Reactos 0.4.15 release status ?

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Michal_F
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Reactos 0.4.15 release status ?

Post by Michal_F »

Hi All,

Sorry for this question after some time again I did some test of nightly build of 0.4.15 an i really like it.
How far is full official release ? 0.4.14 was released more year ago on Dec 16, 2021.
Is there any big blocker or issue ??

It's to me little bit confusing what is and what is not supported, like status of 64-bit build ??

Thanks :)
PeterLinuxer
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Re: Reactos 0.4.15 release status ?

Post by PeterLinuxer »

Maybe try this:
https://reactos.org/wiki/Missing_ReactOS_Functionality

It's for programmers, but you can get useful info there, too.
ReactOS is in early development phase! And ReactOS is not Linux.
Michal_F
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Re: Reactos 0.4.15 release status ?

Post by Michal_F »

Hi thanks Peter,

This is nice summary of features already done, but this is not answer to my question :)
It's more why there is so long development cycle. In 2016 there was four releases 4.0-4.3, in 2017 another four releases 4.4-4.7, 2018 -3, 2019-2, 2020-1, 2021-1, 2022 -0 ..2023 - ???
The question was more why no release in 2022 if there is any blocker or bug ?
I was reading community changelog and there so many changes there ... https://reactos.org/wiki/Community_Changelog-0.4.15
There are changes related to 64-bit support and memory manager changes .. and it was more like what is status ?
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EmuandCo
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Re: Reactos 0.4.15 release status ?

Post by EmuandCo »

Big changes mean big regressions. As long as our release manager is not happy with the current state he will not make a release. That's the answer in one sentence. Want more?

@reactosfanboy maybe you wanna hook in here?
ReactOS is still in alpha stage, meaning it is not feature-complete and is recommended only for evaluation and testing purposes.

If my post/reply offends or insults you, be sure that you know what sarcasm is...
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gonzoMD
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Re: Reactos 0.4.15 release status ?

Post by gonzoMD »

Why no more releases?
In the years you mentioned we had no official release Manager, but we had someone who "made releases".
His credo was quantity (more releases == more publicity)
When reactosfanboy became the release Manager, he made it different and set the focus on quality instead (better releases == better publicity).
This is the reason why we have fewer releases now.
Michal_F
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Re: Reactos 0.4.15 release status ?

Post by Michal_F »

This is exactly what I was talking about >> (more releases == more publicity), and i think this is questionable (better releases == better publicity),
because is more about features implemented, how you can define better release ??.
That is why I asking, I was playing with ReactOS in 2006-2008 and I see big progress with features and stability now.
But my overal feeling is more like it's still an alpha version therefore you don't need same quality release as production ready software, but (no releases == no publicity).
I was looking just some information on ReactOS what was done in 2022 and found, no release in a year no new info on website, so first question was it's project dead o there is some feature/bug that is blocking release ?
And I still don't have answer to this questions.
reactosfanboy
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Re: Reactos 0.4.15 release status ?

Post by reactosfanboy »

Thank you for your interest in ReactOS.
Branching the 0.4.15 release is blocked by 2 things:
1.) https://jira.reactos.org/browse/CORE-17624 which is a regression of the Memory Manager rewrite
2.) We do not have the infrastructure set up yet to build the releases with the new compiler GCC8.4.0 yet and the new code does no longer compile with the old toolchain neither. So the old infrastructure cannot be used. This issue is unaddressed since 2020 now. And I am not the one maintaining the infrastructure.

Since I pointed out both blockers to be hard blockers on 2021-12-17 already, immediately (just a few hours) after I released releases/0.4.14, the current delay is not my fault. I even begged other developers to not break the codes compatiblity to the old compilers yet for no sane reason. Without success.

So we will just have to wait until those 2 blockers will be solved. Then we will branch releases/0.4.15 and will start to wipe out the > 100 regressions that have accumulated on master since then.
Until then it is your choice to use either latest master head for your purposes, or any older release.
All releases since 0.4.7 do still get some smaller updates from me from time to time.
But If you really do like master head, then Hey just Enjoy it with its latest and greatest additions!
I do admit, that generally speaking the master-branch was in a much worse state for many years in the past, compared to today. So it is not totally out of question to use it for some or most use-cases. Especially when VBox AC97-sound is involved, it is a better choice than the older releases.
middings
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Re: Reactos 0.4.15 release status ?

Post by middings »

Thank you EmuandCo, gonzoMD, and reactosfanboy for sharing this information. I could see that the development team was continuing to make fixes and add new functionality to ReactOS. Despite that, the release cadence had slowed then stalled. That puzzled me. I never asked why because I did not want to seem rude to the development team.
Michal_F
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Re: Reactos 0.4.15 release status ?

Post by Michal_F »

Thanks reactosfanboy,
This was the information that I was looking for. But now I more curios about Memory manger rewrite, like what was changed ...
I am not a developer so maybe stupid question, for the build toolchain you already building daily dev build with GCC 8.4, what is the issue there for release ? I was thinking that release is just build without additional debug information.
I written this in previous not approved message that low release schedule have negative effect on community and publicity.

Best regards,
Michal :)
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EmuandCo
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Re: Reactos 0.4.15 release status ?

Post by EmuandCo »

All approved now. ^^ Soon you will be past the approval needed limit we set up for all the funny spambots that are banned by me on a daily basis.
ReactOS is still in alpha stage, meaning it is not feature-complete and is recommended only for evaluation and testing purposes.

If my post/reply offends or insults you, be sure that you know what sarcasm is...
reactosfanboy
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Re: Reactos 0.4.15 release status ?

Post by reactosfanboy »

Michal_F The release branches up to now are also built with debug information and configuration.
What indeed does change for the releases is that we do add a lot more components there like additional fonts for asian languages, and tons of other applications, wallpapers and screensavers.
For the toolchain we do not use the bots, because we want to have a stable toolchain for them. The bots at some point will change again, still we want to be able to recreate older releases when needed.
Michal_F
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Re: Reactos 0.4.15 release status ?

Post by Michal_F »

Just silly question it's nice to be able to recreate older release when needed but i think very few scenarios when this is really needed ?
Have you been thinking about breaking this compatibility and focus on new releases ?
Something like with version starting 5.0 we will support only 5.0x and newer releases because of our build toolchain is not compatible with older releases/code ?
Also I was thinking if there is some optional telemetry that you would know what versions are used ?
PeterLinuxer
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Re: Reactos 0.4.15 release status ?

Post by PeterLinuxer »

Also I was thinking if there is some optional telemetry that you would know what versions are used ?
Oh my god, I seriously hope that they don't do that!
ReactOS is in early development phase! And ReactOS is not Linux.
Michal_F
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Re: Reactos 0.4.15 release status ?

Post by Michal_F »

Offtopic: The idea of telemetry was based on idea, if you have enough information on usage. If Reactos would be using some update alternative you can get this statistics from update download count. If you don't have this information I was thinking this as a optional something like steam survey, where you can chose not to send anything or send information like, version, language and basic HW used (VM or HW). From my experience when you think about support of old version you need valid information, how many user are using it and why, if there is any blocker to upgrade. I am writing this more from my old SCCM/intune sysadmin experience when we needed to keep our environment UpToDate. This is off topic but internal telemetry can be very useful tool for creating stable and secure environment, like how to detect not stable drivers or applications. I have really liked Microsoft Intune Endpoint analytics because maybe 1/10 users will report issue, if you are interested how this can works in enterprise it's explained in this video were this was announced 2years ago https://youtu.be/X3hVsj8gXIo?t=937
Jedi-to-be
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Re: Reactos 0.4.15 release status ?

Post by Jedi-to-be »

reactosfanboy wrote: Thu Feb 16, 2023 7:55 pm
2.) We do not have the infrastructure set up yet to build the releases with the new compiler GCC8.4.0 yet and the new code does no longer compile with the old toolchain neither.
But how do we build fresh nightly builds then? :roll:
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