[ros-dev] Installing and running ReactOS on modern hardware

Discussion:

Thomas Mueller

2014-03-24 08:56:28 UTC

I would like to build and install ReactOS from source but may be strapped for where to install it.

I have USB sticks, 3 TB SATA hard drives, and 3 TB USB 3.0 hard drive.

Hard drives are GPT-partitioned, which ReactOS apparently doesn't support.

I have some old IDE hard drives which I access with USB 2.0 enclosure: 1271 MB and 40 GB.

I also have an old 341 MB IDE hard drive that I can't read through USB 2.0 enclosure.

I could compile from Linux or FreeBSD with ROSBE, could do further builds that way or with Wine and MinGW under Linux or FreeBSD.

I don't want to do heavy compiling on USB stick if I can avoid it.

I believe the only file system ReactOS currently supports is FAT16 or FAT32, which limits possible partition size compared to NTFS or Linux or BSD file systems.

Can I install to USB stick, 4GB or 8 GB, and are there any other possibilities with my hardware?

Tom

David Quintana (gigaherz)

2014-03-24 10:10:19 UTC

Permalink

First of all, I'm not an expert when it comes to what ReactOS supports in
terms of real hardware.

I believe (someone will correct me if I'm wrong), that ReactOS is not
currently able to boot from USB, and in fact, will fail to boot at all if
an incompatible USB controller (which is most of them, I think?) is
present. Burning a CD-ROM with the setup or livecd images, and possibly
disabling the USB controllers from your bios config, may give you better
results.

I'm assuming that your intention is to try ReactOS in real hardware,
otherwise it would be better advised to just use VMware, VirtualBox, or
QEMU, as those work mostly out of the box.

Ideally, your real-hardware testing platform should have a serial port, and
this serial port should be connected to another computer with a serial
port, by using a null-modem cable. This way you could see debug messages
through the serial port, and interact with the remote debugger driver when
(more than if) it crashes.

ReactOS currently only supports FAT32, because it's a simple driver that
does not need advanced features of the storage system. As the storage stack
improves, it will be possible to attempt using more complex drivers. We
already have an EXT2 driver, but last I heard it was not stable enough to
be able to boot from it.

That's all I know. If it's not enough, maybe someone with more experience
can add to it.

Post by Thomas Mueller
I would like to build and install ReactOS from source but may be strapped
for where to install it.
I have USB sticks, 3 TB SATA hard drives, and 3 TB USB 3.0 hard drive.
Hard drives are GPT-partitioned, which ReactOS apparently doesn't support.
I have some old IDE hard drives which I access with USB 2.0 enclosure: 1271 MB and 40 GB.
I also have an old 341 MB IDE hard drive that I can't read through USB 2.0 enclosure.
I could compile from Linux or FreeBSD with ROSBE, could do further builds
that way or with Wine and MinGW under Linux or FreeBSD.
I don't want to do heavy compiling on USB stick if I can avoid it.
I believe the only file system ReactOS currently supports is FAT16 or
FAT32, which limits possible partition size compared to NTFS or Linux or
BSD file systems.
Can I install to USB stick, 4GB or 8 GB, and are there any other
possibilities with my hardware?
Tom
_______________________________________________
Ros-dev mailing list
Ros-dev at reactos.org
http://www.reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev

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Thomas Mueller

2014-03-25 09:25:54 UTC

Permalink

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First of all, I'm not an expert when it comes to what ReactOS supports in
terms of real hardware.
I believe (someone will correct me if I'm wrong), that ReactOS is not
currently able to boot from USB, and in fact, will fail to boot at all if
an incompatible USB controller (which is most of them, I think?) is
present. Burning a CD-ROM with the setup or livecd images, and possibly
disabling the USB controllers from your bios config, may give you better
results.
I'm assuming that your intention is to try ReactOS in real hardware,
otherwise it would be better advised to just use VMware, VirtualBox, or
QEMU, as those work mostly out of the box.
Ideally, your real-hardware testing platform should have a serial port, and
this serial port should be connected to another computer with a serial
port, by using a null-modem cable. This way you could see debug messages
through the serial port, and interact with the remote debugger driver when
(more than if) it crashes.
ReactOS currently only supports FAT32, because it's a simple driver that
does not need advanced features of the storage system. As the storage stack
improves, it will be possible to attempt using more complex drivers. We
already have an EXT2 driver, but last I heard it was not stable enough to
be able to boot from it.
That's all I know. If it's not enough, maybe someone with more experience
can add to it.

Thanks for response, but surely one-part plain text would be better than multipart/alternative?

I could try commands such as drivemap in GRUB 2, but then ReactOS would be lost when trying to boot.

Would MS-Windows drivers work in ReactOS when running from within VirtualBox or QEMU?

I don't really want to try ReactOS on the same disk with FreeBSD and Linux installations that I want to keep intact, might be too hazardous.

I don't have any serial ports but have serial headers on motherboard, could conceivably make a serial port.

FreeDOS can boot from USB stick thanks to recognition by the BIOS/UEFI.

I really would want to install ReactOS to something rewritable; having to burn a new CD for every little change is too much.

With ReactOS being far from ready for production use, I figure I would have to make frequent changes/adjustments.

I downloaded the installation iso for ReactOS 0.3.15, burned to CD, but that failed to boot.

I believe Linux and *BSD are far more flexible in where they can install to than MS-Windows or OS/2. I hope ReactOS could rise above such Windows booting limitations.

I ran OS/2 from 16-bit 1.3 in 1990 or 1991 to OS/2 Warp 4 in the single-digit days of April 2001. Then following a crash, on the next boot, CHKDSK, which ran automatically on the uncleanly-dismounted file system, ran amok and trashed everything on the hard drive. I was never again able to boot OS/2 after that. Now Linux and FreeBSD capabilities seem to far surpass OS/2 and its successor eComStation.

Tom

David Quintana (gigaherz)

2014-03-25 13:56:09 UTC

Permalink

This is the Gmail web client, I have no control over MIME encodings, other
than choosing if I want the text as HTML or just plain text.

Some drivers do work, and it is one of the goals of the project, to be able
to use drivers written for winxp/2003 (or whichever version of windows
reactos is targetting, which is 2003sp1 at the moment). I personally use
VMware, and we have had success using many of the drivers from the VMware
Tools CDROM, including SVGA, Mouse, and I think also Network.

Some people have lately shown an interest in making ReactOS bootable
through PXE, sending a ramdisk image over the network, but I don't think
the process is usable quite yet (someone correct me if I'm wrong).

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boundary=001a1135f7ac55c1ca04f557713d

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First of all, I'm not an expert when it comes to what ReactOS supports in
terms of real hardware.
I believe (someone will correct me if I'm wrong), that ReactOS is not
currently able to boot from USB, and in fact, will fail to boot at all if
an incompatible USB controller (which is most of them, I think?) is
present. Burning a CD-ROM with the setup or livecd images, and possibly
disabling the USB controllers from your bios config, may give you better
results.
I'm assuming that your intention is to try ReactOS in real hardware,
otherwise it would be better advised to just use VMware, VirtualBox, or
QEMU, as those work mostly out of the box.
Ideally, your real-hardware testing platform should have a serial port,

and

this serial port should be connected to another computer with a serial
port, by using a null-modem cable. This way you could see debug messages
through the serial port, and interact with the remote debugger driver

when

(more than if) it crashes.
ReactOS currently only supports FAT32, because it's a simple driver that
does not need advanced features of the storage system. As the storage

stack

improves, it will be possible to attempt using more complex drivers. We
already have an EXT2 driver, but last I heard it was not stable enough to
be able to boot from it.
That's all I know. If it's not enough, maybe someone with more experience
can add to it.

Thanks for response, but surely one-part plain text would be better than
multipart/alternative?
I could try commands such as drivemap in GRUB 2, but then ReactOS would be
lost when trying to boot.
Would MS-Windows drivers work in ReactOS when running from within VirtualBox or QEMU?
I don't really want to try ReactOS on the same disk with FreeBSD and Linux
installations that I want to keep intact, might be too hazardous.
I don't have any serial ports but have serial headers on motherboard,
could conceivably make a serial port.
FreeDOS can boot from USB stick thanks to recognition by the BIOS/UEFI.
I really would want to install ReactOS to something rewritable; having to
burn a new CD for every little change is too much.
With ReactOS being far from ready for production use, I figure I would
have to make frequent changes/adjustments.
I downloaded the installation iso for ReactOS 0.3.15, burned to CD, but
that failed to boot.
I believe Linux and *BSD are far more flexible in where they can install
to than MS-Windows or OS/2. I hope ReactOS could rise above such Windows
booting limitations.
I ran OS/2 from 16-bit 1.3 in 1990 or 1991 to OS/2 Warp 4 in the
single-digit days of April 2001. Then following a crash, on the next boot,
CHKDSK, which ran automatically on the uncleanly-dismounted file system,
ran amok and trashed everything on the hard drive. I was never again able
to boot OS/2 after that. Now Linux and FreeBSD capabilities seem to far
surpass OS/2 and its successor eComStation.
Tom
_______________________________________________
Ros-dev mailing list
Ros-dev at reactos.org
http://www.reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev

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Thomas Mueller

2014-03-26 03:34:14 UTC

Permalink

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This is the Gmail web client, I have no control over MIME encodings, other
than choosing if I want the text as HTML or just plain text.
Some drivers do work, and it is one of the goals of the project, to be able
to use drivers written for winxp/2003 (or whichever version of windows
reactos is targetting, which is 2003sp1 at the moment). I personally use
VMware, and we have had success using many of the drivers from the VMware
Tools CDROM, including SVGA, Mouse, and I think also Network.
Some people have lately shown an interest in making ReactOS bootable
through PXE, sending a ramdisk image over the network, but I don't think
the process is usable quite yet (someone correct me if I'm wrong).

I think you could choose plain text instead of HTML in Gmail? Are there any Internet links or special effects in your messages that require HTML?

A lot has happened with computer hardware since 2003, and winxp/2003sp1 won't support anything newer, like GPT and USB 3.0, among other things.

But Windows drivers for individual devices would be provided by the manufacturer on CD or DVD in the package.

If ReactOS might be booted from a ramdisk image, could I use an image I already have on disk with syslinux, grub2 or grub4dos? That would be simpler than PXE.

Can Windows drivers provided by the device manufacturer be used by ReactOS when running under VMware, QEMU or Virtualbox?

How big a file is recommended for installing ReactOS under VMware, QEMU or Virtualbox?

Tom

David Quintana (gigaherz)

2014-03-26 08:31:12 UTC

Permalink

I guess I'll use Plain text mode, just for you ;P (Being in 2014, it's
a wonder anyone still uses an email client that doesn't decode HTML by
default, and requires you to look at the plain text as an attachment,
but I'm open-minded)

I don't have any strict numbers regarding the VM size. If I recall
correctly, the testbox VMs have 2GB HDDs and 512MB of RAM. ReactOS
could boot with less, but since the memory manager isn't the most
reliable, it's best if you have enough RAM in it so that it doesn't
have to do much paging.

My own VM has two HDDs, one 4GB, for the current installation, and one
20GB, for downloaded files and such. Both are dynamically expanding
virtual disk images, so they are not actually that large on disk. I
usually only reinstall the OS by formatting the main HDD, and try to
leave the other disk intact, although in a few cases, I have had to
repair/format the 20GB disk because it had been corrupted. This means
I wouldn't trust it not to mess with a real disk, if you were thinking
of mapping a partition to the VM.

As I said, SOME drivers do work, others do not.
Look at this page, and its subpages:
https://www.reactos.org/wiki/Supported_Hardware
It has a list of supported hardware devices, which mostly means
supported DRIVERS for hardware devices.

I do not believe ReactOS is prepared for the situation of booting into
a ramdisk, when the source of the ramdisk is an HDD. That is largely
outside of my area of experience, though, so I can't really help much.
(If anyone with more knowledge wants to take over the conversation...)

Post by Thomas Mueller

I think you could choose plain text instead of HTML in Gmail? Are there any Internet links or special effects in your messages that require HTML?
A lot has happened with computer hardware since 2003, and winxp/2003sp1 won't support anything newer, like GPT and USB 3.0, among other things.
But Windows drivers for individual devices would be provided by the manufacturer on CD or DVD in the package.
If ReactOS might be booted from a ramdisk image, could I use an image I already have on disk with syslinux, grub2 or grub4dos? That would be simpler than PXE.
Can Windows drivers provided by the device manufacturer be used by ReactOS when running under VMware, QEMU or Virtualbox?
How big a file is recommended for installing ReactOS under VMware, QEMU or Virtualbox?
Tom
_______________________________________________
Ros-dev mailing list
Ros-dev at reactos.org
http://www.reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev

Thomas Mueller

2014-03-28 06:19:25 UTC

Permalink

Post by David Quintana (gigaherz)
I guess I'll use Plain text mode, just for you ;P (Being in 2014, it's
a wonder anyone still uses an email client that doesn't decode HTML by
default, and requires you to look at the plain text as an attachment,
but I'm open-minded)
I don't have any strict numbers regarding the VM size. If I recall
correctly, the testbox VMs have 2GB HDDs and 512MB of RAM. ReactOS
could boot with less, but since the memory manager isn't the most
reliable, it's best if you have enough RAM in it so that it doesn't
have to do much paging.
My own VM has two HDDs, one 4GB, for the current installation, and one
20GB, for downloaded files and such. Both are dynamically expanding
virtual disk images, so they are not actually that large on disk. I
usually only reinstall the OS by formatting the main HDD, and try to
leave the other disk intact, although in a few cases, I have had to
repair/format the 20GB disk because it had been corrupted. This means
I wouldn't trust it not to mess with a real disk, if you were thinking
of mapping a partition to the VM.
As I said, SOME drivers do work, others do not.
https://www.reactos.org/wiki/Supported_Hardware
It has a list of supported hardware devices, which mostly means
supported DRIVERS for hardware devices.
I do not believe ReactOS is prepared for the situation of booting into
a ramdisk, when the source of the ramdisk is an HDD. That is largely
outside of my area of experience, though, so I can't really help much.
(If anyone with more knowledge wants to take over the conversation...)

HTML email is good for when there are Internet links or special characters such as math symbols that can't be rendered in plain text.

Otherwise, it is just useless freight.

But multipart/alternative seems to be the MS-Windows way. Automatically unzipping and executing attachments by default was also the Windows way, until that resulted in virus epidemics.

There was a message about how behind-the-times ReactOS is, trying to support Windows XP drivers from 2003, which points up my doubts as to the feasibility of running ReactOS on modern hardware. FreeDOS also would do better on an older computer.

My DVD-RW drives are SATA, now I wonder if SATA as opposed to IDE or ATA would be a barrier to ReactOS, whether a live CD would boot and run.

I would much rather run a live USB because of rewritability. Considering ReactOS's immature (alpha) status, many modifications would be necessary to fix glitches. ReactOS website points out that ReactOS is not ready for everyday production use at this stage.

ReactOS 0.3.15 installation failed to boot for me either on SATA DVD-RW or IDE/ATA CD-RW, the latter being on an old (2001) computer.

So I must realize that even if I can build ReactOS from source with the ROSBE, bootability is not guaranteed.

I don't like the idea of burning another CD every time I want to make a little change.

Tom