Preliminary questions before install

Hi all;

  I've ordered a machine from Dell, scheduled to arrive Feb 22, which
will be my "playground" machine, that I can fool around on, without
worrying about losing data.  I don't expect the built-in network
interface to work with ReactOS, but the machine will have 3 expansion
slots.  I may also be playing around with Minix 3.3 on the machine.
With that in mind, here are a few questions...

1) The Intel Pro/100 and Realtek-8139-chipset cards appear to be the
only cards supported by *BOTH* ReactOS and Minix 3.3.  They're older
chipsets.  Anyone know where I can order one of those cards (presumably
PCI)?  Or even better, a physical store in Toronto that has them?

2) What's the best setup for multi-boot, involving ReactOS?  Can ReactOS
boot another OS?

3) For a few extra dollars, I went and got the machine with 8 gigs of
RAM and a 1 terabyte drive.  What's the recommended hard drive install
layout?  I haven't used Windows at home for a dozen years.  Back then,
I'd put the OS on C:\ and data+programs on D:\ and the swapfile on E:\
I retired in early 2011, and the workplace was using Windows XP back
then, so my Windows skills are rather rusty.

4) Does ReactOS work better with DVI or VGA video input?  My LCD monitor
has both inputs, and the Dell will have both outputs.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes(a)waltdnes.org>

On Sat, Feb 13, 2016 at 08:54:33PM -0500, waltdnes(a)waltdnes.org wrote
>   
>  4) Does ReactOS work better with DVI or VGA video input?  My LCD monitor
>  has both inputs, and the Dell will have both outputs. 
  Correction; I just looked at the config on Dell's website; it's VGA
and HDMI outputs.  I may have to get an adapter for the monitor.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes(a)waltdnes.org>

[Thomas Faber]

On 2016-02-14 02:54, waltdnes(a)waltdnes.org wrote:
>   Hi all;
>  
>    I've ordered a machine from Dell, scheduled to arrive Feb 22, which
>  will be my "playground" machine, that I can fool around on, without
>  worrying about losing data.  I don't expect the built-in network
>  interface to work with ReactOS, but the machine will have 3 expansion
>  slots.  I may also be playing around with Minix 3.3 on the machine.
>  With that in mind, here are a few questions...
>  
>  1) The Intel Pro/100 and Realtek-8139-chipset cards appear to be the
>  only cards supported by *BOTH* ReactOS and Minix 3.3.  They're older
>  chipsets.  Anyone know where I can order one of those cards (presumably
>  PCI)?  Or even better, a physical store in Toronto that has them? 
Out of the box, ROS only supports NE2000, RTL8139 and AMD PCnet (of
which the RTL8139 is probably most common in hardware). These are
fairly old cards so people tend to just have them lying around; I'm not
sure how easy they are to purchase these days.
However since ROS allows you to run Windows drivers, many other cards
will also work if you get a WinXP driver for them from the
manufacturer's website. While this Wiki page isn't a guarantee that
it'll work, it can show you which cards people have successfully tested
in the past:
http://www.reactos.de/wiki/Supported_Hardware/Network_cards
So definitely give your built-in card a try ;)

>   2) What's the best setup for multi-boot, involving
> ReactOS?  Can ReactOS
>  boot another OS? 
I usually reserve the first partition on the disk for ROS (since it may
or may not have problems running from elsewhere).
I tend to partition the disk to the layout I want first (e.g. 10 GB for
ROS, 10 GB for Some-Other-OS, rest of the disk for whatever I consider
the "main" OS), then install ROS and tell it to install its loader in
both MBR & VBR. Then I install any other OSes and overwrite the MBR
with my preference (typically NTLDR for me, but Grub should be fine)
and add an option to boot ROS from there. Then when (not if :p) I need
to reinstall ROS I make sure it doesn't touch the MBR again.
If your partitioning requirements aren't too complicated you can also
let ROS setup do your partitioning to avoid the extra first step.

>   3) For a few extra dollars, I went and got the machine
> with 8 gigs of
>  RAM and a 1 terabyte drive.  What's the recommended hard drive install
>  layout?  I haven't used Windows at home for a dozen years.  Back then,
>  I'd put the OS on C:\ and data+programs on D:\ and the swapfile on E:\
>  I retired in early 2011, and the workplace was using Windows XP back
>  then, so my Windows skills are rather rusty. 
Currently, ROS's page file is nothing but a waste of space so you can
disable it after install. However on a machine with >4GB of RAM that
means your ROS partition should probably be at least 5GB so that you
don't run out of disk space during setup (or if like me you're too lazy
to disable it).
When installing ROS together with other OSes I tend to just copy
external data I need in ROS directly onto the ROS partition from
another OS (since everything supports FAT); however if you have a bunch
of data that you want to keep around it might be worthwhile to have a
separate FAT-formatted partition to use when sharing data between OSes.
Other than that I don't really have any specific recommendations; I
tend to just use one partition per OS unless there's a real need to do
otherwise.

>   4) Does ReactOS work better with DVI or VGA video
> input?  My LCD monitor
>  has both inputs, and the Dell will have both outputs. 
The OS doesn't really notice the difference. As long as your monitor
stays on the same input it was on at boot, we should work equally well
(or equally poorly :p) with VGA, DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort, ...


Best,
Thomas

On Sun, Feb 14, 2016 at 10:33:07AM +0100, Thomas Faber wrote

>   I usually reserve the first partition on the disk for
> ROS (since
>  it may or may not have problems running from elsewhere).  I tend to
>  partition the disk to the layout I want first (e.g. 10 GB for ROS,
>  10 GB for Some-Other-OS, rest of the disk for whatever I consider the
>  "main" OS), then install ROS and tell it to install its loader in
>  both MBR & VBR. Then I install any other OSes and overwrite the MBR
>  with my preference (typically NTLDR for me, but Grub should be fine)
>  and add an option to boot ROS from there. Then when (not if :p) I
>  need to reinstall ROS I make sure it doesn't touch the MBR again.
>  If your partitioning requirements aren't too complicated you can
>  also let ROS setup do your partitioning to avoid the extra first step. 
  Thanks.  This may sound repetitive, but I want to clarify.  Is the
ReactOS bootloader able to load another OS?  I'm thinking of also
putting Minix 3.3 on the machine for testing.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes(a)waltdnes.org>

[Joey Morin]

Try Above All Electronic Surplus at 635A Bloor Street West at Euclid
Avenue, just west of Bathurst.

On 2016-02-13 8:57 PM, <waltdnes(a)waltdnes.org> wrote:

Hi all;

  I've ordered a machine from Dell, scheduled to arrive Feb 22, which
will be my "playground" machine, that I can fool around on, without
worrying about losing data.  I don't expect the built-in network
interface to work with ReactOS, but the machine will have 3 expansion
slots.  I may also be playing around with Minix 3.3 on the machine.
With that in mind, here are a few questions...

1) The Intel Pro/100 and Realtek-8139-chipset cards appear to be the
only cards supported by *BOTH* ReactOS and Minix 3.3.  They're older
chipsets.  Anyone know where I can order one of those cards (presumably
PCI)?  Or even better, a physical store in Toronto that has them?

2) What's the best setup for multi-boot, involving ReactOS?  Can ReactOS
boot another OS?

3) For a few extra dollars, I went and got the machine with 8 gigs of
RAM and a 1 terabyte drive.  What's the recommended hard drive install
layout?  I haven't used Windows at home for a dozen years.  Back then,
I'd put the OS on C:\ and data+programs on D:\ and the swapfile on E:\
I retired in early 2011, and the workplace was using Windows XP back
then, so my Windows skills are rather rusty.

4) Does ReactOS work better with DVI or VGA video input?  My LCD monitor
has both inputs, and the Dell will have both outputs.

--
Walter Dnes <waltdnes(a)waltdnes.org>

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On Sun, Feb 14, 2016 at 09:50:47AM -0500, Joey Morin wrote
>   Try Above All Electronic Surplus at 635A Bloor Street
> West at Euclid
>  Avenue, just west of Bathurst. 
  Thanks.  I doubt there are XP drivers for the "latest greatest"
integrated Intel NIC, so I'll probably be needing an RTL8139 PCI NIC.
And if I also put Minix on the machine, I know I'll need that old NIC.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes(a)waltdnes.org>