[ros-dev] reactos 0.2.7-RC2 is out

[Bernd Blaauw]

WaxDragon schreef:
> RC2 went out with the fix for bug 659 still unmerged.  I have reopened
> the bug, and once again I am asking for someone to merge it.

*RC2 installation cdrom requires 52MB of RAM to succesfully copy files 
to harddisk in VMware. This looks to me as a regression, as 0.25/0.26 
was able to do this with 20MB of XMS. If using a lower amount of RAM 
than 52, the copy process hangs at a certain percentage.
Please confirm, as ROS requirements are stated as 'Pentium, 32MB RAM' (IIRC)

*With above point (incomplete installation), FreeLDR bootsector gets 
installed before file copy finished (or attempts to finish). FreeLDR 
itself isn't installed yet it seems (until finishing ROS setup).
When booting this bootsector, the 'press a key to reboot' gets pressed 
by me, but no reboot happening at all.

*How much harddisk space is needed, and is this checked by the 
installer? User can define after all to create very small partitions.

*How do I install FreeLDR to both harddisk and floppy (as backup boot 
method) at end of installation.

*If I recall correctly, a FreeLDR floppy cannot be converted into a disk 
image and be booted by Memdisk (syslinux.zytor.org) as that's a realmode 
ramdisk 'program'/'loader' and FreeLDR is going into protected mode 
before reading freeldr.ini on the same disk(-image)

*Can ReactOS only be installed by booting from the installation cdrom?
  reactos.exe reports to be a win32 program, while I access the cdrom by
  booting a freedos cdrom with downloaded cdromdriver.
  Any DOS binary (like 'winnt.exe') available?

*Can't the ReactOS SETUP cache/buffer the to-be-copied-ReactOS-files 
into memory as soon as startup starts? That would reduce the actual 
copy/transfer times as by the time the installer starts to copy, only 
diskwrites are needed, no more reads from cdrom (which are done while 
user answers the installer's questions about hardware and disk layout).

*At SETUP, when you select REPAIR, ESC key brings you back a screen.
  When you select L (for License), ENTER brings you back.
  Kind of 'counter-intuitive'

*Disk partition speaks about multiple extended partitions on a disk,
  which is impossible. Logical Partitions are meant?

*At the partitions screen, pressing ENTER to install ROS on the 
unpartitioned entire disk creates a partition of full size.
Nothing wrong with this, except that it's too early:
at the next screen, when pressing ESC to go back, you notice the 
fullsize partition being created already.

*At an installed ReactOS, the 2nd stage installer asks for a computer 
name, but does not accept ANY numeric character, only alphabetical.
a computername ROS027TST isn't possible for example, but ROSTEST is.

*A note for the VMware screen:
  for the VMware's "install VMware tools" command to work
  (which mounts the ISO containing VMware drivers) the virtual machine
  has to be configured as 'Windows' (not 3.xx ofcourse).
  If not, user will have to manually mount the ISO file before the
  virtual machine will see it.

Out of feedback for now, don't let any comments stop you from releasing 
0.27 (except the excessive RAM requirements at setup copying procedure)

regards,

Bernd Blaauw