[ros-dev] ReactOS 0.34 (Installation CD) issues

[Bernd Blaauw]

While installing and using ReactOS 0.34 (on Windows XP Professional with 
VmWare Workstation 6.03) I'm experiencing a couple of issues.

- Are there any new requirements to install ReactOS? 586+ with 64MB for 
example instead of earlier 486+/16MB ?
- Are there any new requirements to bootup ReactOS? 586+ with 64MB? 
would/should swapfile work with lower amount of system memory installed 
on the machine?
- Are there any new requirements to use ReactOS? 586+ with 64MB? Does 
swapfile work?
- Is commandline-only supported on machines with not enough memory 
installed?
Ofcourse booting from CD has to be supported on the target machine, 
either natively or through tricks like Smart Boot Manager or 
GRUB(-4-DOS) (or FreeLDR even?).

The actual trouble I'm having is completing 0.34's installation process 
with Dutch language and USA keyboard layout (which isn't default, you 
seem to prefer Belgium keyboard layout by default, which might be just 
as strange as a Dutch keyboard layout by default. Those keyboards hardly 
exist at all). It seems to hang on this machine at a random moment of 
time during the file copy phase. In the end, I cannot install FreeLDR to 
diskette (empty WinImage 1.44MB diskette image), nor can I return to 
previous screen to select "install to harddisk". My goal was having a 
FreeLDR bootdisk in case I mess up the partition bootsector.

Anyway, using English as installation language and its defaults, I can 
complete SETUP properly. While in ReactOS booted from harddisk, opening 
a simple console window (CMD) and doing DIR A: results in a blue screen 
(instead of a message like "no floppydrive installed") Same issue as 
known earlier I guess - non-working floppydrive(r).

My old FreeLoader diskette is based on a FreeLDR bootdisk that Casper 
Hornstrup(?) had available at the time. It's available from 
http://odin.fdos.org/odin2005/
Booting the diskette, pressing CTRL-C, then doing a simple COPY /Y 
C:\FREELDR.SYS A:\FREELDR.SYS does the trick for updating FreeLDR from 
2.xx to 3.xx, resulting in being able to boot ReactOS 0.34 from a 
diskette. Strangely enough no single DOS tool/command can handle 
FREELDR.INI (copy, ren, del, edit, all fail) - any idea why?

Last of all, SHUTDOWN doesn't shut off the computer (guess you want to 
be sure everything in cache is flushed?), and LOGOFF won't allow me to 
get out of entering my username and password.

Looking forward to a ReactOS with OpenOffice and FireFox 3.xx in a while,

Any help, ideas or recommendations much appreciated (as well as pointing 
me to the correct mailinglist if it shouldn't be ros-dev)

Bernd Blaauw