How did you know about ReactOS?

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milon
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Re: How did you know about ReactOS?

Post by milon »

Fraizeraust wrote:@Michael Long: An OS is a digital software, it is entirely impossible to damage your hardware physically...
It's actually NOT impossible for software to damage hardware. It has happened before - never related to ReactOS as far as I know - but it's incorrect to say it's impossible. (For example, https://www.computerworld.com/article/2 ... -bugs.html)

Having said that, it's unlikely in the extreme that any use of ReactOS would result in physical harm to the hardware involved. When it comes to real hardware testing with ReactOS, I would pretty much expect to see data corruption, but nothing worse than that. When I test on real hardware, I physically disconnect my 2 main HDD's first to prevent exactly that.
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Michael Long
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Re: How did you know about ReactOS?

Post by Michael Long »

Thank you.

Yes, I already had a case where a hard disc of mine was meant to run at 7.200 rpm. It did so for hours but suddenly it was spinning up like there was no limit. Luckily I was sitting right next to it and pulled the power plug fast enough otherwise the motor would have overheated. After switching the computer on again everything was back to normal. But I was using Windows back in then. Very very strange bug. I can't say if it was a software bug but in general the software controls the hardware. I think it's also possible for the software to lower or raise some voltage levels (like CPU core voltage and memory voltage). Just a wrong value in certain areas of the memory and the computer can go up in flames (if I remember correctly some functions of the x86 architecture are memory mapped).

Anyway, sorry for the off topic discussion.
val
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Re: How did you know about ReactOS?

Post by val »

Of course software could damage hardware. How did you forget about overclocking? As Michael mentioned - raising voltages too high could damage related modules. OC requires overvoltage. There is "dangerous" hardware parts like CRT monitors, impropoer configuring the underlying VGA controllers could make those collapse.
Or making constant program erase cycles on the same erase block for NAND (NOR) flash devices. I am sure there are yet examples.
PurpleGurl
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Re: How did you know about ReactOS?

Post by PurpleGurl »

Using ROS on real hardware caused the cat in the backyard to have a litter of puppies that are not sure whether to bark or meow. ;-)

I learned about ROS maybe 8 years ago or so. I had the notion that maybe there were 3rd party DLL solutions that did the job faster or better. But I couldn't find faster alternatives to Windows components, but I did find ROS. That was like a dream, a free version of Windows that you could use without it expiring, and you could legally modify it if you wanted. Sadly, while loads of work have been done since then, not many more machines can run it than then without emulation. Notable things since then have been mouse/keyboard fixes, ATA/SATA driver fixes, sound improvements, a new explorer, limited NTFS support, and many graphical fixes.

Several attempts have been made to fix USB support, and it still isn't stable for everyone. There were changes made in last year's GSOC, but not sure if all were merged, and the legacy USB drivers need more work. Yes, someone is working on 3.x support. While that is needed for 3.x ports, and while it supports all common modes, it will, AFAIK only help 3.x sockets. The legacy mode support is limited to that which can be done on 3.x devices. That means that non-3.x sockets still need the other 2-3 drivers. The 2.x support for 2.x ports does work on 3.x sockets at all, and vice-versa, with the 2.x mode of a 3.x driver not being of use to a native 2.x port. I know that because on machines I've used with 3.x support, the sockets are often "dead" if there is no 3.x driver, while the 1.x/2.x sockets work with the Windows driver. So the 3.x driver was started as a courtesy for those with 3.x on their machines, not to replace 2.x or even 1.x. The rationale is that if modern machines with 3.x ports don't have XP or 2003 drivers, then we should provide them.

I'll add some things on the hardware thing. Hard drives do have some programmable registers and memory locations, like the acoustic dampening level. And old IDE drives did not block low level formatting attempts, even though IDEs cannot be successfully low-leveled by end users. So you'd erase the "servo" markers, and the drive would be unable to find it's sector addresses, thus bricking the drive. The few drives that might succeed at this might reformat to a lower capacity. Later IDEs (and SATA) intercept low-level formatting attempts and treat them as simple data clearing requests. So issuing low-level formatting commands will not attempt to rewrite their sector boundaries.
Last edited by PurpleGurl on Mon Jan 29, 2018 11:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Kevin Castro
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Location: Australia

Re: How did you know about ReactOS?

Post by Kevin Castro »

I'm a big fan of XP, Vista, and 7 (all in "classic" theme).
Out of curiosity, about a week ago I was googling for alternative Operating Systems to try out in one of my spare rigs (Intel quad-core, 64GB SSD, Nvidia GT440, dual 19" 1280×1024 5×4 Dell monitors). I spent seven ridiculous hours with Kubuntu 16.04 before deciding the interface is too unfriendly (I've been using Windows since 1994).

More googling. I happened upon ReactOS 0.4.7 and, without knowing too much about it, popped into into the rig. Over a nearly-non-stop stint of 48 hours, I did about six installs—discovering different limits and quirks (documenting the experience by pasting screenshots into Paint). During install, I select 1280×1024×32 and the single monitor (running through the HDMI port) looks fantastic. With no functioning network, I can only install things I have on USB and CD. In a second stint of about three hours, I did another eight installs—this time without OpenOffice but, instead, trying to get the Word 2000 toolbar icons to get into their correct place. Didn't work.

I don't want to mess with it anymore—I like it the way it is. It has OpenOffice 4.1.1, VLC 2.2.1, and Irfanview 4.10.

It is a slow but dependable, fully-functioning PC (apparently utilizing only one CPU core) that I can use for doing real work. Okay, spreadsheets are a bit slow, and the videos are silent, but picture viewing (and minor editing) in Irfanview is quite fast, and the install is rock solid. I have to boot in debug, and I have adapted to its quirks; but the familiar, user-friendly interface compensates for having to do things at a slower pace. Even pasting and de-zooming images into a Writer (Word) document is not much slower than on some aging XP laptops I've had to endure at work.

My ReactOS rig is no longer a project—it's a PC.
0.4.14: Gigabyte GA-F2A68HM-DS2, AMD A4 7300 (dual-core APU at 3.8GHz), various SSDs
—Option A: TP-Link TG-3269 PCI gigabit LAN card (XP Beta driver online)
—Option B: TP-Link TG-3468 PCI-E gigabit LAN card (XP driver off disc)
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dizt3mp3r
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Re: How did you know about ReactOS?

Post by dizt3mp3r »

There are a few instances of ReactOS being used "in the wild". Each tends to be focussed on a single task that is easier to achieve on an instance of ReactOS than it is on Windows (licensing, installation complexities &c). You are showing it being usable (almost) on more than one application (though not simultaneously I hope). I assume you know not to do anything mission critical on it, the disclaimer on the reactOS installation guide should suffice to explain why.

Regardless it is good to see ReactOS being installed and run on real hardware and successfully too.
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