
ReactOS 0.4.11 Released - userulluipeste
https://reactos.org/project-news/reactos-0411-released
======
tombert
Despite being somewhat of a Unix/Linux junky, I _really_ want ReactOS to be a
thing. I would love to get older family members who refuse to upgrade from
Windows Vista to something that is still being updated and will work on their
older hardware.

That said, the last three times I've tried dogfooding ReactOS, I had trouble
keeping it stable for more than 20 minutes, which is a complete non-starter
for getting non-technical people using it.

It seems like the people working on the project are very smart and motivated,
so I have to wonder why this is still a huge issue? I know almost nothing of
OS/Kernel dev, so is it basically impossible to salvage all the stability work
from the Linux kernel?

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
> is it basically impossible to salvage all the stability work from the Linux
> kernel?

Short answer: Yes.

Medium answer: That would be a near-complete rewrite of the project, since the
ReactOS kernel and Linux have nothing in common. Different architectures, code
styles, conventions, APIs, ABIs (which is super important for drivers).
Probably the best option would be to port all of the ReactOS userland to run
on WINE (which would actually be cool, and might be easy), and possibly write
a Linux kernel module that provided a NT-compatible driver ABI (which would
probably be hell to write, but if it's even possible then it would be a huge
boon to Linux hardware compatibility... probably).

~~~
slacka
> APIs, ABIs (which is super important for drivers)

Yes, only userspace code would be reusable with a linux based kernel. Might as
well start from scratch.

One more option that's being tried is to split the difference by integrating
more of Wine's code. This approach is being testing in the Arwinss branch[1]

[1] [https://reactos.org/wiki/Arwinss](https://reactos.org/wiki/Arwinss)

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d33
I tried that yesterday because the ISOs were already up and unfortunately,
unless Qemu is an unsupported platform, it's a mess.

First, I tried the LiveCD and found that the default qemu's network driver is
unsupported. Found the docs, changed the driver and found that I have
networking... but explorer.exe can't really visit any page, so all I could
think of is to telnet somewhere. Then I tried to install some apps, but found
that the "add or remove applications", while being a nice concept,
unfortunately doesn't work on the live CD. So I switched to the main iso.

Two reboots later I tried to install Firefox... and found that it freezes the
machine. A while later I found that this is the way ReactOS handles lack of
RAM, so I added some. The scary part is that the freeze actually rendered the
system unbootable after restart, which is super weird. Then I was wondering if
I could install some old Visual Studio there and while trying to install .NET,
first I found that 4.6 is "unsupported on this system" (which is fair, since
it's fairly new) and the older .NET crashed the system again, this time
because I ran out of disk space. So, if the system runs out of resources, its
default response is to bluescreen.

At this point I just gave up. I'll probably come back to try it out at the
next release, but for now... either I'm doing something wrong, or it's
unusable.

~~~
jeditobe
> unless Qemu is an unsupported platform

Have you read this?

[https://reactos.org/wiki/QEMU](https://reactos.org/wiki/QEMU)

[https://reactos.org/wiki/Installing_ReactOS](https://reactos.org/wiki/Installing_ReactOS)

>.NET, first I found that 4.6

ReactOS supports only 2.0 and 4.0 versions

~~~
d33
> Have you read this?

Flicked through this. Seems like it does say QEMU is supported. Unless you
meant something else by pointing me there?

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
That page discusses particular qemu options that present supported "hardware"
to the VM.

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giancarlostoro
I've been keeping an eye on this for over 10 years, I still hope for the day I
can use it instead of installing a bloated Windows VM that takes up gigs of
RAM just to be idle. But also licensing is the other drawback to Windows VMs
constantly needing to relicense.

~~~
barrystaes
Why cant you use it yet?

I only tried a few XP-era programs, but so far they work fine out of the box.
Including a Win32 application i've developed myself.

~~~
zamadatix
If you managed to get it to boot to a usable state you got farther than ~80%
of people here will get. That's before factoring in any apps.

~~~
jchw
Really? I've been able to do this for pretty much every version I've ever
downloaded, at least in a VM but also on my old K7. It's unstable but not that
unstable.

~~~
tracker1
He beats me, but only every other day...

~~~
jchw
I have no idea what this means in context.

~~~
tracker1
"it's unstable, but not that unstable"

~~~
jchw
And that has something to do with justifying domestic abuse?

~~~
tracker1
I'm not saying that instability or domestic abuse is okay.

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hectorm
If someone wants to try this version quickly, I made a Docker image with QEMU
and noVNC [1][2]. I don't use it for anything important, just fun.

[1]: [https://github.com/hectorm/docker-qemu-
reactos](https://github.com/hectorm/docker-qemu-reactos)

[2]: [https://hub.docker.com/r/hectormolinero/qemu-
reactos](https://hub.docker.com/r/hectormolinero/qemu-reactos)

~~~
jeditobe
You are awesome

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jacobush
On Virtualbox 5.2.12 with 3 gigs ram and 30 gigs virtual disk, FAT file
system, the installer boots up ReactOS, but then on the reboot, it hangs on
the ReactOS logo. :-/

Update: rebooted, pressed F12 and selected Debug. Now it works...

rebooted in normal (default) boot, works now too. Except that the new hardware
wizard fails installing any drivers for audio and ethernet.

Could install Virtualbox additions. Though weirdly, the mouse stopped working,
so I had to use the keyboard for that.

After that, the mouse worked again.

~~~
jeditobe
Virtualbox 5.2.12 is quite old and really buggy version

Use VirtualBox 5.2.26 instead
[https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Changelog-5.2#v26](https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Changelog-5.2#v26)

Disable USB in VM settings, use PS/2 mode

~~~
jacobush
I would if I could. :)

~~~
jimmy1
If you can't update your virtualization software at work, you are probably
running a huge security risk. Do you not have a patching process?

If this isn't about work, then curious as to why you can't upgrade?

~~~
richardwhiuk
5.2.12 was released in May 2018. That's hardly that old. None of the fixes
since then sound like security fixes (all of the releases say 'maintenance
release').

~~~
gruez
random 0day that was released after may 2018:
[https://github.com/MorteNoir1/virtualbox_e1000_0day](https://github.com/MorteNoir1/virtualbox_e1000_0day)

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jamesu
I eagerly await the day when I can run this for more than 10 minutes without
anything going wrong. Tried out a recent build last week in vmware and... it
didn't even boot.

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vkaku
Beautiful project. This and Wine are two of the best projects IMO that people
can learn and reuse a lot from;

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br0ke4
I think ReactOS is super useful to run old software. Some day new hardware
will not work under Windows XP, but ReactOS will work.

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mixmastamyk
When is the new "kinder and gentler" Microsoft going to support and sponsor
this project?

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Frenchgeek
Still can't install from USB?

~~~
jeditobe
There are experimental builds [http://vgal.ru.com](http://vgal.ru.com)

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jancsika
Does msys2 run on ReactOS?

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admin_yaroslav
nice!!!!!!

