http://www.osnews.com/story/15687/Another_Quickie_ReactOS Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Sun, 08 Nov 2009 19:28:14 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://osnews.com/thread?157504 http://osnews.com/thread?157504 Perhaps I didn't make this clear in my article, but this review details an attempt to install ReactOS on a physical machine, not a virtual one. Thu, 31 Aug 2006 19:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (twenex) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?157505 http://osnews.com/thread?157505 Oops, that was the working title I gave before publshing it (because of the first paragraph). Fixed! Thu, 31 Aug 2006 19:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom_Holwerda) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?157506 http://osnews.com/thread?157506 Okey-doke, thanks. Thu, 31 Aug 2006 19:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (twenex) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?157507 http://osnews.com/thread?157507 ... but it's an ALPHA! The version number is 0.3 (zero point three).

Honestly, what did you expect? Did you expect a barely functioning operating system to able to properly deal with LVM? Or have better support for your network card at this early stage? Did you expect an alpha OS to have a wealth of recovery tools?

It seems as though you have gone through great pains to disguise a nasty little diatribe about a promising operating system that is still in the very early stages of development as an honest-to-goodness article, and throwing in a jab or two at Microsoft while you were at it.

Got your point - you think Linux is great, and you hate Windows and anything that resembles windows - you even say that in your bio. So do I, but I don't need to go around trashing a pre-alpha FOSS clone of it. Next time, why not write an insightful article about what you do like, instead of a vicious rant about an unfinished operating system.

--just my loose change.Edited 2006-08-31 19:17 Thu, 31 Aug 2006 19:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (jchildrose) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?157520 http://osnews.com/thread?157520 ... but it's an ALPHA! The version number is 0.3 (zero point three).

I stated at least once _in the article_ that various problems that I had with it can be directly, and *understandably*, attributable to its alpha quality.


Honestly, what did you expect? Did you expect a barely functioning operating system to able to properly deal with LVM?

No, as I hinted in the article, the problems I had *with LVM in ReactOS* were entirely of my own making.

Perhaps I should have made myself more clear, but my gripes about LVM screwing up the Windows installation are just that - that *the real McCoy* has so much trouble dealing with unexpected events (=the mere thought of anyone using any OS that isn't Windows).

Or have better support for your network card at this early stage?

I didn't even get to the stage of being able to test the network card. Had I done so, (by, perhaps, installing in an environment more amenable to "real Windows") for all I know it might have worked *better* with the card than Microsoft Windows.

It seems to have been missed in the published article, but my review of ReactOS was *as a Linux user*. As such I don't see how investigating whether it matches up to a Linux user's expectations of an OS can in any way be said to be unfair. That is, after all, what any of us who have been using an OS over a long period of time do with any other OS, whether a Windows-type OS or a new Linux distro.

It seems as though you have gone through great pains to disguise a nasty little diatribe about a promising operating system

Well, I certainly didn't intend it to be that way. On the contrary, I went out of my way to see how it would handle being installed on hardware without the user having jumped through hoops to make allowances for it. My points are this: *as an alpha*, it's unlikely to be used as anyone's primary environment. Therefore unless you have a sacrificial machine, it makes sense for it to play nice with other OSes at least for the moment. Secondly, I had hoped that the project might address some of the problems I have with Windows _provided that those solutions do not introduce incompatibilities_. One of those areas would imho be in introducing a better installation process. However, since the installation borrows so much from Windows, it's probably not a goal of theirs; as such it's probably not "on the same page" as I am. That's no crime, but I didn't know "what page it was on" before trying it out.


Got your point - you think Linux is great, and you hate Windows and anything that resembles windows - you even say that in your bio. So do I, but I don't need to go around trashing a pre-alpha FOSS clone of it. Next time, why not write an insightful article about what you do like, instead of a vicious rant

I wouldn't agree that in that article I've engaged in either viciousness or trashing.Edited 2006-08-31 19:45 Thu, 31 Aug 2006 19:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (twenex) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?157535 http://osnews.com/thread?157535 I'd just like to note that the mouse is known to work in Syllable running on VMWare. There is an issue with mouse syncronisation in Syllable which occasionally means the mouse is not detected correctly, which you may have triggered. 99% of the time you should have no issues, and of course the bug will be fixed (Eventually) Thu, 31 Aug 2006 20:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Vanders) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?157538 http://osnews.com/thread?157538 "The onboard wireless network card, being a Broadcom, is useless in Linux as it appears to require a "software on-switch" which, of course, is only available as a Windows .exe"
I haven a compaq laptop that is the same and it works under ubuntu. Thu, 31 Aug 2006 20:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (viator) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?157545 http://osnews.com/thread?157545 I wonder if this is a VMware[ Player]-on-[Gentoo ]Linux problem; it's hard to say since PC-BSD in VMware Player for Gentoo Linux detects the mouse and mouse movements. Thu, 31 Aug 2006 20:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (twenex) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?157549 http://osnews.com/thread?157549 They have a boot loader, its called freeloader but they decided not to install it by default since they considered it rude to nuke your MBR when you are only installing an Alpha OS to test it. Seriously would you try to use it as your main OS now? Do you want to fix your MBR every time you try the new version?

About GRUB, I don't think using it instead of freeloader is all that good of an idea. First you can forget about GRUB on an NTFS partition and NTFS support is a must. Second I don't think the ReactOS kernel is multiboot compliant (neither is NT, XP, 2003 Server or Vista as far as I know) so you would still have to chainload ReactOS. So you see GRUB is the wrong tool for this job.

You shouldn't nitpick too much about the installer in an Alpha OS and there are some extra concerns about the installer that Windows has that Linux doesn't. Windows can't go into graphical mode before the GDI isn't installed and working. That's why you get the graphical part after everything was installed but not yet setup. I think it has something to do with what MS did to the GDI for NT 4 (it was in user space before just like X) but am not sure. If that is true we should see a graphical installer with Vista (since they took GDI back out of the kernel) and ReactOS (since they never bastardized their GDI) sometime in the future. Thu, 31 Aug 2006 20:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (johndaly) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?157557 http://osnews.com/thread?157557 They have a boot loader, its called freeloader but they decided not to install it by default since they considered it rude to nuke your MBR when you are only installing an Alpha OS to test it.

That's a good point.


About GRUB, I don't think using it instead of freeloader is all that good of an idea. First you can forget about GRUB on an NTFS partition and NTFS support is a must.

ReactOS doesn't afaik currently support NTFS at all. And I have successfully installed Windows using GRUB instead of NTLDR.

Seriously would you try to use it as your main OS now?

No, which is why it would be nice if it played nicer with other OSes.

Second I don't think the ReactOS kernel is multiboot compliant (neither is NT, XP, 2003 Server or Vista as far as I know) so you would still have to chainload ReactOS. So you see GRUB is the wrong tool for this job.

Surely a bootloader that can boot OSes both multiboot-compliant and not is better than one that can boot almost nothing?


You shouldn't nitpick too much about the installer in an Alpha OS and there are some extra concerns about the installer that Windows has that Linux doesn't.

As I indicated, my concerns are not so much that ReactOS is not up to release-quality, but that as a Linux user, its approach to installation (namely sticking so closely to Windows) makes it a royal pain in the arse if for some reason (such as having over 150G of data already installed on the disk) it is not to have pride of first place on your hard drive.

Nevertheless, and I better state this point for a third if not a fourth time, I applaud the fact that ReactOS have come so far in duplicating their target. Thu, 31 Aug 2006 20:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (twenex) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?157559 http://osnews.com/thread?157559 these "reviews" seem to be popping up every day now. but seriously, this entire 'review' was a sad attempt to attack windows by complaints converning the shortcomings of a 0.3 alpha release.

-"As a Linux user, I was not impressed by the..."

-"it appears that the authors of the system are attempting to duplicate as closely as possible the dismally basic and inflexible installation procedure of the real Windows"

-"it is clear that they are trying their best to reproduce Microsoft Windows as a viable open source project, even down to the faults of the platform."

and failing to install it on your hardware, you didn't even run the livecd to actually try it out, instead you wrote a lame letter of complaint and wrapped a 'review' title on it. which again underlines the purpuse of this "article", which was to complain on windows.

now all we need is some windows zelot to dig up a Linux 0.3 alpha and compare it to windows xp and we will have another just-as-pointless article. Thu, 31 Aug 2006 20:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Valhalla) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?157566 http://osnews.com/thread?157566
and failing to install it on your hardware, you didn't even run the livecd to actually try it out,

The point was to see how well it performed, from installation to reboot, NOT to try out the LiveCD. If you want to write a review of the LiveCD, that's your business.

instead you wrote a lame letter of complaint and wrapped a 'review' title on it. which again underlines the purpuse of this "article", which was to complain on windows.

now all we need is some windows zelot to dig up a Linux 0.3 alpha and compare it to windows xp and we will have another just-as-pointless article.

Only a Windows fanboy would be so arrogant as to pronounce that any criticism of Windows or its derivatives is "pointless". Thu, 31 Aug 2006 20:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (twenex) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?157579 http://osnews.com/thread?157579 lol, here we go with the fanboy argument again. I run windows 2000, Beos and Arch Linux. if I am a fanboy of anything, it would be Beos I guess. Thu, 31 Aug 2006 21:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Valhalla) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?157592 http://osnews.com/thread?157592 Do not throw dust to the ReactOS developers, the work they are doing is amazing!!!

As a Linux USER, you should respect the work the developers do for you Thu, 31 Aug 2006 21:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (ebasconp) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?157594 http://osnews.com/thread?157594 Do not throw dust to the ReactOS developers, the work they are doing is amazing!!!

As I have now stated *several* times, that was not my intention. [/i]

As a Linux USER, you should respect the work the developers do for you

At present, ReactOS is NOT for me. However, I certainly hope that at some point it will be.Edited 2006-08-31 22:04 Thu, 31 Aug 2006 22:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (twenex) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?157602 http://osnews.com/thread?157602 twenex I bet this is the last time you do this

I seen nothing wrong with it. It was a truthful account of what occurred when trying to install a alpha version. I realize it was a alpha but still.... Thu, 31 Aug 2006 22:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (deanlinkous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?157604 http://osnews.com/thread?157604 >>Surely a bootloader that can boot OSes both
>>multiboot-compliant and not is better than one
>>that can boot almost nothing?

No, ignoring all the embedded systems out there most PCs are single os and the bootloader mater nothing as long as it boots the sole OS of the system. I named the reasons why I think GRUB is the wrong tool and you appear to ignore the significance of the second point. GRUB doesn't know how to boot ReactOS (or NT, XP etc.).
It doesn't mater what you think of GRUB and Freeloader but GRUB can't, I repeat CAN'T do the job.

When you load XP on an NTFS partition with GRUB what it dose is chainload XP, that means it lets XPs native bootloader do the job. Freeloader, the XP bootloader and GRUB have allot in common since the code in the MBR is only there to load the real bootloader that then continues to boot the OS. From what I understand GRUB was created for the HURD to not just load the microkernel but also the appropriate servers to get a usable system and similar things happen with Freeloader since ReactOS (and Windows NT, XP yada yada yada) is a hybrid (bastard if you will) kernel.
I don't know what extra work needs to be done with the HURD or with ReactOS (think this part this time, I'm getting tired writhing it) after the kernel is loaded but you can bet it is OS specific and the you will have to teach it to the bootloader. Thu, 31 Aug 2006 22:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (johndaly) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?157609 http://osnews.com/thread?157609 What? Thu, 31 Aug 2006 22:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (deanlinkous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?157611 http://osnews.com/thread?157611 ROTFL. Oh, if only I had some votes. Thu, 31 Aug 2006 23:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (twenex) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?157612 http://osnews.com/thread?157612 Why should I give them the satisfaction of it being the last time?! ;-)

Thanks for your other comments. Thu, 31 Aug 2006 23:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (twenex) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?157615 http://osnews.com/thread?157615 on my virtual machine's virtual machine. So nah! Just kidding. Can't wait to try this out. Thu, 31 Aug 2006 23:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymo) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?157616 http://osnews.com/thread?157616 Seriously, it would be interesting to see how well an OS ran on VMware running on an OS running on VMware running on... Thu, 31 Aug 2006 23:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (twenex) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?157658 http://osnews.com/thread?157658 The point is windows is a predatory os its sole purpose during installation is to wipe out anything there. Ros/Freeldr should NOT follow in its place. Also grub is gpled so they can have it conform to whatever they need.
I know this is an alpha os and that they provide both vmware and qemu images which is excellent. But the installer and bootloader are almost more important than the os itself because after all what good is a great os if you cant install it? Fri, 01 Sep 2006 01:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (viator) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?157677 http://osnews.com/thread?157677 ...I'll never get back.

Thanks.

Seriously, this is not a review, it's just a document of a very, very lazy attempt to install an alpha OS. If you don't have the hardware to review something (ie: a hard drive to sacrifice), don't bother.

If this were some Linux distro and someone made the same attempt at an install, there would be 200+ comments chiding you. Fri, 01 Sep 2006 02:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (bubbayank) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?157678 http://osnews.com/thread?157678
If this were some Linux distro and someone made the same attempt at an install, there would be 200+ comments chiding you.

If this were some Linux distro and someone with the same level of OS experience made the same attempt at an install, except for maybe the wireless card and having to download 3d graphics drivers, it would work. 2D graphics drivers would most likely work out of the box, too. Granted, Linux isn't alpha. Fri, 01 Sep 2006 03:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (twenex) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?157696 http://osnews.com/thread?157696 Regarding the mouse: I have twice attempted to install releases of Syllable on my machine in native mode. My PS2 mouse won't work with the OS. The culprit? SiS chipset. Someone on the forum suggested I use a USB mouse instead.
The same hardware works with the original AtheOS. (Without the luxury of Atapi drivers, of course.) Fri, 01 Sep 2006 04:24:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (djohnston) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?157760 http://osnews.com/thread?157760 I fail to see why the author complains about not being able to install ReactOS side by side with Linux. ReactOS is at v0.3, do you really think that this is anywhere near top priority? Does it really matter at this point? You are not going to use ReactOS 0.3 unless you are a hobbyist or a developer. If you are a hobbyist, you are probably going to install it, check it out, and then never use it again until the next release. If you are a developer, you are probably going to have a dedicated machine or a copy of VMware.

Honestly, this article was a waste of time and bandwidth. You make a lame attempt to install an alpha OS, fail at it, and then write this bias article. ReactOS is only at version 0.3, who cares about your inability to install it on your Linux box. It is amazing that ReactOS has come as far as it has, but come on, it is only at VERSION 0.3!!!! And this Windows-bashing is getting old, I've heard it all. Fri, 01 Sep 2006 08:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (dnstest) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?157897 http://osnews.com/thread?157897 If you haven't given PC-BSD a shot, I would highly recommend doing so...I was impressed with it, anyway. Fri, 01 Sep 2006 13:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (rondeth) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?157903 http://osnews.com/thread?157903 Yes, it was a waste of time...reading your post. All the points you've raised I have already dealt with several times. Fri, 01 Sep 2006 14:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (twenex) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?157911 http://osnews.com/thread?157911 It's useless, because you expect a alpha OS to support a speciality of another OS. That's just like bashing Linux because it doesn't support NT's Dynamic Volumes.

LVM is only supported by a small amount of Unices (*BSD, Linux).



The other thing: If you don't use GRUB as the boot loader of an OS it might be necessary to modify the MBR. And the best way to do this is to ask the user beforehand. Or suggest the creation of a floppy.



Linux, LVM and GRUB are not the perfect solutions in all cases... Fri, 01 Sep 2006 14:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (dr_evil) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?157921 http://osnews.com/thread?157921 It's useless, because you expect a alpha OS to support a speciality of another OS. That's just like bashing Linux because it doesn't support NT's Dynamic Volumes.

This really is the last time I am going to try to explain this, and I'm going to try to be as clear as I can.

The criticisms I had with ReactOS had *nothing to do* with Linux LVM. In fact it dealt with LVM even better than Windows - it actually created a FAT32 partition where the LVM had been, which Windows failed to do.

And yes, if Linux failed to delete a Windows Dynamic Volume and create a Linux partition or LVM I would criticise it - but I would not criticise for failing to install *in* a Dynamic Volume, and I'm not criticising ReactOS for failing to install in a Linux LVM.

The problem came when trying to create a bootloader for the OS. How many people these days are going to be able to create a boot floppy?

LVM is only supported by a small amount of Unices (*BSD, Linux).

An incomplete list, and irrelevant for the purpose of this article. Fri, 01 Sep 2006 15:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (twenex) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?157936 http://osnews.com/thread?157936 Maybe
http://www.reactos.org/wiki/index.php/HOWTO/boot_FreeLoader_from_GR...
helps?

Although the ReactOS kernel isn't (and can't be) multi-boot compliant, FreeLdr is. So you can start FreeLdr from your multi-boot compliant boot loader like Grub (You can pass in options so FreeLdr won't even show itself) and let it take care of bringing up ReactOS. Fri, 01 Sep 2006 15:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (GvG_) Comments