I downloaded a few VMware images for use in VMware player.
The mouse (a PS/2 type) did not work either in ReactOS or in Syllable,
but did work in PC-BSD (all in VMware Player). Later, I downloaded the install-cd iso of ReactOS and burned it to
a CD. The image is a tiny download (19MB uncompressed), so it didn’t
take long. I intended to install ReactOS on a laptop and desktop.The laptop is a year-old 512MB Fujitsu with onboard graphics and
wireless networking and 80MB hard drive, of which around 40 is
dedicated to Linux (boot and LVM partitions); the remainder is at
present unallocated. 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 had high hopes that I would be able to install the
Windows drivers and associated programs to get it to work in ReactOS.
I burned the .iso, rebooted and inserted the CD into the
drive. The install program (as far as I can tell) is almost
indistinguishable from the Windows install program, except that all
references to Microsoft Windows are replaced with references to
ReactOS. The install program got as far as detecting the keyboard
before complaining that ReactOS did not yet support “USB keyboards”;
I’ve no idea of the internal connexions between the keyboard and the
motherboard, but the keyboard I was using was the inbuilt laptop one.
I rebooted into SuSE Linux and attempted to install ReactOS into the
desktop PC.
The desktop PC I selected for the trial is a 3-year-old 1800 Mhz
whitebox PC with 512MB RAM, two hard drives (one of 200 and one of
28MB), a DVD-ROM and a DVD-RW drive. The first drive is entirely given
over to boot and LVM partitions, and the 2nd is configured as an LVM
physical volume. I rebooted the machine without remembering to
deallocate the space on the 2nd hard drive.
I had earlier (shortly after installing Gentoo Linux into the
desktop configuration mentioned above) attempted to install Windows
on the second hard drive, which similarly failed, and then onto the
first, overwriting the LVM. The Windows installation program appeared
to succeed in formatting the partition allocated to an LVM on the
first drive, but got only halfway before reporting an error. I have
not subsequently (until now) attempted to install any version of
Microsoft Windows or a compatible OS on that machine.
The ReactOS installation program demands that the hard disk onto
which the OS is installed have only a single primary partition. After
having gotten as far as formatting the 2nd hard drive with a single
FAT32 partition (the only filesystem which ReactOS supports at
present), the installation program complained that it was unable to
deal with the MBR of the first hard drive (on which GRUB is
installed) and offered to create a boot floppy or quit; the machine’s
floppy drive does not work, but never having needed it before, I had
not attempted to find the cause of the problem; nor did I attempt to
go any further with ReactOS.
As I mentioned earlier, I had forgotten to deallocate the 2nd hard
drive as a physical volume from the LVM volume group to which it
belonged. Upon rebooting into Linux, this caused the reboot to fail,
the kernel complaining that it couldn’t find the root volume which
was part of the volume group. Although it took some time to repair
(which would have been shortened had a little more attention been
paid to the process of recreating the physical volume, etc.), the
volume group was eventually resurrected, without data loss due to the
fact that no actual data had been located on the physical volume
corresponding to the second hard drive. As ReactOS appears to be an
attempt to duplicate as closely as possible the Windows experience
without modification or improvement, I can only assume that a similar
cockup with this open source variant of the world’s favourite operating
system would have necessitated a reinstallation, leading to a
considerable loss of data due to the lack of backups (an oversight
which I intend to rectify very soon.)
Conclusion
As a Linux user, I was not impressed by the (lack of)
sophisticated installation and recovery tools/options in ReactOS. A
requirement to have a floppy boot disk, in times when the facilities
to read these these are often not installed into name-brand PC’s at
all, is not acceptable unless a suitable alternative is given. To
some extent these faults can be excused given the alpha quality of
the OS; however, 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”. Given its
target market, this is perhaps not surprising; however, this means
that the system is, like Windows, not suitable for installation by a
user who uses a non-Windows-class operating system as his or her
primary OS without careful planning.
Given that its compatibility
is (by the authors’ own admission) not yet complete, for the
foreseeable future ReactOS will probably be consigned to second place
on a user’s hard drive. As such it is in my view imperative that it deal comfortably with being installed on a
second primary or logical partition or even a second HDD. I fail to
see why no attempt has been made to make the system compatible with
GRUB and/or more advanced and up-to-date installation methods than
the antiquated floppy disk. Advanced users would, I’m sure, be more
than happy to have to go through an “advanced users only” screen to
get to these options, if only they were made available.
Similarly, I hope that (given that its compatibility is stated to
already be so complete that it is “able” to run viruses) support for
NTFS is included in future.
It is unfortunate that I was not even able to report on how well
ReactOS runs various Windows apps. Despite my negative impressions of
the project, 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. As such I wish them well.
Author’s Note
This was originally to be a comment on the recent “ReactOS on
VMware” article on OSAlert, but grew too long to be a comment, so I
decided to submit it as an article.
About the Author:
I am a long-time user of Linux and other UNIX-like operating
systems, having used Linux almost continuously since the late
nineties. I used an Amiga until 1995 when I bought my first PC, but
never really fell in love with Windows. In fact with Windows98, it
could be said that I fell in hate with it. I fooled around a bit with
Red Hat around version 5.2 or so, but only really started using Linux
when I found Mandrake, and have since used Slackware, Debian, and
Arch, amongst others; and most recently Gentoo and SuSE Linux 10.
I have also dabbled in various BSDs. My first experience of UNIX in
any form was on a university’s Solaris-on-SPARC computing pool in
Germany.
If you would like to see your thoughts or experiences with technology published, please consider writing an article for OSAlert.
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.
Oops, that was the working title I gave before publshing it (because of the first paragraph). Fixed!
Okey-doke, thanks.
… 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
… 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
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)
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.
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.)
“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.
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.
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.
>>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.
What?
ROTFL. Oh, if only I had some votes.
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.
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”.
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.
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
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
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….
Why should I give them the satisfaction of it being the last time?!
Thanks for your other comments.
on my virtual machine’s virtual machine. So nah! Just kidding. Can’t wait to try this out.
Seriously, it would be interesting to see how well an OS ran on VMware running on an OS running on VMware running on…
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?
…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.
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.
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.
Yes, it was a waste of time…reading your post. All the points you’ve raised I have already dealt with several times.
If you haven’t given PC-BSD a shot, I would highly recommend doing so…I was impressed with it, anyway.
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…
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.
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.