$ NT compatibility, we have no choice
but to go with what is already there. as far as programs are concerned,
they should believe that they are running on an M$ os. loads of registry
entries and .ini files refer to C:, D: etc.
27 Jan
27 Jan
9:39 a.m.
I read a
couple of opinions which disliked drive letters.
When time goes by, we shuld think of a nice alternative
surely if we are aiming for 100% M$ NT compatibility, we have no choice
but to go with what is already there. as far as programs are concerned,
they should believe that they are running on an M$ os. loads of registry
entries and .ini files refer to C:, D: etc. 
28 Jan
28 Jan
1:37 a.m.
ros(a)xzite.fsnet.co.uk wrote:
Did the person who disliked drive letters say what they would like to see?
TomLeeM
--
* * * * *BigWarpGuy / TomLeeM* * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * eComStation * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* the os for the internet generation *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * http://www.ecomstation.com * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I read a couple
of opinions which disliked drive letters.
When time goes by, we shuld think of a nice alternative
surely if we are aiming for 100% M$ NT compatibility, we have no choice
but to go with what is already there. as far as programs are concerned,
they should believe that they are running on an M$ os. loads of registry
entries and .ini files refer to C:, D: etc.
_______________________________________________
ros-general mailing list
ros-general(a)reactos.com
http://reactos.com/mailman/listinfo/ros-general
8:23 a.m.
I read a couple of opinions which disliked drive
letters.
When time goes by, we shuld think of a nice alternative
Hmm I really don't understand people concerned with drive letters. Actually,
one of the main reasons a lot of people dislike Linux and Unix is the lack
of drive letters and their crappy, monolithic file system. So, long life to
drive letters!
The one and only thing to improve is how the OS assigns the letters to the
partitions (the DOS/Win9x way was quite horrible, in Win2k/XP somehow
better).
But more important yet, is to let the USER to decide the drive and the name
of ALL the root folders created during Setup: not only C:\Reactos, but also
"Program Files" and "Documents and Settings".
Lorenzo
8:46 a.m.
New subject: Re[2]: Interest in ReactOS
Yes, drive letters have advantage of simplicity (well, to me :) )
But user must define it by himself (in config file, registry, or somehow
else, like C:=/dev/hda1 :) ).
Example of windows stupidity:
My friend has a primary master disk with two partitions, which shows
as C: and D:.
He has windows at C: and some programs at D:.
But when I bring my one-partition-disk to him, and connect it as
secondary slave, its partions becomes D:, and my friend's old D: becomes E:
!
What did Bill thought, while doing such idiotic drive letter
asignment system?
> I read a couple of opinions which disliked drive
letters.
> When time goes by, we shuld think of a nice alternative
L> Hmm I really don't understand people concerned with drive letters. Actually,
L> one of the main reasons a lot of people dislike Linux and Unix is the lack
L> of drive letters and their crappy, monolithic file system. So, long life to
L> drive letters!
L> The one and only thing to improve is how the OS assigns the letters to the
L> partitions (the DOS/Win9x way was quite horrible, in Win2k/XP somehow
L> better).
L> But more important yet, is to let the USER to decide the drive and the name
L> of ALL the root folders created during Setup: not only C:\Reactos, but also
L> "Program Files" and "Documents and Settings".
L> Lorenzo
L> _______________________________________________
L> ros-general mailing list
L> ros-general(a)reactos.com
L> http://reactos.com/mailman/listinfo/ros-general
9:15 a.m.
New subject: Re[2]: Interest in ReactOS
Dear Ñåðãåé Îðëîâ,
My friend has a primary master disk with two
partitions, which shows
as C: and D:.
He has windows at C: and some programs at D:.
But when I bring my one-partition-disk to him, and connect it as
secondary slave, its partions becomes D:, and my friend's old D: becomes
E:
I think that in your friend's HD C: was a primary partition and D: was an
extended partition, and in your HD there was a primary partition, so Windows
has given to it the precedence over the extended one.
What did Bill thought, while doing such idiotic drive
letter
asignment system?
Hmm, I don't think that the poor algorithm behind this problem was
implemented by Bill. It's a little too easy to say that each stupid bug is
caused by Bill.
But user must define it by himself (in config file,
registry, or somehow
else, like C:=/dev/hda1 :) ).
Yes, I agree, but please not with that Linux+Pascal hybrid notation! :-)
Lorenzo
30 Jan
30 Jan
12:38 a.m.
New subject: Re[2]: Interest in ReactOS
At 09.46 28/01/2004, you wrote:
What did Bill thought, while doing such idiotic drive
letter asignment system?
actually, Windows 2000 persists mount points and drive letters correctly.
How does it do that I'm not sure. It also detects and handles the removal
of partitions, but not resizing or moving them
6:14 p.m.
It's (of course) somewhere in the registry.
I can't remember, now. But you gan gather this info from readmes of the
ext2-IFS for NT/2000.
It's essentially a asociation between Volume UIDs and Letters which
become created as \??\X:
KJK::Hyperion schrieb:
At 09.46 28/01/2004, you wrote:
What did Bill thought, while doing such idiotic
drive letter asignment
system?
actually, Windows 2000 persists mount points and drive letters
correctly. How does it do that I'm not sure. It also detects and handles
the removal of partitions, but not resizing or moving them
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7:26 p.m.
On 30.01.2004 01:38:28 KJK::Hyperion wrote:
At 09.46 28/01/2004, you wrote:
You can find it here for XP:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices\:
\??\Volume{b247edb5-3486-11d8-a3ad-806d6172696f}
\??\Volume{b247edb7-3486-11d8-a3ad-806d6172696f}
..
\DosDevices\C:
\DosDevices\D:
..
NT4's windisk.exe stored its settings in the
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Disk\Information entry, but this seems no more to be used
nowadays.
Regards,
Martin
What did Bill thought, while doing such idiotic
drive letter asignment
system?
actually, Windows 2000 persists mount points and drive letters correctly.
How does it do that I'm not sure. It also detects and handles the removal
of partitions, but not resizing or moving them 
28 Jan
28 Jan
8:59 a.m.
Lorenzo wrote:
In fact I'm someone who dislikes driveletters (please don't beat me ;-).
I like the Unix-style filesystem. I also like the Unix paradigma that
everything is treated like a file. By this you have a unique way to
access files, devices and everything else.
The same is with mounting drives somewhere in the file-tree. I think
this way of drive access is much more elegant than assigning a letter to
each drive. Has anybody ever tried what happens whe trying to use 27
devices under Windows? Will it use two letters then? Or numbers?
I think drive letters are a relict from old DOS times. And now that
anybody is used to it there's no need to replace it by a better solution
(because people don't like to throw away what they understood once and
what they got used to).
Greetings
Björn
I read a couple
of opinions which disliked drive letters.
When time goes by, we shuld think of a nice alternative
Hmm I really don't understand people concerned with drive letters. Actually,
one of the main reasons a lot of people dislike Linux and Unix is the lack
of drive letters and their crappy, monolithic file system. So, long life to
drive letters!
[...]
Lorenzo
9:28 a.m.
Dear Björn Fischer,
In fact I'm someone who dislikes driveletters
(please don't beat me ;-).
I like the Unix-style filesystem. I also like the Unix paradigma that
everything is treated like a file. By this you have a unique way to
access files, devices and everything else.
:-) I will not beat you! It's not a good idea to start a war of religion for
such a reason!
The same is with mounting drives somewhere in the
file-tree. I think
this way of drive access is much more elegant than assigning a letter to
each drive. Has anybody ever tried what happens whe trying to use 27
devices under Windows? Will it use two letters then? Or numbers?
The problem is that there is some kind of esthetics problem: I find horrible
the Unix file system and do you finds horrible the drive letters. But let me
say that in a system with 27 devices the problem is the design of that
system, not the lack of drive letters! Then, in my system I have 6
partitions but only 3 HD letters, because I mounted some of them as NTFS
folders, but I've still a good rationale behind the 3 letters (C: is
system/binaries/programs, D: is personal data and projects, E: is multimedia
*big* files). The big monolithic Unix approach tends to be messy and
confuse, and it's hard to find where a file is (and to understand where it
should be...)
The good thing (for me :-) is that it would be a very poor decision to get
rid of drive letters in ROS.
Lorenzo
9:36 a.m.
The problem is that there is some kind of esthetics
problem: I find horrible
the Unix file system and do you finds horrible the drive letters. But let me
Make it configurable so everyone can get what he/she wants.
The setup should ask which kind of file system should be set up:
a.) MS Windows compatible
b.) Unix FSH compatible
c.) any mounted file system root and system directory configurable by the user
Regards,
Martin
9:57 a.m.
I still think we should use the Linux-style file system, BUT use drive
letters as shortcuts.
Somehow...
----- Original Message -----
From: "Martin Fuchs" <martin-fuchs(a)gmx.net>
To: <ros-general(a)reactos.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2004 9:36 AM
Subject: [ros-general] Re: Interest in ReactOS
> The problem is that there is some kind of
esthetics problem: I find
horrible
> the Unix file system and do you finds horrible
the drive letters. But
let me
Make it configurable so everyone can get what he/she wants.
The setup should ask which kind of file system should be set up:
a.) MS Windows compatible
b.) Unix FSH compatible
c.) any mounted file system root and system directory configurable by the
user
Regards,
Martin
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10:27 a.m.
New subject: Drive letters
Maybe I'm missing something obvious here, but on my Win2k system I can
mount any partition I want on any (NTFS) directory, just like you can
mount filesystems on directories in Unix. So just make your C: drive
NTFS, mount the other partitions, and forget about the C: if you want
Unix-style paths.
When we reach compatibility in this area, this will be possible for
ReactOS too. On the other hand, because of that same compatibility, we
will have to support drive letters too. I really don't see why we would
have to make a choice in this matter.
Gé van Geldorp.
10:34 a.m.
New subject: Drive letters
Maybe I'm missing something obvious here, but on
my Win2k system I can
mount any partition I want on any (NTFS) directory, just like you can
mount filesystems on directories in Unix. So just make your C: drive
NTFS, mount the other partitions, and forget about the C: if you want
Unix-style paths.
When we reach compatibility in this area, this will be possible for
ReactOS too. On the other hand, because of that same compatibility, we
will have to support drive letters too. I really don't see why we would
have to make a choice in this matter.
The choice in setup would configure how the partitions are mapped to
drive letters / mounted at directories. This is really missing in MS
Windows'
setup procedure. You can only choose on which drive and directory you
want to install the system files.
Regards,
Martin
--
Martin Fuchs
martin-fuchs(a)gmx.net
+++ GMX - die erste Adresse für Mail, Message, More +++
Bis 31.1.: TopMail + Digicam für nur 29 EUR http://www.gmx.net/topmail
9:15 p.m.
New subject: Drive letters
I have an even better idea, why not just map drives as Standard Windows
Volumes like every other windows system, add some support for mounting smb
volumes, appletalk shares, ftp folders, iso images, and stop complaining,
why mess up a good thing? While you are at it add a linux subsystem with all
the libraries to run common applications with basilisk II support and make
the whole thing every-system-compatible!!! That is what I would think to do.
But that is only me!
30 Jan
30 Jan
1:04 a.m.
New subject: Drive letters
At 11.27 28/01/2004, you wrote:
Maybe I'm missing something obvious here, but on my
Win2k system I can
mount any partition I want on any (NTFS) directory, just like you can
mount filesystems on directories in Unix.
It's not the same. There are subtle but important differences, that rarely
show through everyday use but make the difference in complex scenarios.
This is because the underlying model for filesystems is different: VFS on
UNIX, IFS on Windows, and VFS is by far the best of the two. If it wasn't
for the whole driver compatibility thingy, I wouldn't even have bothered
with IFS, and would have gone straight for VFS. Just about the only thing
about IFS that doesn't completely suck is the cache manager - the rest is
forgettable garbage, and Microsoft's licensing of the IFS SDK hasn't helped
either
28 Jan
28 Jan
10:46 a.m.
Lorenzo wrote:
In a book about Win NT internals I read that it is solved like kind of
what Andrew said. Win NT generally uses the physical structure
(device\harddisk0\parition1). But Access to this structure is done by
logical structures which point to the physical structure (c:\ =>
device\harddisk0\parition1).
But I must say even though I prefer the unix style, to me it seems not
practical to use this for ROS. ROS is a Win32 binary compatible system
so all applications that (hopefully) will run on it should believe to
run on a Win32. The same users should. So if there would be a difference
(perhaps possibility to switch to Unix mode) many apps won't get along
with it and not run anymore. So there MUST be drive letters to keep
compatibility.
Greetings
Björn
I still think
we should use the Linux-style file system, BUT use drive
letters as shortcuts.
Could you explain why? It would just add complexity, IMHO.
Lorenzo
10:30 a.m.
I still think we should use the Linux-style file
system, BUT use drive
letters as shortcuts.
Somehow...
We can store files compatibleto the Unix File System Hierarchie, but we
will not be able to use paths like /dev/mouse or /usr/local/bin/gcc, because
this
is not WIN32 compatible. But we could use "\\mybox\dev\mouse" and
"\\mybox\local\bin\gcc" instead. This UNC path names are supported
by WIN32. We only have to map them to the correct files. There is no
need to use SMB and share the "\\mybox\..." folders via the network.
A little extension to directly map them to the WIN32 file system is enough.
Regards,
Martin
--
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martin-fuchs(a)gmx.net
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10:16 a.m.
For such compleete different paradigmas the right solution is another
sub system. Or personality, if you prefer.
PS. ever tried that:
subst +: c:\
+:
dir
Martin Fuchs schrieb:
I still think
we should use the Linux-style file system, BUT use drive
letters as shortcuts.
Somehow...
We can store files compatibleto the Unix File System Hierarchie, but we
will not be able to use paths like /dev/mouse or /usr/local/bin/gcc, because
this
is not WIN32 compatible. But we could use "\\mybox\dev\mouse" and
"\\mybox\local\bin\gcc" instead. This UNC path names are supported
by WIN32. We only have to map them to the correct files. There is no
need to use SMB and share the "\\mybox\..." folders via the network.
A little extension to directly map them to the WIN32 file system is enough.
Regards,
Martin
6:40 p.m.
New subject: Message for Robert K.
Hi Robert,
for some reason all your messages are empty when viewed in the newsreader
(Outlook Express), and I'm not the only having this problem. It could be
caused by the security digital signature you add to the message. Could you
try to post a message without the signature?
Thank you!
Lorenzo
7:08 p.m.
New subject: Message for Robert K.
I've noticed this as well.
The message arrives as an attachment. Sure, you can read it, but it means
for each message you have to double click the attachment and choose OPEN...
A bit inconvenient, and worrying especially at a time when there are
viruses/worms on the loose, spreading via email attachments.
Vizzini's emails used to arrive as an attachment with a signature file as
well, but I think he fixed that?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lorenzo" <garbage(a)loz.it>
To: <ros-general(a)reactos.com>om>; <rob(a)koepferl.de>
Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2004 6:40 PM
Subject: [ros-general] Message for Robert K.
Hi Robert,
for some reason all your messages are empty when viewed in the newsreader
(Outlook Express), and I'm not the only having this problem. It could be
caused by the security digital signature you add to the message. Could you
try to post a message without the signature?
Thank you!
Lorenzo
_______________________________________________
ros-general mailing list
ros-general(a)reactos.com
http://reactos.com/mailman/listinfo/ros-general
6:57 p.m.
New subject: Message for Robert K.
I think I also did.
It took time to figure out that it is the signature which causes that
(in this list system)
Andrew "Silver Blade" Greenwood schrieb:
I've noticed this as well.
The message arrives as an attachment. Sure, you can read it, but it means
for each message you have to double click the attachment and choose OPEN...
A bit inconvenient, and worrying especially at a time when there are
viruses/worms on the loose, spreading via email attachments.
Vizzini's emails used to arrive as an attachment with a signature file as
well, but I think he fixed that?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lorenzo" <garbage(a)loz.it>
To: <ros-general(a)reactos.com>om>; <rob(a)koepferl.de>
Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2004 6:40 PM
Subject: [ros-general] Message for Robert K.
Hi Robert,
for some reason all your messages are empty when viewed in the newsreader
(Outlook Express), and I'm not the only having this problem. It could be
caused by the security digital signature you add to the message. Could you
try to post a message without the signature?
Thank you!
Lorenzo
_______________________________________________
ros-general mailing list
ros-general(a)reactos.com
http://reactos.com/mailman/listinfo/ros-general
_______________________________________________
ros-general mailing list
ros-general(a)reactos.com
http://reactos.com/mailman/listinfo/ros-general 
7:56 p.m.
New subject: Message for Robert K.
One thing I've noticed is that every message I've received from any of
the lists has an attachment. This started just a couple days ago. I am
using Outlook 2002.
-----Original Message-----
From: ros-general-bounces(a)reactos.com
[mailto:ros-general-bounces@reactos.com] On Behalf Of Andrew
"Silver Blade" Greenwood
Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2004 12:09 PM
To: ros-general(a)reactos.com
Subject: Re: [ros-general] Message for Robert K.
I've noticed this as well.
The message arrives as an attachment. Sure, you can read it,
but it means for each message you have to double click the
attachment and choose OPEN... A bit inconvenient, and
worrying especially at a time when there are viruses/worms on
the loose, spreading via email attachments.
Vizzini's emails used to arrive as an attachment with a
signature file as well, but I think he fixed that?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lorenzo" <garbage(a)loz.it>
To: <ros-general(a)reactos.com>om>; <rob(a)koepferl.de>
Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2004 6:40 PM
Subject: [ros-general] Message for Robert K.
Hi Robert,
for some reason all your messages are empty when viewed in the
newsreader (Outlook Express), and I'm not the only having this
problem. It could be caused by the security digital
signature you add
to the message. Could you try to post a message
without the
signature?
Thank you!
Lorenzo
_______________________________________________
ros-general mailing list
ros-general(a)reactos.com
http://reactos.com/mailman/listinfo/ros-general
_______________________________________________
ros-general mailing list
ros-general(a)reactos.com
http://reactos.com/mailman/listinfo/ros-> general
10:13 a.m.
What i suggested was neither of these.
I suggested a generalization from dirve letters to drive words.
Everyone is still free to use one character dirve words/identifiers
Lorenzo schrieb:
Dear Björn Fischer,
In fact I'm someone who dislikes driveletters
(please don't beat me ;-).
I like the Unix-style filesystem. I also like the Unix paradigma that
everything is treated like a file. By this you have a unique way to
access files, devices and everything else.
:-) I will not beat you! It's not a good idea to start a war of religion for
such a reason!
The same is with mounting drives somewhere in the
file-tree. I think
this way of drive access is much more elegant than assigning a letter to
each drive. Has anybody ever tried what happens whe trying to use 27
devices under Windows? Will it use two letters then? Or numbers?
The problem is that there is some kind of esthetics problem: I find horrible
the Unix file system and do you finds horrible the drive letters. But let me
say that in a system with 27 devices the problem is the design of that
system, not the lack of drive letters! Then, in my system I have 6
partitions but only 3 HD letters, because I mounted some of them as NTFS
folders, but I've still a good rationale behind the 3 letters (C: is
system/binaries/programs, D: is personal data and projects, E: is multimedia
*big* files). The big monolithic Unix approach tends to be messy and
confuse, and it's hard to find where a file is (and to understand where it
should be...)
The good thing (for me :-) is that it would be a very poor decision to get
rid of drive letters in ROS.
Lorenzo
_______________________________________________
ros-general mailing list
ros-general(a)reactos.com
http://reactos.com/mailman/listinfo/ros-general 
4:13 p.m.
On Wed, 28 Jan 2004, [ISO-8859-1] Björn Fischer wrote:
In fact I'm someone who dislikes driveletters
(please don't beat me ;-).
I like the Unix-style filesystem. I also like the Unix paradigma that
everything is treated like a file. By this you have a unique way to
access files, devices and everything else.
Actually, NT sort of has this. The executive treats everything as an
object which is some structure that is of a certain class (again, an
object) and has a set of methods. The objects are arranged in a tree and
the tree is "owned" by the object manager.
Win32 drive letters are simply mounted objects in the tree under the
branch of DosDevices that have their own parse methods.
So lets say you have X: as your drive letter, thats \DosDevices\X:\foo\bar
to the object manager. The "\foo\bar" part is passed to X:'s parse method
where it handles filename lookup and then returns a file object (from the
I/O manager).
Removing drive letters all together would cause some serious problems for
existing Win32 apps but I wonder how much trouble it would cause to create
a symlink under \DosDevices to \DosDevices so you get a single "super
drive" letter.
If you want to be really daring you could create a symlink under
\DosDevices to the object tree root and then get access to everything via
one interface. In fact, named Win32 objects like semaphores and mutexes
are also there under \BaseNamedObjects, IIRC.
The same is with mounting drives somewhere in the
file-tree. I think
this way of drive access is much more elegant than assigning a letter to
each drive. Has anybody ever tried what happens whe trying to use 27
devices under Windows? Will it use two letters then? Or numbers?
Actually, NTFS supports reparse points that do this. But its up to the
filesystem since the parse method for X: ends up in the IFS code.
I think drive letters are a relict from old DOS times.
And now that
anybody is used to it there's no need to replace it by a better solution
(because people don't like to throw away what they understood once and
what they got used to).
Right, but changing the Win32 API is bound to break compatability; and
thats an important goal of ReactOS. But thats okay, the architecture of NT
allows for more than one subsystem. You could write a Native API program
if you really wanted to (most of the Win32 facilities are there for you in
"raw" form) or you could write your own OS API via a subsystem.
I guess it wouldn't be too hard for somebody to code up an alternative
protected subssytem to give a much more object-oriented API than Win32.
Programs that are not concerned with backwards compatability could use the
new runtime environment.
I totally agree about things being more uniform. When they designed the
Win32 API backwards compatability was an important goal -- I personally
think the Presentation Manager API is much better than the windows one (it
makes more sense rather than all the "non-client" special casing). But
they chose that for backwards compatability.
Hell, there is still the Global and Local memory API's.
Personally I think we should leave the Win32 API in ReactOS as is for
backwards compatability but we should encourage (eventually) the writing
of another subsystem for a nice, object-oriented API. The two can co-exist
quite easily.
In fact, a lean-and-mean subsystem would be just the thing for embedded
applications that have no need for backwards compatability. And that could
be a decent application of ReactOS on its own -- there is money to be made
in the embedded world with GPL code. ;-) Well, I used to believe that
anyhow.
L8r,
Mark G.
3:34 p.m.
Right, but changing the Win32 API is bound to break compatability; and
thats an important goal of ReactOS. But thats okay, the architecture of NT
allows for more than one subsystem. You could write a Native API program
if you really wanted to (most of the Win32 facilities are there for you in
"raw" form) or you could write your own OS API via a subsystem.
excuse me to correct: It's not an API or ABI change but a semantic
change. Semantics of file naming. However it can be made either
compatible or not.
Correct me: Does the win32 API has got a function to test file name
semantics? UNC-names are widely understood. And since common dialogs, i
think noone does real name checking.
I think your embedded -adapted api is a good idea. AFAIK M$ is working
on s.t. like this removing a lot of deprecated calls, like apple did
with carbon. But will MS break compatibility?
5:30 p.m.
On Wed, 28 Jan 2004, Robert K. wrote:
Well, the semantic change will break a lot of programs that parse file
names. There is lots of *shitty* code out there in the Win32 world.
Right, but changing the Win32 API is bound to break compatability; and
thats an important goal of ReactOS. But thats okay, the architecture of NT
allows for more than one subsystem. You could write a Native API program
if you really wanted to (most of the Win32 facilities are there for you in
"raw" form) or you could write your own OS API via a subsystem.
excuse me to correct: It's not an API or ABI change but a semantic
change. Semantics of file naming. However it can be made either
compatible or not. Correct me: Does the win32 API has got a function to
test file name
semantics? UNC-names are widely understood. And since common dialogs, i
think noone does real name checking.
I work on code that does this kind of crap daily (don't ask, I hate this
job). But when the code I work on gets a UNC name, it uses the WNet API
its self, when it sees anything else it expects a 1-character drive
letter.
I didn't write this garbage and don't want to touch it any more than I
have to, but there is *lots* of code out there that does similar things.
It also seems to avoid common dialogs too for whatever reason. [*]
But the bottom line is that the semantics are part of the API. The best
you could do is a UNC path like:
\\myhost\root\blah\blah
And then *really* SMB serve that to yourself locally. It seems like a lot
of effort for very little gains.
I think your embedded -adapted api is a good idea.
AFAIK M$ is working
on s.t. like this removing a lot of deprecated calls, like apple did
with carbon. But will MS break compatibility?
Some of the compatability code in Windows is scary. They tend to detect
what app is running and adjust for that in a lot of places (seriously).
ReactOS shouldn't be littered with that kind of garbage, but changing the
semantics is going to break a lot of existing code.
[*] The code at my current place of employment was written back in the 3.1
days and not very well to begin with. Age hasn't been kind to it. I have
zero intention of fixing it. I am just going to browse slashdot until I am
canned.
5:41 p.m.
On Wed, Jan 28, 2004 at 04:34:12PM +0100, Robert K. wrote:
I think your embedded -adapted api is a good idea.
AFAIK M$ is working
on s.t. like this removing a lot of deprecated calls, like apple did
with carbon. But will MS break compatibility?
I don't think so, backwards compatibility has always been an important
issue for windows. Win XP for instance still is compatible with win 1.0
:)
Mark
5:01 p.m.
Personally I think we should leave the Win32 API in
ReactOS as is for
backwards compatability but we should encourage (eventually) the writing
of another subsystem for a nice, object-oriented API. The two can co-exist
quite easily.
I actually had a few ideas for this, related to the file system thread a
while ago. One idea was to have object descriptors (classes) as a DLL of
some form, and then have subclasses as actual files or objects.
So an MP3 file would be an object of type mp3file, which would be a subclass
of audiofile, subclass of file, etc.
Bit difficult to explain especially as the design is still incomplete.
But in any case, I feel an object-oriented API would be nicer. This is
however difficult as callbacks for C++ objects are a pain (you can't seem to
pass a pointer to a member function to anything) without doing some sort of
bodged workaround (usually involving lots of little macros...) You could, of
course, have standard OnPaint() OnKeyDown() etc routines, or even have an
event object which gets passed around. But this still has difficulties.
5:35 p.m.
On Wed, 28 Jan 2004, Andrew "Silver Blade" Greenwood wrote:
So an MP3 file would be an object of type mp3file,
which would be a subclass
of audiofile, subclass of file, etc.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense and its the kind of thing OS/2's Workplace
Shell tried to bolt on using SOM. It was also part of Apple's Pink project
(somewhere I still have a Taligent programming manual).
But in any case, I feel an object-oriented API would
be nicer. This is
however difficult as callbacks for C++ objects are a pain (you can't seem to
Probably a language-neutral API and then writing a C++ wrapper for the API
is the best way to go.
pass a pointer to a member function to anything)
without doing some sort of
bodged workaround (usually involving lots of little macros...) You could, of
course, have standard OnPaint() OnKeyDown() etc routines, or even have an
event object which gets passed around. But this still has difficulties.
The event object is a good paradigm -- it makes distributed computing
easier if a message in transit can also receive messages to its self (same
with class objects).
Such a discussion is probably outside the scope of the reactos project
though. They are providing a kernel that supports a particular API. An OO
subsystem could probably be built running on a Microsoft Windows box and
then ported over to ReactOS with almost minimal effort.
But that kind of stuff seems more like the realm of the application... my
particular area of interest is embedded where filesystems are rare.
L8r,
Mark G.
26 Jan
26 Jan
9:48 p.m.
I like and dislike drive letters.
I dislike them because they aren't really necessary and you must have at
least one if you have a hard drive (eg: drive C), which means even though I
have a separate partition for my data, I can either have it as a separate
drive D: (which I do), or mount it under the C: drive somewhere (which I
don't want to do, because there's no point if I'm going to be using a drive
letter anyway!)
However, I like them because they serve as a quick way to access your
favourite folders. I use SUBST a lot for this purpose (usually have R:
pointing to my ReactOS folder, and W: to a workspace folder containing junk
needing sorting out!) So they save a lot of typing.
PS: Any chance you can set your mail client up to send the actual message
in-line rather than having it as an attachment (at least, thats how OE sees
it...)
----- Original Message -----
From: "robert K." <rob(a)koepferl.de>
To: <ros-general(a)reactos.com>
Sent: Monday, January 26, 2004 7:20 PM
Subject: Re: [ros-general] Interest in ReactOS
_______________________________________________
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10:14 a.m.
I fallen in a deep coma where i did my diploma thesis.
It's finished now. Jus at that time where heise.de anounced ROS.
KJK::Hyperion schrieb:
At 20.20 26/01/2004, you wrote:
I read a couple of opinions which disliked drive
letters.
When time goes by, we shuld think of a nice alternative
hey Robert! where have you been for so long?
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8:14 a.m.
Offhand -> Floppy;
-> Home/User Drive;
-> System Disk;
-> Data Disk;
-> CD/DVD ROM/R/RW
What do people think?
On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 08:20, robert K. wrote:
I read a couple of opinions which disliked drive
letters.
When time goes by, we shuld think of a nice alternative
--
Wesley Parish
* * *
Clinersterton beademung - in all of love. RIP James Blish
* * *
Mau e ki, "He aha te mea nui?"
You ask, "What is the most important thing?"
Maku e ki, "He tangata, he tangata, he tangata."
I reply, "It is people, it is people, it is people."
8:35 a.m.
New subject: Re[2]: Interest in ReactOS
I think, that drive letters must be bindings to something else (like
in wine)
Tuesday, January 27, 2004, 11:14:02 AM, âû íàïèñàëè:
Offhand ->> Floppy;
->> Home/User Drive;
->> System Disk;
->> Data Disk;
->> CD/DVD ROM/R/RW
WP> What do people think?
WP> On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 08:20, robert K. wrote:
> I read a couple of opinions which disliked drive
letters.
>
> When time goes by, we shuld think of a nice alternative
10:19 a.m.
So do I.
I can think of a computed Superroot directory which contains all volume
names as directorys and Drive letters are an optional thing which can be
assigned to improove compatibility.
OR
Use the Volume names as Dirve Identifiers
Myvolume:\readme.txt
orlov(a)avdis.ru schrieb:
I think, that drive letters must be bindings to
something else (like
in wine)
Tuesday, January 27, 2004, 11:14:02 AM, âû íàïèñàëè:
Offhand ->> Floppy;
->> Home/User Drive;
->> System Disk;
->> Data Disk;
->> CD/DVD ROM/R/RW
WP> What do people think?
WP> On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 08:20, robert K. wrote:
>I read a couple of opinions which disliked
drive letters.
>
>When time goes by, we shuld think of a nice alternative
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5:15 p.m.
-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: ros-general-bounces(a)reactos.com
[mailto:ros-general-bounces@reactos.com] På vegne af Robert K.
Sendt: 27. januar 2004 11:19
Til: Ñåðãåé Îðëîâ; ros-general(a)reactos.com
Emne: Re: [ros-general] Interest in ReactOS
So do I.
I can think of a computed Superroot directory which contains
all volume
names as directorys and Drive letters are an optional thing
which can be
assigned to improove compatibility.
Already present in Windows. The shell does this.
OR
Use the Volume names as Dirve Identifiers
Myvolume:\readme.txt
Why have them at all then? The primary purpose of drive
letters was/is to avoid typing long names.
Casper
4:49 p.m.
Why have them at all then? The primary purpose of drive
letters was/is to avoid typing long names.
No one hinders you to name volumes with 1c-names
But this gibves you freedom. Dont care
Casper
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26 Jan
26 Jan
7:25 p.m.
I was just wondering, don't you guys think ReactOS is a treat to GNU/Linux ?
For ex. when ROS becomes stable enough i will surely pass to ROS instead of
Linux (that i use now). Of course having a lot of GNU utils in ROS , GPL
licence, and free Win32 implementation is a temptation for many developers
and even GNU/Linux users. So isn't ROS going to unbalance the balance between
GNU/Linux / BSD ..etc and MS Win ?
Pe data de Luni 26 Ianuarie 2004 19:56, Ge van Geldorp a scris:
It seems the release of 0.2 generated a lot of
interest. Most of the
reactions are pretty predictable, either "Why???" or "Wow!!!" with
the
"Wow" ones being in the majority I think.
The website served 1.8 million requests the last 24 hours. At times it
was overloaded, but it seems we have found a set of parameters which
works pretty well now.
Gé van Geldorp.
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--
�?�
7:38 p.m.
On Mon, Jan 26, 2004 at 09:25:05PM +0200, Ciobanu Alexander wrote:
I was just wondering, don't you guys think ReactOS
is a treat to GNU/Linux ?
For ex. when ROS becomes stable enough i will surely pass to ROS instead of
Linux (that i use now). Of course having a lot of GNU utils in ROS , GPL
licence, and free Win32 implementation is a temptation for many developers
and even GNU/Linux users. So isn't ROS going to unbalance the balance between
GNU/Linux / BSD ..etc and MS Win ?
Well, maybe it will, but what's the problem with that?
Mark
7:59 p.m.
Pe data de Luni 26 Ianuarie 2004 21:38, Mark IJbema a scris:
"Me" thinks it's a somehow interesting problem .... As GNU operating system
is
the main goal for KDE/Gnome - like projects, this would mean :
1. Porting to win32 and loosing popularity (ROS is somewow more integrated
than GNU so i wouldn't like to use KDE for ex. if i'm a user, i would rather
use explorer ... etc)
2. Continuing on GNU ,and loosing popularity (reasons said below)
3. Dismemberment (bad ideea :( )
Of course i would like to see for ex. Kopete (instant messenger) from KDE
working on "my ROS box" :) but somehow without QT and KDE :)
On Mon, Jan 26, 2004 at 09:25:05PM +0200, Ciobanu
Alexander wrote:
--
�?�
I was just wondering, don't you guys think
ReactOS is a treat to
GNU/Linux ? For ex. when ROS becomes stable enough i will surely pass to
ROS instead of Linux (that i use now). Of course having a lot of GNU
utils in ROS , GPL licence, and free Win32 implementation is a temptation
for many developers and even GNU/Linux users. So isn't ROS going to
unbalance the balance between GNU/Linux / BSD ..etc and MS Win ?
Well, maybe it will, but what's the problem with that?
Mark
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9:49 p.m.
Just use Trillian instead of Kopete :)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ciobanu Alexander" <alex(a)prodidactica.md>
To: <ros-general(a)reactos.com>
Sent: Monday, January 26, 2004 7:59 PM
Subject: Re: [ros-general] Interest in ReactOS
Pe data de Luni 26 Ianuarie 2004 21:38, Mark IJbema a scris:
"Me" thinks it's a somehow interesting problem .... As GNU operating system
is
the main goal for KDE/Gnome - like projects, this would mean :
1. Porting to win32 and loosing popularity (ROS is somewow more integrated
than GNU so i wouldn't like to use KDE for ex. if i'm a user, i would rather
use explorer ... etc)
2. Continuing on GNU ,and loosing popularity (reasons said below)
3. Dismemberment (bad ideea :( )
Of course i would like to see for ex. Kopete (instant messenger) from KDE
working on "my ROS box" :) but somehow without QT and KDE :)
--
�?�
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ros-general(a)reactos.com
http://reactos.com/mailman/listinfo/ros-general
On Mon, Jan 26, 2004 at 09:25:05PM +0200, Ciobanu
Alexander wrote:
> I was just wondering, don't you guys think ReactOS is a treat to
> GNU/Linux ? For ex. when ROS becomes stable enough i will surely pass to
> ROS instead of Linux (that i use now). Of course having a lot of GNU
> utils in ROS , GPL licence, and free Win32 implementation is a
temptation
for many
developers and even GNU/Linux users. So isn't ROS going to
unbalance the balance between GNU/Linux / BSD ..etc and MS Win ?
Well, maybe it will, but what's the problem with that?
Mark
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9:50 p.m.
On Mon, Jan 26, 2004 at 09:59:54PM +0200, Ciobanu Alexander wrote:
Pe data de Luni 26 Ianuarie 2004 21:38, Mark IJbema a
scris:
"Me" thinks it's a somehow interesting problem .... As GNU operating system
is
the main goal for KDE/Gnome - like projects, this would mean :
1. Porting to win32 and loosing popularity (ROS is somewow more integrated
than GNU so i wouldn't like to use KDE for ex. if i'm a user, i would rather
use explorer ... etc)
2. Continuing on GNU ,and loosing popularity (reasons said below)
3. Dismemberment (bad ideea :( )
Of course i would like to see for ex. Kopete (instant messenger) from KDE
working on "my ROS box" :) but somehow without QT and KDE :)
Well, this would be the case if it would wipe linux+kde out of the
market, which probably won't be the case. Each system has it's
advantages and disadvantages. Sure ROS will take some market, but
competition is healthy imho, also for OSS software. I really see no
reason to worry. Look at FreeBSD/Linux for instance, they have coexisted
for quite some time as well.
Mark
8:12 p.m.
Mark IJbema wrote:
On Mon, Jan 26, 2004 at 09:25:05PM +0200, Ciobanu
Alexander wrote:
Why should it? I think the term "free" is like the one in 'free speech',
not 'free beer'. ROS will be free in that meaning. Why shouldn't the
variety of OS's grow? I think the more free OS's there are, the better
it is for the user because he is free in choosing the OS he likes.
Probably "militant" open source lovers will have problems with ROS
because it is supposed to be compatible with a lot of "non-free"
software. But I think it would be good for users.
Greetings
Björn
I was just wondering, don't you guys think
ReactOS is a treat to GNU/Linux ?
For ex. when ROS becomes stable enough i will surely pass to ROS instead of
Linux (that i use now). Of course having a lot of GNU utils in ROS , GPL
licence, and free Win32 implementation is a temptation for many developers
and even GNU/Linux users. So isn't ROS going to unbalance the balance between
GNU/Linux / BSD ..etc and MS Win ?
Well, maybe it will, but what's the problem with that?
Mark
28 Jan
28 Jan
1:36 a.m.
Björn Fischer wrote:
Mark IJbema wrote:
As ReactOS is a free version of WinNT, OSFree ( http://www.osfree.org )
is a free/clone
of OS/2 Warp by IBM. A 'fyi' reply (I am interested in both).
http://www.freeos.com is a site for 'free operating systems.
TomLeeM
--
* * * * *BigWarpGuy / TomLeeM* * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * eComStation * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* the os for the internet generation *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * http://www.ecomstation.com * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
On Mon, Jan 26, 2004 at 09:25:05PM +0200, Ciobanu
Alexander wrote:
Why should it? I think the term "free" is like the one in 'free
speech', not 'free beer'. ROS will be free in that meaning. Why
shouldn't the variety of OS's grow? I think the more free OS's there
are, the better it is for the user because he is free in choosing the
OS he likes.
Probably "militant" open source lovers will have problems with ROS
because it is supposed to be compatible with a lot of "non-free"
software. But I think it would be good for users.
Greetings
Björn
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I was just wondering, don't you guys think
ReactOS is a treat to
GNU/Linux ?
For ex. when ROS becomes stable enough i will surely pass to ROS
instead of Linux (that i use now). Of course having a lot of GNU
utils in ROS , GPL licence, and free Win32 implementation is a
temptation for many developers and even GNU/Linux users. So isn't
ROS going to unbalance the balance between GNU/Linux / BSD ..etc and
MS Win ?
Well, maybe it will, but what's the problem with that?
Mark
27 Jan
27 Jan
11:34 p.m.
We know of it. Does your comment mean that you are now willing to
implement osfree via a subsystem on ROS and thus help me?
If yes, I could partition the work amount and asingn functions.
Otherwise I start the JFS-port again.
As ReactOS is a free version of WinNT, OSFree (
http://www.osfree.org )
is a free/clone
of OS/2 Warp by IBM. A 'fyi' reply (I am interested in both).
http://www.freeos.com is a site for 'free operating systems.
TomLeeM
28 Jan
28 Jan
1:59 a.m.
Robert K. wrote:
We know of it. Does your comment mean that you are now
willing to
implement osfree via a subsystem on ROS and thus help me?
If yes, I could partition the work amount and asingn functions.
Otherwise I start the JFS-port again.
OSFree is still being worked on. I am not a programmer but will consider
your idea.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osfree
I will forward your message to the above group to seek the opinion of
those in it.
TomLeeM
--
* * * * *BigWarpGuy / TomLeeM* * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * eComStation * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* the os for the internet generation *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * http://www.ecomstation.com * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
As ReactOS is a free version of WinNT, OSFree (
http://www.osfree.org
) is a free/clone
of OS/2 Warp by IBM. A 'fyi' reply (I am interested in both).
http://www.freeos.com is a site for 'free operating systems.
TomLeeM
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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12:10 a.m.
I'm on both lists. And there's already st. around with yuri, if he has
time over his diploma
Tom Lee Mullins schrieb:
Robert K. wrote:
We know of it. Does your comment mean that you
are now willing to
implement osfree via a subsystem on ROS and thus help me?
If yes, I could partition the work amount and asingn functions.
Otherwise I start the JFS-port again.
OSFree is still being worked on. I am not a programmer but will consider
your idea.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osfree
I will forward your message to the above group to seek the opinion of
those in it.
TomLeeM
As ReactOS is a free version of WinNT, OSFree (
http://www.osfree.org
) is a free/clone
of OS/2 Warp by IBM. A 'fyi' reply (I am interested in both).
http://www.freeos.com is a site for 'free operating systems.
TomLeeM
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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10:21 a.m.
I was just
wondering, don't you guys think ReactOS is a treat to
GNU/Linux ?
yup! ain't it cool? _______________________________________________
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days inactive
7571
days old
57 comments
21 participants
participants (21)
-
Andrew "Silver Blade" Greenwood -
Björn Fischer -
Brian Palmer -
Casper Hornstrup -
Ciobanu Alexander -
Ge van Geldorp -
john＠shepherdtrack.com -
KJK::Hyperion -
Lorenzo -
Mark Grosberg -
Mark IJbema -
Martin Fuchs -
orlov＠avdis.ru -
Rick Langschultz -
Robert K. -
robert K.
-
ros＠xzite.fsnet.co.uk -
Tom Lee Mullins -
Vizzini -
Wesley Parish -
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