General Feedback on ReactOS / Testing Results

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Quantic08
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Apr 23, 2019 9:24 am

General Feedback on ReactOS / Testing Results

Post by Quantic08 »

Hello,

I am an experienced software developer (over 10 years of C/C++) and I have been watching ReactOS for quite some time. It is an impressive achievement - and given the general distaste I have seen for Windows 10 I feel it is due for some more developers.

Kudos to the team for this project. ReactOS is absolutely amazing in both the OS itself and the quality of much of the code I've read so far.

Now with this being said, it is in the alpha stage and like all alpha software it has its fair share of problems. I'm here to try to assist with fixing them.

Here are the results of testing ReactOS on both a variety of leftover obsolete hardware and VirtualBox. Here goes:

IBM eServer blade (2.8GHz Xeon x 2 CPUs - 32-bit): Fails to boot due to issues with the kernel relating to the CPU clock. This was a big disappointment - and a big priority to fix as ReactOS would be great on professional hardware.
Dell Latitude D600: Boots but built in trackpad/trackpoint is inoperative rendering the system crippled - BIOS settings don't appear to change this.
Dell laptop / Pentium II 233Mhz (I don't feel like digging it out to get the exact model): Works great, but the flex cable on the laptop failed.
Toshiba Satellite 4030cds: Boots and works well but ReactOS cannot see the CD-ROM drive.
VirtualBox: Boots and will install guest additions. Works very well but can not survive a reboot.

The ideal ReactOS dev box I have found is an old Thinkpad T22. Everything works well without any drivers and ReactOS is very stable on this system. Other older Thinkpads will likely work well too - possibly because of IBM's BIOS and general animosity towards cooperating with Microsoft (correct me if I'm wrong - trying to avoid corporate warfare and politics here.)

To be clear ReactOS is slow on the 800MHz Pentium III the T22 has - but not unbearably so. Install of the Savage/IX driver causes a black screen on boot. Virtualbox has this issue with hardware acceleration as well. Blame the driver maybe - it doesn't work well with Windows XP either.

Beyond the hardware testing, I have been using ReactOS to develop software with the Dev-C++ IDE (works well on older hardware.) Here are the results of that:

The good:
- Beautiful interface and good language support

The bad:
- Explorer apparently cannot copy files (?) -> Hangs in the "Preflight" stage

The ugly:
- The latest git build ATAPI locks the optical drive and the kernel hard locks when the ATAPI eject command is sent from Explorer

Hope this helps the project. Great work people. I intend to contribute the changes I've made to ReactOS when I get around to it.

I am also looking into acquiring a new laptop to work with ReactOS so if anyone wants to help expand this list that would be appreciated as well.
Quim
Posts: 257
Joined: Wed Jul 04, 2018 11:45 pm

Re: General Feedback on ReactOS / Testing Results

Post by Quim »

Quantic08 wrote: Tue Apr 23, 2019 9:56 am Hello,

I am an experienced software developer (over 10 years of C/C++) and I have been watching ReactOS for quite some time. It is an impressive achievement - and given the general distaste I have seen for Windows 10 I feel it is due for some more developers.

Kudos to the team for this project. ReactOS is absolutely amazing in both the OS itself and the quality of much of the code I've read so far.

Now with this being said, it is in the alpha stage and like all alpha software it has its fair share of problems. I'm here to try to assist with fixing them.

Here are the results of testing ReactOS on both a variety of leftover obsolete hardware and VirtualBox. Here goes:

IBM eServer blade (2.8GHz Xeon x 2 CPUs - 32-bit): Fails to boot due to issues with the kernel relating to the CPU clock. This was a big disappointment - and a big priority to fix as ReactOS would be great on professional hardware.
Dell Latitude D600: Boots but built in trackpad/trackpoint is inoperative rendering the system crippled - BIOS settings don't appear to change this.
Dell laptop / Pentium II 233Mhz (I don't feel like digging it out to get the exact model): Works great, but the flex cable on the laptop failed.
Toshiba Satellite 4030cds: Boots and works well but ReactOS cannot see the CD-ROM drive.
VirtualBox: Boots and will install guest additions. Works very well but can not survive a reboot.

The ideal ReactOS dev box I have found is an old Thinkpad T22. Everything works well without any drivers and ReactOS is very stable on this system. Other older Thinkpads will likely work well too - possibly because of IBM's BIOS and general animosity towards cooperating with Microsoft (correct me if I'm wrong - trying to avoid corporate warfare and politics here.)

To be clear ReactOS is slow on the 800MHz Pentium III the T22 has - but not unbearably so. Install of the Savage/IX driver causes a black screen on boot. Virtualbox has this issue with hardware acceleration as well. Blame the driver maybe - it doesn't work well with Windows XP either.

Beyond the hardware testing, I have been using ReactOS to develop software with the Dev-C++ IDE (works well on older hardware.) Here are the results of that:

The good:
- Beautiful interface and good language support

The bad:
- Explorer apparently cannot copy files (?) -> Hangs in the "Preflight" stage

The ugly:
- The latest git build ATAPI locks the optical drive and the kernel hard locks when the ATAPI eject command is sent from Explorer

Hope this helps the project. Great work people. I intend to contribute the changes I've made to ReactOS when I get around to it.

I am also looking into acquiring a new laptop to work with ReactOS so if anyone wants to help expand this list that would be appreciated as well.

We need people like you!
Would you like to involve in ReactOS development?
Maybe GSoC could introduce you to ReactOS development.

Thank you to be interesting in ReactOS.
We need all possible people.
Reactions
Posts: 211
Joined: Mon Dec 31, 2018 3:30 am

Re: General Feedback on ReactOS / Testing Results

Post by Reactions »

Quim wrote: Tue Apr 23, 2019 4:46 pm
Quantic08 wrote: Tue Apr 23, 2019 9:56 am Hello,

I am an experienced software developer (over 10 years of C/C++) and I have been watching ReactOS for quite some time. It is an impressive achievement - and given the general distaste I have seen for Windows 10 I feel it is due for some more developers.

Kudos to the team for this project. ReactOS is absolutely amazing in both the OS itself and the quality of much of the code I've read so far.

Now with this being said, it is in the alpha stage and like all alpha software it has its fair share of problems. I'm here to try to assist with fixing them.

Here are the results of testing ReactOS on both a variety of leftover obsolete hardware and VirtualBox. Here goes:

IBM eServer blade (2.8GHz Xeon x 2 CPUs - 32-bit): Fails to boot due to issues with the kernel relating to the CPU clock. This was a big disappointment - and a big priority to fix as ReactOS would be great on professional hardware.
Dell Latitude D600: Boots but built in trackpad/trackpoint is inoperative rendering the system crippled - BIOS settings don't appear to change this.
Dell laptop / Pentium II 233Mhz (I don't feel like digging it out to get the exact model): Works great, but the flex cable on the laptop failed.
Toshiba Satellite 4030cds: Boots and works well but ReactOS cannot see the CD-ROM drive.
VirtualBox: Boots and will install guest additions. Works very well but can not survive a reboot.

The ideal ReactOS dev box I have found is an old Thinkpad T22. Everything works well without any drivers and ReactOS is very stable on this system. Other older Thinkpads will likely work well too - possibly because of IBM's BIOS and general animosity towards cooperating with Microsoft (correct me if I'm wrong - trying to avoid corporate warfare and politics here.)

To be clear ReactOS is slow on the 800MHz Pentium III the T22 has - but not unbearably so. Install of the Savage/IX driver causes a black screen on boot. Virtualbox has this issue with hardware acceleration as well. Blame the driver maybe - it doesn't work well with Windows XP either.

Beyond the hardware testing, I have been using ReactOS to develop software with the Dev-C++ IDE (works well on older hardware.) Here are the results of that:

The good:
- Beautiful interface and good language support

The bad:
- Explorer apparently cannot copy files (?) -> Hangs in the "Preflight" stage

The ugly:
- The latest git build ATAPI locks the optical drive and the kernel hard locks when the ATAPI eject command is sent from Explorer

Hope this helps the project. Great work people. I intend to contribute the changes I've made to ReactOS when I get around to it.

I am also looking into acquiring a new laptop to work with ReactOS so if anyone wants to help expand this list that would be appreciated as well.

We need people like you!
Would you like to involve in ReactOS development?
Maybe GSoC could introduce you to ReactOS development.

Thank you to be interesting in ReactOS.
We need all possible people.
Could not agree more!
Please support/share my Patreon! Helps so much! https://www.patreon.com/reactions
middings
Posts: 1073
Joined: Tue May 07, 2013 9:18 pm
Location: California, USA

Re: General Feedback on ReactOS / Testing Results

Post by middings »

Quoting all of a preceding long comment then adding only one or a few lines of comment is poor netiquette. This is especially true if the comment being quoted is the immediately prior comment.
Quantic08
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Apr 23, 2019 9:24 am

Re: General Feedback on ReactOS / Testing Results

Post by Quantic08 »

Don't be too hard on Quim please, he was quite welcoming. I would love to contribute to ReactOS.

It looks like the corruption that's occurring on an improper shutdown is related to fragments of the page file. That is what I'm diagnosing right now.

If you have a copy of Hiren BootCD, putting that in an old ThinkPad and booting ReactOS on there is the best setup I've found.

Thanks for all the positive words of support!
Quantic08
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Apr 23, 2019 9:24 am

Re: General Feedback on ReactOS / Testing Results

Post by Quantic08 »

Sorry. I meant to write "Reactions" not "Quim". Can't edit my post yet.
ROCKNROLLKID
Posts: 307
Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2016 3:19 am
Contact:

Re: General Feedback on ReactOS / Testing Results

Post by ROCKNROLLKID »

Well first, you are going to need to prove to the developers you are who you say you are. Start by submitting some small patches to ReactOS on GitHub: https://github.com/reactos/reactos

Once the developers have warmed up to you after sometime, then move on to bigger stuff if you want. You might also want to join them on the ReactOS Mattermost: https://chat.reactos.org
Reactions
Posts: 211
Joined: Mon Dec 31, 2018 3:30 am

Re: General Feedback on ReactOS / Testing Results

Post by Reactions »

ROCKNROLLKID wrote: Thu Apr 25, 2019 7:33 pm Well first, you are going to need to prove to the developers you are who you say you are. Start by submitting some small patches to ReactOS on GitHub: https://github.com/reactos/reactos

Once the developers have warmed up to you after sometime, then move on to bigger stuff if you want. You might also want to join them on the ReactOS Mattermost: https://chat.reactos.org
Agreed.
Please support/share my Patreon! Helps so much! https://www.patreon.com/reactions
Quantic08
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Apr 23, 2019 9:24 am

Re: General Feedback on ReactOS / Testing Results

Post by Quantic08 »

Not a problem. Working on fixing issues now.

I feel your concerns about people who make broad claims and then don't deliver - so expect patches - just not tomorrow morning.

This is a free project and after all, I'm not being paid. I am however happy to contribute what fixes I come up with myself.
Reactions
Posts: 211
Joined: Mon Dec 31, 2018 3:30 am

Re: General Feedback on ReactOS / Testing Results

Post by Reactions »

Quantic08 wrote: Thu Apr 25, 2019 5:09 pm Don't be too hard on Quim please, he was quite welcoming. I would love to contribute to ReactOS.

It looks like the corruption that's occurring on an improper shutdown is related to fragments of the page file. That is what I'm diagnosing right now.

If you have a copy of Hiren BootCD, putting that in an old ThinkPad and booting ReactOS on there is the best setup I've found.

Thanks for all the positive words of support!
To who and for what? I know about other posts.
Please support/share my Patreon! Helps so much! https://www.patreon.com/reactions
learn_more
Developer
Posts: 246
Joined: Fri Dec 19, 2014 10:00 pm

Re: General Feedback on ReactOS / Testing Results

Post by learn_more »

Quantic08 wrote: Thu Apr 25, 2019 11:25 pm Not a problem. Working on fixing issues now.

I feel your concerns about people who make broad claims and then don't deliver - so expect patches - just not tomorrow morning.

This is a free project and after all, I'm not being paid. I am however happy to contribute what fixes I come up with myself.
Feel free to ignore spammers like Reactions.
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