Vista Aero, Linux XGL, ROS ... Any plans?

[furnace]

Hey, I've been following development of this project for ages (must be my third year now), it seems to be going great. Nice to see the audit is slowly creeping higher. (off topic: has any dodgy looking code been found?)

Anyway, I just had a thought - is ROS going to implement any fancy GUI along the lines of XGL or Aero?

I know it's kind of early to be thinking about that ... But still, I figured I'd ask anyway. I think it'd be nicer for ROS to adopt a theme similar to Windows Media Center in the meantime, too. It could persuade those few extra people to try out ROS on a secondary system.

Which brings me to another question now I think of it - will ROS be skinnable in a similar way to Windows XP (.msstyle files for example)?

Hope you all had a great new year (and a great Christmas if you celebrate that)!

[Z98]

First question

Short answer: no.

Long answer: the devs have stated that they will not put a 3D desktop into the ReactOS core. That's ultimately up to the end user to do if they want to. Few if any of the devs actually believe 3D desktops contribute anything to an operating system's interface. It's also not needed for any compatibility reasons so they won't bother with it.

Second question

ROS will be themeable eventually.

[frik85]

ReactOS will be compatible with WinXP theme files. That means thousends of theme file will be useable in ReactOS

Stay tuned.

[VincentMX]

i don't think it's really necassary to have something like aero, beryl or aqua.
these things are nice to play with, but i think that you should be able to install only when you need it. if you start adding shit like Aero, Beryl, Aqua in a base install, you'll raise the system requirements with about 600% (six times as much as it would be witout eye candy crap).
take a look at VISTA. don't you think those system requirements are just ridiculous?

i think one of the good things of reactos is that it's so light, it can fully install on a P1 80MHz with 32MB RAM. i've tried and it works fine. you couldnt even think of that when you have that much eye candy crap.

and btw: when you add a theme or any of such thing, there will be loads of people who wont like it. do you even like the default windowsxp theme? i know i dont.

cheers
Vincent

[walter]

i agree. sometimes i still like my secondary pc with windows 98. no eyecandy, but it does what i need without huge resource needs.

[Karl]

Actually, if you want a good example of desktop composition, take a look at OSX.

OSX uses OpenGL for desktop composition (Quartz), which means you don't get drawing errors like those that appear so often on windows, yet it can be run on the vast majority of cards (GeForce MX2 or later; any AGP Radeon or later; 16MB VRAM minimum).

The reason Vista has such high requirements is that Microsoft decided to use DirectX 9 shaders for the glass effects (check the older builds, they had a registry override for older cards because at that point it was still older DX shaders). That is something entirely different from a composited desktop. I really feel that a composited desktop would be great for ROS, and when I get a bit more time, I'll look at implementing one. It shouldn't be that hard to get a basic composited windowing system going, especially since we have the source code. Having an OpenGL windowing system in ROS would rock.

Basically, you'd give windows a GDI surface to draw to instead of the screen. Then you have a bunch of GDI surfaces with the window content (client area) displayed. You need to get OpenGL to display those as bitmaps in the correct order and position. Then you redirect mouse clicks and keyboard entry on the OGL surface to the window. Then you change the repaint command the window sends to tell the composition system to refresh the bitmap it uses for whichever window sent the call. Of course I'm simplifying it, but basically that's what it is.

Drag lots of windows around in Vista, then drag lots of windows around in XP. That's the benefit of a composited desktop. Fluid, hardware-accelerated motion.

[HyTeK]

So, composited GUI will be in SVN next week right?

In the next two weeks I will have 2 computers setup that will have ReactOS on them. One a pretty basic low end, and the other a mid range with at least a nvidia 5600 vid card. I will be working on them a bit every week and submitting bugs when I can.

In the next 12-18 months I am looking to replace Windows on my network, whether it be Linux or React at that time.

I have been closely following Wine and React, because those are the two biggest packages that I would need to smoothly move to an OSS infrastructure.

Hopefully both will mature more and give sysadmins more options to choose from and get out of the shadow of MS.

Cheers

[geertvdijk]

So, composited GUI will be in SVN next week right?

In the next two weeks I will have 2 computers setup that will have ReactOS on them. One a pretty basic low end, and the other a mid range with at least a nvidia 5600 vid card. I will be working on them a bit every week and submitting bugs when I can.

In the next 12-18 months I am looking to replace Windows on my network, whether it be Linux or React at that time.

I have been closely following Wine and React, because those are the two biggest packages that I would need to smoothly move to an OSS infrastructure.

Hopefully both will mature more and give sysadmins more options to choose from and get out of the shadow of MS.

Cheers

I don't know for sure wether ReactOS will be able to fully replace your Windows environment in the next 12-18 months. Partially because it will just be in beta around that time, so not all apps would work, and stability would still not be comparable with final distributions. Linux with wine would suit you better, because you can run a major list of Windows apps on that, and there are many Linux replacements for stuff that doesn't run on Wine.
Nice to see you moving to Open Source though

[cmoibenlepro]

Having an OpenGL windowing system in ROS would rock.

No because in ReactOS OpenGL is rendering only in software mode...

[HyTeK]

I don't know for sure wether ReactOS will be able to fully replace your Windows environment in the next 12-18 months. Partially because it will just be in beta around that time, so not all apps would work, and stability would still not be comparable with final distributions. Linux with wine would suit you better, because you can run a major list of Windows apps on that, and there are many Linux replacements for stuff that doesn't run on Wine.
Nice to see you moving to Open Source though

Well, using a ReactOS in beta will be no different then running XP or Vista final release...right?
/end-sarcasm

And Wine isn't at this time a good solution. Most of the apps we need to run won't run in wine.

[geertvdijk]

I don't know for sure wether ReactOS will be able to fully replace your Windows environment in the next 12-18 months. Partially because it will just be in beta around that time, so not all apps would work, and stability would still not be comparable with final distributions. Linux with wine would suit you better, because you can run a major list of Windows apps on that, and there are many Linux replacements for stuff that doesn't run on Wine.
Nice to see you moving to Open Source though

Well, using a ReactOS in beta will be no different then running XP or Vista final release...right?
/end-sarcasm

And Wine isn't at this time a good solution. Most of the apps we need to run won't run in wine.

Maybe in 12-18 months that will have improved as well... As long as you/your company or whatever it is you need it for don't move on to Vista-depending applications, there might just be a good chance of succes on Wine in that time...
And you're not quite right, I'm affraid... I tested Vista from 4051/5048 (legally ) and 5048 ran quite nice even on my Athlon XP 1000+ box, and ReactOS doesn't even start on it... So the Alpha quality of Microsoft was better, but it's not comparable since ReactOS was built from scratch, and 5048 from Win2k3...
I think it'll all come together nicely, and you're right, maybe the ReactOS beta will be quite usable. After all, companies like Microsoft and such always use a bit different qualifications for alpha, beta (and final ).
Because ReactOS is open source, it might stay in beta quite a bit longer, where microsoft might have released it already, fixing more bugs in updates and service packs.

[cruzades]

After all, companies like Microsoft and such always use a bit different qualifications for alpha, beta

Don't forget to add, like we are paying for a product (e.g. MS) which is still in Beta.

[geertvdijk]

After all, companies like Microsoft and such always use a bit different qualifications for alpha, beta

Don't forget to add, like we are paying for a product (e.g. MS) which is still in Beta.

On the other hand, if you get selected to 'beta'test a MS product, you often get the 'final' version free (I did get Vista Ultimate free )...

[frik85]

Having an OpenGL windowing system in ROS would rock.

No because in ReactOS OpenGL is rendering only in software mode...

Not correct. You just need a video card driver like nVidia's one to get hardware acceleration. That driver already worked in pre-0.3.0 releases (around 0.2.7). Ros 0.3.0 don't support OpenGL, SDL, etc. at all due kernel changes and regressions.
Currently, it seems as 0.3.1 will support OpenGL (mesa), SDL, etc. again.

[Karl]

wait... video card drivers (with hardware acceleration) work? (except the generic VGA one).

I never knew that. I figured since we don't have sound or the networking device drivers implemented, we'd no way have gpu acceleration and monitor resolution detection..etc!