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Newbie impressions ... am I right?

Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2017 8:17 pm
by cecilieaux
I am not a techie. I am just a user with some smarts. I've unstalled ReactOS 0.4.4.4 in VirtualBox under Linux (to which I fled after the death of XP).

It seems that the apps that are in the list that the Program Manager downloads and installs work flawlessly.

However, few things in my trove of XP apps seems to work so far.

I did manage to get old Wolfenstein to pop up, but without sound (have to explore sound drivers and support). Suggestions?

Civilization II (ok, sue me, it's old) crashes because of something called NTVDM. Fix?

PowerArchiver never worked (thank goodness for your 7zip) and I can't uninstall it. How does one uninstall?

That's it so far. It is an intriguing project. Keep going, those of you who know how to program!

Re: Newbie impressions ... am I right?

Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2017 11:52 pm
by dizt3mp3r
Your impressions are correct, an o/s incomplete, as it is under development but with lots to offer now and with forthcoming changes, increased compatibility and stability as time progresses.

Re: Newbie impressions ... am I right?

Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2017 6:11 am
by ctasan
Sound support is still experimental.

Civilization II: Please file a bug report to JIRA with debug log, so they may fix NTVDM to get it working. The same goes with PowerArchiver. Golden rule: If you encounter any issue, please report!

Re: Newbie impressions ... am I right?

Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2017 12:25 pm
by PurpleGurl
Actually, search Jira, then report.

Re: Newbie impressions ... am I right?

Posted: Sat Feb 25, 2017 5:25 pm
by cecilieaux
ctasan wrote:Sound support is still experimental.

Civilization II: Please file a bug report to JIRA with debug log, so they may fix NTVDM to get it working. The same goes with PowerArchiver. Golden rule: If you encounter any issue, please report!
I am a real newbie at this and I'm never certain whether it's me or a bug.

Also, JIRA won't recognize the username and password I used here on the forum. Why not put a JIRA topic in this forum, that way any idiot (me) can post bug reports easily?

Re: Newbie impressions ... am I right?

Posted: Sat Feb 25, 2017 7:37 pm
by Z98
Because the developers do not use the forum to track tasks and bugs, they use Jira. You posting a problem here will not bring it to their attention unless someone else in the community goes to the trouble of opening a ticket for you. The devs as a whole are dealing with a lot of issues already, going outside of their usual channel of communication is not a productive way of reporting issues to them.

Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2017 1:39 am
by hto
Apparently, many newly-registered users experience problems with reporting bugs using Jira…

Re:

Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2017 4:37 am
by middings
hto wrote:Apparently, many newly-registered users experience problems with reporting bugs using Jira…
All bug reporting systems have a learning curve, usually steep. The JIRA bug reporting system is no exception. (No pain, no gain.)

The most common problem newly-registered users encounter with JIRA is not being able to log in immediately after establishing an account for ReactOS.org. All ReactOS.org servers use the same log in credentials. These credentials can take up to 6 (six) hours to propagate to all ReactOS.org servers (Forum, JIRA, etc.) after an account is created or the password is changed. Please be patient.

Other useful things to know when reporting a problem with ReactOS:
First, use the Forum search tool. The problem may already be identified and solved.
Second, comments such as these:
cecilieaux wrote:I did manage to get old Wolfenstein to pop up, but without sound (have to explore sound drivers and support). Suggestions?

Civilization II (ok, sue me, it's old) crashes because of something called NTVDM. Fix?

PowerArchiver never worked (thank goodness for your 7zip) and I can't uninstall it. How does one uninstall?
...belong in the Support forum. Please start a new topic for each problem. Before starting a topic, use the Support Forum's search tool to see if anybody else has already posted about your problem. If you find that a suitable topic already exists and isn't more than a year old, add your new post with your information to it. Otherwise, start a new topic and link to the old but relevant posts from your new topic. Avoid 'thread necromancy' (i.e., trying to converse with old, dead topics).

Third, be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill every bug you meet. Okay, not everyone can do the third thing on the list single-handedly. Use JIRA to report bugs and call for reinforcements to help kill them. Read [ReadThis]ReactOS doesn't work in my computer!! and File Bugs.

Here is good advice on bug reporting and finding help that is useful everywhere:
How to Report Bugs Effectively by Simon Tatham, professional and free-software programmer. Mr. Tatham is the author of the popular PuTTY software.

Use meaningful, specific subject headers (topic names), an excerpt from How To Ask Questions The Smart Way by Eric S. Raymond and Rick Moen.

Re: Newbie impressions ... am I right?

Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2017 9:52 pm
by florian
Z98 wrote:Because the developers do not use the forum to track tasks and bugs, they use Jira. You posting a problem here will not bring it to their attention unless someone else in the community goes to the trouble of opening a ticket for you. The devs as a whole are dealing with a lot of issues already, going outside of their usual channel of communication is not a productive way of reporting issues to them.
JIRA might be considered as complicated compared to our forum. But JIRA's main advantage is, that it's like an assisting guide (in order to name all information).

That should be emphasised, too!