ReactOS Forum

For years I've tried most releases on real hardware. 0.4.10 was the first release I could run it for a while without BSOD. But if I tried more than solitaire, It'd crash. That changed with 0.4.11.

After trying to install it on a few laptops without success, I discovered it ran reasonably well on this Toshiba. I couldn't get usb drives or ethernet to work out of the box. So I created a separate partition and put the windows driver pack on it. That allowed me to install some drivers including ethernet. From there I was able to install a couple drivers from the Toshiba site.

It's quite buggy by normal standards but remarkably stable for ReactOS Here's a list of some of the issues in case you have this laptop and are considering giving it a try. By the way I am creating this post from this installation.

1) Couldn't get wireless working. Not an issue for me.
2) USB is buggy. If a mouse is plugged in on boot it crashes. Using a usb mouse seems to crash this system after a while.
3) There are 7 drivers showing ? in device manager. Most are ACPI.
4) AC97 driver installed but no sound device is recognized.
5) Adding software at random causes the machine to lockup or BSOD. When this happens and a hard reset is required, the disk gets messed up and soon enough I have to run fsck via gparted live.
6) If a usb disk is inserted on boot, it seems to hang trying to boot from it. After boot usb disk recognition is spotty.

Even though this partial list look bad, it's stable enough on this laptop I've added Reactos to my daily rotation: Linux, Icaros, Haiku, and now Reactos. However, it's definitely not ready for the faint of heart.

However, it points the way to the potential of the future. You can 'feel' it coming toward a state where it might actually be usable.

Yes, that was one of the points of the post. It's getting close enough that I think it might be ready for the masses before I die. Couldn't say that until now

I should note that since this post I added all of the Libraries in the application manager and upon reboot bsod. All of the f8 boot options bsod and fsck doesn't resolve the issue. I'll try again next weekend and install libraries 1 by 1 until I see which one caused the error.

dizt3mp3r wrote: ↑Sun Mar 31, 2019 1:30 pm However, it points the way to the potential of the future. You can 'feel' it coming toward a state where it might actually be usable.

Update:
I reinstalled 0.4.11 and stayed away from usb and it's much more stable. The main crash I get now is for tcpip.sys, i think, typically when downloading large files. I'll keep using it though.

I think I'll consider reactos ready for this machine as soon as these issues are addressed regardless of whether they be issues with reactos or the user.

1) Audio
2) usb support
3) wifi
4) 3d accelleration.

You should use BTRFS if not already. It helps with reducing the BSOD corruption.

I've installed 0.4.12 on this same machine. This time it's quite a bit less stable. By this I mean the machine locks up every time I try to install a driver with SDI.

larson9999 wrote: ↑Sun Oct 06, 2019 5:31 pm I've installed 0.4.12 on this same machine. This time it's quite a bit less stable. By this I mean the machine locks up every time I try to install a driver with SDI.

Try the daily downloads as time goes on. Stuff gets broken and stuff gets fixed.

USB got a lot more stable a few weeks ago, it just isn't yet in 0.4.12.

I also advice not to use acpi-hal as the pnp for it is completely bonkers

Alahndro wrote: ↑Mon Oct 07, 2019 8:57 pm I also advice not to use acpi-hal as the pnp for it is completely bonkers

I would not second that as general advice.
The standard HAL is a fallback, which you should definitely try if your hardware has any trouble -- however if the ACPI HAL doesn't cause problems, please use that, as it's more widely tested. You're generally more likely to get a "this hardware does not boot with ACPI" experience than to have ACPI cause random unpredictable failures later on, so it should be a one-time test on most machines.

I just managed to get another laptop of this exact model from someone I know since 12/6. Only yesterday have I decided to convert my unit for testing ReactOS due to its hardware:

• Its current CPU is an Intel® Pentium® Processor T2080 that is 32-bit only and thus lacks support for 64-bit operating systems. The speed is 1.73 GHz, and it has two cores.
• 2GB of DDR2 RAM is currently installed.
• Disk drive installed is a 16GB SAMSUNG SSD UM41 2D1Q solid state drive.

I began by installing the latest release 0.4.12 and finishing its setup. After setup was complete, I haven't booted it to the desktop as of this writing.

With this hardware now in my hands again, I'm open to performing almost all kinds of tests and reporting them back. Alternatively, I can sell this laptop and its hardware to someone who is interested, most likely through eBay.

WorldBlender wrote: ↑Sun Dec 08, 2019 8:32 am I began by installing the latest release 0.4.12 and finishing its setup. After setup was complete, I haven't booted it to the desktop as of this writing.

Better luck with nightly builds.