[ros-dev] Important News and Updates

Mon Jan 8 07:15:57 CET 2007

Thanks Alex
On Jan 7, 2007, at 9:59 PM, Alex Ionescu wrote:

> Dear ReactOS Users, Testers and Developers,
>
> I've chosen to write up a small letter with some recent news on  
> ReactOS'
> development. I'm hoping that putting my name behind it will  
> increase the
> number of people interested and informed.
>
> -
> First of all, a small update on the kernel. I'm currently working  
> on Ob,
>  the Object Manager. I have a large patch that I've split up into  
> 4. The
> first patch addresses several bugs and adds more security paths and
> checks that will be required for later functionality. The second patch
> adds some lacking functionality to the Object Manager which might have
> caused bugs in the I/O Manager. The third patch adds locking and
> scalability improvements to the Object Manager, and fixes multiple  
> race
> conditions which could've led to random crashes. The last patch should
> cleanup and remaining bugs/fixmes apart from non-implemented but
> not-critical functionality.
>
> After this is done, I plan on working in the Kernel itself to make  
> sure
> that ReactOS boots on VMWare 6.0 and VMWare Server 1.1 (my current
> Vmware testing platforms). I generally use KQEMU, so VMWare bugs are
> usually hidden from me. I also have a nice piece of code from one  
> of our
> older developers (blight/Gregor Anich) which should allow me to fix
> Mesa, aka OpenGL.
>
> After these low-level regressions have been fixed, I will then  
> commit my
> new LPC code, and start working on cleaning up some old Ex code. These
> changes will basically make ReactOS more compatible and reliable, by
> auditing for broken code.
>
> -
> Secondly, on the topic of regression testing. I'm hoping most of  
> you are
> now using the official RosBE, the ReactOS Building Environment. If
> you're not, please do so (on Windows). It is the *only* supported
> environment. If you're having problems with headers, compiling, or are
> seeing boot failures, please do not come to ask us for help until you
> are using the RosBE. This will help us avoid many compiler
> incompatibilities and make us bettter able to help you in a timely  
> fashion.
>
> Because such problems can also arise from badly configured  
> emulators, I
> will create the RosTE, or ReactOS Testing Environment. This will be a
> packaged version of KQEMU along with several helpful utilities and
> scripts, which will allow you to mount and unmount your qemu image,  
> use
> make_install properly, use make install_registry properly, test  
> ReactOS
> and the LiveCD/BootCD in the latest patched QEMU with the KQEMU
> Accelerator module in full-kernel mode (an improvement of 4x+ over
> standard QEMU), as well as the Serial Port Redirection Gateway which
> will allow you to get qemu's output in a telnet box with unlimited  
> easy
> scrolling, as well as the ability to copy/paste text from it, which is
> normally impossible with QEMU. This version will also support using
> WinDBG to debug ReactOS, when our kernel implements Kd.
>
> In the end, the RosBE and RosTE should make it a lot easier to  
> identify
> the source of some common problems experienced by testers. I cannot
> offer a similar TE for VMWare unfortunately, since that's a commercial
> product, and VMWare still offers an interesting testing framework
> because it behaves differently from QEmu in many ways. However, if you
> have an issue in VMWare, I strongly suggest you then try out to
> reproduce it in RosTE, once it will be available. That way, we'll be
> able to isolate the bug to an emulator.
>
> -
> I have been invited as a speaker to multiple conferences this year,
> where I will have a chance to talk about, and present ReactOS, in  
> hopes
> of making stronger ties with the FOSS community, raise awareness  
> for the
> project, and get more developers/support. One of them is the SOCAL  
> 2007
> Expo in Los Angeles in Feburary this year, and another one is the
> Intertional Free Software Forum in April, in Brazil. There also  
> remains
> the possibility of other such expos.
>
> Because these conferences are not commercial, even speakers do not
> usually have their air fare or hotel costs covered. As I am a student,
> travel fare to these places makes a large dent in my savings, since a
> single conference alone can cost me 1500$ or more including air  
> travel,
> hotel, food, transporation, etc. As a result, your donations would be
> greatly appreciated.
>
> The ReactOS Foundation should start an official fundraiser tomorrow or
> later this week as soon as the new webpage is properly working. I urge
> you to donate and help me out so that I can have the chance to promote
> ReactOS. Additionally, the money you donate will also help ReactOS  
> with
> bandwidth costs, server upgrades, etc, so it's not a personal Alex  
> fund.
>
> -
> Finally, Aleksey made some suggestions on my behalf recently, as  
> well as
> posted some requests. I will re-address the latter here, because these
> are really important to me:
>
> 1) Someone please look at rbuild's dependency code and make it  
> output a
> dependency tree, that can be read by a human. This should let me see
> things such as "oh ok, ntdll needs libfoo, and libfoo needs  
> libbar". Or
> "oh, this 10KB application requires a 100MB library, can we do  
> something
> better here?".
>
> 2) Someone please look at rbuild's XML parsing and "Component/module"
> creation so that it is possible to build an entire directory as a
> component. For example, "make drivers" should work, as well as  
> "make base".
> -
>
> That's all, thank you for your time.
>
> -- 
> Best regards,
> Alex Ionescu
> Project Lead, TinyKRNL
> Kernel-Mode Software Design Engineer, ReactOS
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> Ros-dev at reactos.org
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