Newbie questions

[Gasmann]

Once there were ... back in the old DOS days most cards were sound blaster compatible ... but those days are over ... since the pci sound cards and the introduction of windows 95, ( so not every game or app did have to make their own driver ) the compatibility depends on the drivers ...

Well, most cards weren't really compatible with SB, it was just their driver that made them compatible. My ESS Card (Solo-1) also has an driver for DOS, this makes it SB compatible, but the card itself isn't. So you can more see SB support in DOS like an 'interface' between dos apps/games and the sound driver, because there hasn't been a good standard and it was impossible to make every app compatible with every card,so they decided to make the apps at least sound blaster compatible and then this became the standard for DOS.
What I want to say is that because most cards that are sb compatible under DOS need an own driver, this is not of any use for ReactOS since the DOS drivers can't be used.

[William Dojinn]

What about generic drivers for NT? can't those be used?

[Gasmann]

What about generic drivers for NT? can't those be used?

what do you mean with "generic" drivers? Do you mean NT4 drivers? Because nearly every sound card needs it's own driver...
I think the NT4 drivers would be easier to support than wdm (win2000) drivers, but in some time the wdm drivers must be supported because nt4 drivers will not be available anymore some day.

[ScoTTie]

What about generic drivers for NT? can't those be used?

what do you mean with "generic" drivers? Do you mean NT4 drivers? Because nearly every sound card needs it's own driver...
I think the NT4 drivers would be easier to support than wdm (win2000) drivers, but in some time the wdm drivers must be supported because nt4 drivers will not be available anymore some day.

'generic' cards often share the same or similar chipsets etc.. so the drivers arnt to disimilar.

[StopTCPA2]

A Developer wrote

"8. We don't target 9x, that's a piece of crap which should die as soon as possible. We target the NT family (NT4, Win2k, XP, 2k3)."

Well known fact. Nevertheless:

- W98 is safer than XP
- W98 is more efficient (works with 200 MB HD and 64 MB RAM)

I personally would prefer a W98 / ME clone with working USB, without
all the BUGs reported to be in the ME "crap", without the IE crap,
without the ADMIN-bugging, without NTFS, without the excessive love
against viruses (SASSER, ...) and maybe without DOS (is this the main
"crap" problem ?) (indepedent FreeDOS is better than a built-in one),
and better compatibility with 2K/XP software.

[Gabriel Vigo]

Well known fact. Nevertheless:

- W98 is safer than XP
- W98 is more efficient (works with 200 MB HD and 64 MB RAM)

I personally would prefer a W98 / ME clone with working USB, without
all the BUGs reported to be in the ME "crap", without the IE crap,
without the ADMIN-bugging, without NTFS, without the excessive love
against viruses (SASSER, ...) and maybe without DOS (is this the main
"crap" problem ?) (indepedent FreeDOS is better than a built-in one),
and better compatibility with 2K/XP software.

You definitively doesn't know anything about the "NT" technologies.

- NT/2000/XP is much more stable than W98/ME.
- NT/2000/XP is more secure than W98/ME.

...and about the size and speed, I think that ReactOS will be
more fast and it will take much less space than Windows XP...

[jro]

Understatments

I'm also new and just ran a couple times from the LiveCD. It acted just like Win98 for me...froze both times while browsing files, and I had to hold the power button on my PC to reboot. I do like how fast it booted..quicker than Linux.

Is the LiveCD a bad way to test? Where can I install stuff like 7-zip from?

[William Dojinn]

The live CD, unfortunatly, froze on bootup right after it hit the message about initializing my CD rom drive.


Machine specs:

10x DVDROM drive(not sure of branding)
192MB SDRAM
733MHZ P3 Processer
Nvidia Vanta/VantaNT graphics card(16MB)
Computer Modle: Dell L733R

[StopTCPA2]

You definitively doesn't know anything about the "NT" technologies.

I doesn't .

I only know about problems other people have with XP and I don't have
or have less with W98.

[William Dojinn]

Well all that i know is that, after doing some tweaking to ME when i first got it, it never gave me any troubles till my harddrive blew up.

[Gabriel Vigo]

You definitively doesn't know anything about the "NT" technologies.

I doesn't .

I only know about problems other people have with XP and I don't have
or have less with W98.

It's truth. I don't like Windows XP. You can try Windows 2000 SP4 Pro
instead. For me it's better than WinXP, and it's more compatible and
gave me less errors than WinXP. It's just my personal opinion...
Anyway ReactOS will be better than both (this is my wish)...

Greetings,
Gabriel Vigo.-

[oiaohm]

StopTCPA2 I am sick of this argument from you.

I will lay this out so you can understand.

Number 1 Win98 at current time is not being targeted by hackers.
Number 2 Windows NT series OS have had critical errors in construction.
Number 3 Win98 we cannot build drivers for it.

When Win98 was targeted by hackers it was a real sitting duck when it was. Most cases complete system loss. Hackers stop majorly targeting it about 3 years ago.

Windows NT series critical flaws manly undetect buffer overfollows same kind of stuff did hit Windows 98 when it was targeted. netbois attacks and so on. Or my personal favourate the ping of death that effected everything hackers had a real party with that. Crashing linux macs, windows machines. Note the windows machines where the last to be patched.

Windows NT series provided the tech to be stronger than Win98 but its is currently weaker due to flaws in contruction remove the flaws and Windows NT series kicks Win98 back to the stone age. All OS's have contruction flaws. This is why patchs for linux windows or mac are important to install.

Most important Issue with the complete Windows NT series is that it has some for the best security features in the world but no tools to let users configure them simply and correctly so Windows NT security is operating at less than 10% gobally. This really does not help.
Lets ask you friends some questions.
Where they running as Admin online?
The answer will be 99% of the time or more yes if windows was simple to configure and from secuirty point of view it should be NO. Or the answer they don't know what is normally yes.
If running as Admin and online the security of Windows NT series is no higher than Win98. In that state their are exactly equal except for the fact that current time Windows NT series is targeted. And in that state a hacker/virus getting in can blow the system to kindom come. No defence. Running as a limited user that is verry hard to setup so everything works. The damage will be less unless there is some flaw that lets the virus break out of the limited account. This is more secure. Windows 98 runs in the same mode as Admin all the time. No protection form lets nuke it hacker's luckly for you and the people you know running Windows 98 its not a target at current time.

And the most important issue of all. Windows 98 use drivers in the format VXD what is LX. There is no GPL licence tool to produce these. These are also only 16 bit binarys.

Experienced personal learn 4 critical pieces of information.
More security flaws are exploted when the OS is targeted so more trouble.
Install require patchs will reduce problem in a large way.
A older OS that has been targeted by hackers and is not targeted now will be more secuire just due to the test of time but will have problems due to lack of programs.(Win 98)
The hackers target can change at any time. So in 12 month time they could be targeting a Xbox or a phone or something else even Win98 if it will get them fame.

Wonder why exploted when the OS is target because the will be working out what the patchs fix problems and exploting it as well as finding new flaws. The rate of new flaws don't go up when a OS is targeted just the number of attacks do. The rate of new flaws is mainly dependant on the quality of the core code.

By the way "works with 200 MB HD and 64 MB RAM" Hmm so does reactos most likely less. Most of Windows XP memory use is that god dam graphical frount end. It is really top heavy. Currently 16 megs of harddrive space for reactos it can load it complete self into memory and still have space.

Reactos should not suffer from stuff like SASSER if its well contructed due to not having the flaws to explot.

The main crap problem with Win98 has nothing to do with Dos. The main crap problems are no security methords and the drivers no way to make them. Admin trained personal are use to locking people out of sections of the os and not seeing viruses spreed account to account one the system is locked down. Win98 was a Administators worst nightmare.

You only see how good a OS is when its in the right hands. I can even make Solaris look crap from a secuirty point of view just by setting everything wrong. At least by default Solaris tries to set itself up right. All Window NT series don't even try so this make the OS look crap even that there is nothing majorly wrong with it bar settings.

I personally hate MsDos or the Windows Command Line just because I find it far to limiting. Most likely cause by using Linux to much.

FreeDos is a little better but not much.