Feedback ReactOS 3.14 (and latest build from trunk)

[Webunny]

Well, I've already made a post/thread about my trials on real hardware, but it got accidentally deleted by the website coordinator. So, I'll give a quick overhaul.

What I said previously:

1)I tested the 3.14 version on my AMD dualcore, 2,4 GHz, 2 MB, 500GB HD. It didn't work: I got a black screen almost from the start of the 1st stage instalment. I beleive, seen the other posts mentioning this, that it needs to be elaborated on.
2)I then tested it on a second machine; an AMD duron 1GHZ, 512 MB, 10 GB HD. There, it got installed partially; the 1ste stage went without problems, but when it restarted for the second stage, it hanged at the moment the first window appeared with the question to continue. Clicking on the button 'next' was impossible, however, since neither my mouse nor my keyboard seemed to work. IMHO, everything froze, thus.

Reinstalling it, and even using the latest builds/trunk didn't help; I got the same result.

3)When I tried (trunk) it on yet another PC, an Intel 1,8 Ghz, 512 Mb, 40 GB with an Aopen mx4bs motherboard, I got success: the first stage as well as the second worked, and I had a working Ros on real hardware. However, I didn't had the all the drivers, and since it's impossible to reinstall it from within the OS (which I still find a great miss), I reinstalled Ros (latest build again).

Now, for the update: I didn't manage to get 3 drivers (only defined as for 'multimedia devices') installed. The forth and last succeeded, however, which was the driver for my ethernetcard (which, of course, is an important part). I was going to put it into the database on the site, but I noticed it was already in there (realtek RTL8139C), so it wasn't necessary.

A few remarks about what I noted, though:

1)While the instalment en start-up of Ros is very fast, the (appearing of) the windows when clicking seems rather slow and not very fluent.
2)While changing the setting to a higher resolution (and 32bit color) works, immediately after one has done so, all the icons on the start-menu gets 'blacked out'; for some reason all colour is gone and they are just black silhouettes of their former icons (only on the start menu, though). When restarting, all seems to look proper (and in still in the good, higher resolution) again, however.
3)USB does not seem to work on my box, even with the latest build, and even when switched on in the bios. I first thought maybe it was because I tried it on my front-panel usb, and maybe there was something wrong with it (it's old stuff, after all), but I got the same result with my usb at the back on the motherboard. Is this due to missing drivers, still? Whatever the reason, it does not get recognised when I plug it in, and when I start Ros up with the usb already attached, it hangs during/while showing the intro loading page. When I remove the usb, it immediately goes further and loads Ros completely.

Next in line to test: I believe firefox should work? I'll try to install that and surf the Net a bit. I'll keep you informed how it goes.

[Webunny]

Update: installing Firefox 12 didn't succeed. It says: "Runtime error! Program C:\(blabla)\setup.exe R6034 An application has made an attempt to load the C runtime library incorrectly. Please contact (blabla)"

Sorry, I didn't run it in debug mode. Should I do that first? Or is it a known problem, and should I just try out an older version, until it works?

[Webunny]

Firfox 12 did install after all (sort of) even with the error, but it didn't properly work when I tried to start it up, so I de-installed it.

Firefox 3.6 works, though. Not perfectly, but good enough to be usable.


Ps.When I tried downloading flashplayer with that browser, it suddenly hanged/froze.

Tried it again, browsing at two sites at the same time this time, but got a BSOD: "IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL" and "STOP: 0x0000000A (0x52735066, 0xFFFFFFFF, 0x00000000, 0x80836793)" and "NTOSKRNL.EXE - Address 80836793 base at 80800000, Datestamp 4fabec46"

So it would seem firefox 3.6 works, but not completely stable.

[Webunny]

Well, after the BSOD, it really went downhill. Firefox got more and more borked. Ultimately, it didn't even open/start anymore. Restarting Ros had no effect. Uninstalling and reinstalling firefox had no effect.

Damn. Just as I thought we had a thing going here. ;-p

Ah well, that's alpha. I'll reinstall ros with the latest/trunk (it's already 2 versions higher I see), and re-install firefox. Maybe I'll try a bit higher a version. Have to go now, but I'll post my feedback when I've done it.

[Z98]

Do not triple post.

[Webunny]

Well, is there a way to edit your previously made post? As you can see, I merely posted after I tried certain things out, with a considerable time in between; it wasn't like I was posting three times in a row just for the fun of it.

Otherwise, it would be strange; what if I tried the daily build each time to give feedback? I couldn't give any more feedback if nobody has posted in between, then? If no-one responds in days, I just have to wait until someone does, after a week or so?

If there is a way for me to edit former posts, your remark makes sense, otherwise not. If there is, I missed it. With most forum where you can edit your post, there is just a button with 'edit' on it at the end of each post.

[PascalDragon]

To enable the "edit" button (as well as the "quote" button) you should follow vicmarcal's advice in this post.

Regards,
Sven

[milon]

To enable the "edit" button (as well as the "quote" button) you should follow vicmarcal's advice in this post.

Yikes! I thought that problem was fixed ages ago...

[Webunny]

To enable the "edit" button (as well as the "quote" button) you should follow vicmarcal's advice in this post.

Regards,
Sven

Ok, thanks, that worked!

With Z98's rather sober 'don't triple post' I wouldn't have gotten anywhere. As if I was merely triple posting for the fun of it.

I was wondering how you guys used all those quotes here; I always had to copy/paste it and than put it manually between quotes!

I just assumed since I nowhere saw an edit button it was a really old forum-post mechanism. But, so, it's a bug?

Guess people were right to go for a complete revamp after all, then. Especially this. These days, a good forum-mechanism is easily found.

[EmuandCo]

It's a pain to update to a new phpbb with the current website. Thus we wait for the new site I suggest ^^

[Webunny]

It's a pain to update to a new phpbb with the current website. Thus we wait for the new site I suggest ^^

Guess so. It's a bit of a pain in the ass if one doesn't know about it, but once you know how to get it, it's ok. Shouldn't happen, but as you said, it probably isn't worth changing it before the website is ready (in another 3 years ;-p )

As for further testing; I've been a bit busy lately, and I don't have much time for the rest of the week, but I'll be sure to keep testing and reporting next week!

Update: reinstalled Ros with latest (trunk). Reinstalled driver. Reinstalled firefox (4, this time). Installed flash (10.x version, which still worked on win2000. All went reasonably well, but firefox does not seem to work entirely stable. Scripts often malfunction. Checkboxes, and even whole sentences disappear. they're still there, but one does not see it anymore; it's all blank. I'm currently writing on the Ros-PC, and I simply do not see what I write. I'm just typing 'blind'.

Sometimes, it does appear again (for instance, after a return or scrolling). I'm not sure whether this is due to firefox, missing or old plugins or drivers, or ros (or a combination). But as you can imagine, it's very hard to type when everything disappears most of the time. Anyone else got a perfectly working firefox installed on ros on real hardware?

Also, firefox (and also opening windows in general) feel very sluggish (could be because I had some script-malfunctions when browsing certain sites). And, again, when adapting the resolution, the icons in the menu went black again (but they show up just fine after a restart).

[Webunny]

Anyway, since re-re-re-installing everytime to try some things out (on my real hardware) is a bit tiresome, I think I'll just go for the VM for now. I'll try the 3.15 out on my r/l hardware to check if usb works as it should, but for (continuous) testing out software/drivers, it really is too much trouble.

What was the recommended VM(ware?) to try out Ros again?

[milon]

What was the recommended VM(ware?) to try out Ros again?

QEMU, VMware, or VirtualBox.

[Webunny]

What was the recommended VM(ware?) to try out Ros again?

QEMU, VMware, or VirtualBox.

Ok, used VirtualBox (with latest from trunk). However, I seem to encounter more problems than I did when installing it on real hardware (well, my third PC, that is). Every time I install Firefox and try to browse, I get this BSOD:

[ external image ]

Edit: tried it with FF13; didn't work. Tried it with FF4; didn't work (this one worked on my real hardware, though). Tried FF1.5: worked.

So I'm now using this old version of FF, but at least I don't get BSODs. I am now going to try some games.

Edit: So, ermmm...any ideas why the use of more modern FF versions make Ros crash?

[Haos]

No idea, try running ROS in debug mode and gather debug logs with this issue replicated.