ReactOS featured on OSFirstTimer

[12padams]

The youtube channel OSFirstTimer focuses on Diana (a 38 year old) testing out various operating systems from 1984 - 2013. The Host Philip (me) gives Diana 5 tasks to perform on the operating system and while performing the tasks she comments on what she thinks of the operating system.

I'll be honest that she wasn't keen on ReactOS but she did somewhat find it interesting. Anyway the video has been up for 32 hours and has had just over 1,700 views. Hopefully this video will bring more people's attention to reactos. Good work so far!

Here's a link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0STc959JuSg

[milon]

That started up extremely slowly. I didn't catch what you were using - was it a LiveCD?

And that's bizarre that the default save folder is system32. It makes sense because that's where the program resides, but that's going to be seriously problematic for most users. I created a Jira entry for it (Wordpad, Notepad, MSPaint). That isn't hard to fix.

I will say that I'm disappointed that you didn't make it clear that ROS is alpha. It's nice that more people are aware of it, but I'm afraid this is going to create negative PR.

[Black_Fox]

See pic: http://prntscr.com/11uw8s

[milon]

I guess you posted that while I was editing my original post.

[12padams]

The comments are very mixed but I do see some people very happy about reactos. I thought stating that it was version 0.x would be enough to show that it is not a full 1.0 release but ill add an annotation in 8 hours to state it is in alpha while its booting up.

I used the VMware version from your main downloads page

[gonzoMD]

I used the VMware version from your main downloads page

ouch. This one is very outdated. Please take a look here to get most recent builds.

[jonaspm]

Nice video i have been watching some of your OS reviews, really nice, also, great prank of the BSOD xD

Btw, version 0.3.15 is about to release, if you want, you can wait for next 0.4.0 release since it will be much more compatible and stable, so a 2nd video wouldn't be that bad

[hbelusca]

This one is also good : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AhJ-fGQsfo (especially starting at 1:14) (but I'm a little bit off-topic, because not talking about ReactOS )

[BlackRabbit]

I used the VMware version from your main downloads page

ouch. This one is very outdated. Please take a look here to get most recent builds.

At least four people in the past three months have gotten bitten by using the version that is is accessible from the home page. I, myself, got bitten while doing IRC tutorials with other ReactOS developers. Since ReactOS is perpetually in alpha-stage anyway, it might be better to let what is accessible via the home page be updated in real-time.

[Z98]

What does that even mean?

[BlackRabbit]

I'm saying that, on several occasions, the following has happened:

1. Newbie decides to try ReactOS and goes to the ReactOS home page, where he sees 0.3.14.
2. Newbie spends time testing and experimenting with 0.3.14.
3. Newbie comes back to ReactOS forum, or IRC and says, "I just played with ReactOS. It has these bugs in it..blah..blah.."
4. Oldie asks, "What version are you using?"
5. Newbie says, "0.3.14"
6. Oldie says, "Oh, don't use that. It's really old. Use the latest version."
7. Newbie asks, "Where can I get the latest version?"

The answer to (7) should be what the user installs in the first place.

[Z98]

Was referring to your comment about 'updated in realtime.'

Anyway, the problem with either approach is simple. There are times when trunk literally will not boot or suffers from major regressions due to a rewrite that just got dumped in. Other times, trunk is more functional due to major improvements since the last release. Point releases serve as points of stability that are known to not have major, wth regressions, which a first time user should not have to face. The only solution to this issue is to release more often, so that the latest release has more of trunk's improvements but avoids the bleeding edge that is liable to cause regressions. That we did not have a release for a year is due to some major rewrites that took a long time to settle down over the past year.

[12padams]

I thought 0.3.14 was the latest release because when I went on Wikipedia I saw:

"Latest unstable release
0.3.14 / February 7, 2012; 14 months ago "

Then I go on the react os main page and see:

"ReactOS 0.3.14 is still in alpha stage, meaning it is not feature-complete and is recommended only for evaluation and testing purposes."

Then I think "Ok ReactOS 0.3.14 is the latest version I will download that". So I go to the downloads page and see:

"ReactOS 0.3.14 Preloaded on a VMware virtual machine
This package contains a VMware virtual machine with a preinstalled version of ReactOS."

So I download it thinking its the latest released version and used that version for the test.

Just for your info about redoing operating systems on OSFirstTimer... We do retest operating systems but only if a lot has happened and its been many years since the release of each version. For example we have tested Ubuntu twice. First we tested Ubuntu 12.10 (2012) and then Ubuntu 4.10 (2004) to compare the different between them and see if Ubuntu 2004 was better than Ubuntu 2012. What we found is that Ubuntu 4.10 was more intuitive but Ubuntu 12.10 looked more modern with better eye candy and had better driver support for a wider variety of machines.

So yes we could test ReactOS again but not for many years and only if a lot has changed.

[gonzoMD]

Was referring to your comment about 'updated in realtime.'

Anyway, the problem with either approach is simple. There are times when trunk literally will not boot or suffers from major regressions due to a rewrite that just got dumped in. Other times, trunk is more functional due to major improvements since the last release. Point releases serve as points of stability that are known to not have major, wth regressions, which a first time user should not have to face. The only solution to this issue is to release more often, so that the latest release has more of trunk's improvements but avoids the bleeding edge that is liable to cause regressions. That we did not have a release for a year is due to some major rewrites that took a long time to settle down over the past year.

My suggestion (again):
The solution is so easy and wine does it. even number are stable (the releases we are doing now) odd numbers are not stable a picked trunk snapshot every few weeks.

[jonaspm]

So yes we could test ReactOS again but not for many years and only if a lot has changed.

Check the roadmap of ReactOS, maybe you can choose future retest with a future versión from 0.4.x series or 0.5.x series
http://www.reactos.org/wiki/Roadmap