Appreciation to Developers

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Walt
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Appreciation to Developers

Post by Walt »

A year ago I spent a few weeks trying off and on to get ROS working just to browse the web, read news sites, MAYBE EVEN make comments. Most of it was there, once I tried this D610 instead of a Dell 4600 (or something from that generation -- I don't recall exactly) but it was too fragile to be usable. Every hour or two ROS would trash its file system and while rebuilding the basics wasn't that hard, none of the tools that make things easier could be saved. It was three hours construction work for maybe half an hour of browsing.

I put it aside for a while.

This past December I tried again. WOW, what a difference. There are still glitches but the file system survives virtually all of them -- I haven't had to rebuild in 40 hours or more of use, including installing "Hey this might work!" software, visiting dozens of web sites. This is native -- not running in a virtual machine.

ROS now does nearly everything on the web. There may be problems somewhere shortly after Firefox version 31.0 -- loops that seem to be associated with Java Script? -- but up to that (which I'm now using) it works well including DISQUS and other comments. I see a BSOD every couple of days, mostly after some "Hold my beer" idea but power OFF/ON brings ROS right back.

I won't swear I'm the most active member of the ROS Users Group, but at probably 6 hours a day. 7 days/week I gotta be right up there. "ASTONISHING" is not too strong a word for the change. For the central part of what I do every day, ROS is now THE BEST tool.

With that as preface, some thoughts about the future:

1. I cringe when I see suggestions for major nice-to-have function that's not basic to an XP-type system. Nevermind the philosophic issues: NO amount of nice add-on is going give us success when many basic features don't work. This last year has made this a usable system for one kind of job: I hope the year ahead continues to make more of the core function work so that other jobs become practical too, drawing more regular users and (hopefully) more donations. And of course making MY life even easier!

2. One man's priority list:

A. USB. A step at a time is fine with MSS functions first but being almost unable to move data off the HDD is quite a limitation. (I CAN now do it with a bootable DOS thumb drive but that's awkward.) Making non-MSS USB devices work can come after.

B. Ability to do an upgrade install of ROS (to go to a newer build) without trashing installed applications.

C. WLAN support. Eithernet works here at home but with WLAN this machine can go with me, making it even more usable.

D. Dell implements a quick push of the power key as SHUTDOWN. This even beats most hard loops. (And yes I have discovered that if you can click 'shutdown' ROS will eventually -- maybe 5 minutes? -- do it, seemingly even if the OS has fallen into the great Grimpen Mire.) Nice function, possibly very easy to do?

E. All the rest of the usual PC devices. Yeah, even floppy disks.

F. Video, audio. I expect almost everyone cares more about these than I do, but this IS a personal list ...

G. Support for 16bit applications. There are still MANY extremely useful 16 bit programs out there, many of them genuinely free. Many never got 32 bit versions because they WERE free, there weren't lots of corporate users, hence no money in making new ones. Free apps can help get new people going on ROS.

(Because ROS reports itself as a server OS at least some commercial programs that offer a free version for home use say "No -- Purchase our corporate license." )

The world needs an auditable (open source) Windows-type system. Particularly a free one, that could go all sorts of places. XP's got a better user interface than most (any) of what came after and ROS has improved it with a few clever tweaks. I've followed every hint of a Wonderful New Operating System! for 15 years: ROS is the only real game in town.

Congrats to developers on the past year's progress! Yeah, I'll donate again. And you, gentle reader ... have YOU?
petr-akhlamov
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Re: Appreciation to Developers

Post by petr-akhlamov »

B - it is already there a long.

After language choosing press R>U. Choose disk. System updated.

https://winehq.org.ru/ROS_Update
Walt
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Joined: Tue Sep 04, 2018 1:39 am

Re: Appreciation to Developers

Post by Walt »

petr-akhlamov wrote: Thu Jan 09, 2020 7:28 pm B - it is already there a long.
Thanks! Tried it a couple months back, thought it failed but maybe that was 'user error.' Very busy now but I'll try again in a few days.
justincase
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Re: Appreciation to Developers

Post by justincase »

Be advised, it isn't a very sophisticated update/upgrade process and it is not unlikely that it will bork the system in one way or another.
I reserve the right to ignore any portion of any post if I deem it not constructive or likely to cause the discussion to degenerate.
Walt
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Re: Appreciation to Developers

Post by Walt »

justincase wrote: Mon Jan 13, 2020 11:59 pm Be advised, it isn't a very sophisticated update/upgrade process and it is not unlikely that it will bork the system in one way or another.
Thanks! I did try it again and it appears the interface ('U' option when asked if you want to install ROS) is completely gone now. No loss as I couldn't get it to work even when it was there.

Not a big deal as I do anything that would generate valuable data outside Firefox on a non-ROS machine. Firefox data (the 'Mozilla' file in Appdata) is backed up elsewhere on the disk every couple of days and off the disk by a bootable utility USB drive every week or two.

It works fine for following web sites and forums like this one!
hbelusca
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Re: Appreciation to Developers

Post by hbelusca »

Walt wrote: Fri Jan 17, 2020 4:35 am Thanks! I did try it again and it appears the interface ('U' option when asked if you want to install ROS) is completely gone now. No loss as I couldn't get it to work even when it was there.
Here is the current interface: the upgrade/repair screen is shown only if the ReactOS installer detects the presence of a valid installation.

[ external image ]

[ external image ]

(NOTE: Windows is also detected as being upgradable :D :D )
erkinalp
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Re: Appreciation to Developers

Post by erkinalp »

When Windows is detected, "convert" should appear instead of "update".
-uses Ubuntu+GNOME 3 GNU/Linux
-likes Free (as in freedom) and Open Source Detergents
-favors open source of Windows 10 under GPL2
hbelusca
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Re: Appreciation to Developers

Post by hbelusca »

erkinalp wrote: Sat Jan 18, 2020 7:22 pm When Windows is detected, "convert" should appear instead of "update".
When ReactOS is such in alpha state, this distinction is meaningless.
Walt
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Re: Appreciation to Developers

Post by Walt »

hbelusca wrote: Sat Jan 18, 2020 4:01 am
Here is the current interface: the upgrade/repair screen is shown only if the ReactOS installer detects the presence of a valid installation.
Thanks for that! It's about time for me to upgrade to the latest nightly (do that every couple weeks) so I'll see how it works.

I'm using ROS for browsing a few hours a day most days. Very satisfactory for that.
Walt
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Re: Appreciation to Developers

Post by Walt »

After one false start (a nightly that wouldn't install) I 'upgraded' to the last 20200128 using 'U.' One oddity just noticed is there appear to be multiple copies of several folders on C. The Recycle Bin is one of them. These are not actually copies of the folders, though, but additional views of the same one: If you delete one of the (seeming dupe) folders the files are gone from the others. Something getting trashed in the registry? I will poke around some ... there's no huge price if I trash the C disk and have to rebuild things since my only data is in Firefox and I back that up.

Anyway, 'upgrade' does work. Don't know if this oddity is part of having done so, or not but two (seeming) extra copies of those folders and two attempts to use 'U' is suspicious.

Also noting two copies of desktop.ini appear on the desktop whenever I reboot. I can delete one, both then go away with no problems. And when using the drop-down Firefox menu (upper right icon) the screen isn't rewritten by FF under some circumstances -- maybe associated with use of windows/arrow snap function.
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binarymaster
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Re: Appreciation to Developers

Post by binarymaster »

Walt wrote: Wed Jan 29, 2020 9:49 pm After one false start (a nightly that wouldn't install) I 'upgraded' to the last 20200128 using 'U.' One oddity just noticed is there appear to be multiple copies of several folders on C. The Recycle Bin is one of them. These are not actually copies of the folders, though, but additional views of the same one: If you delete one of the (seeming dupe) folders the files are gone from the others. Something getting trashed in the registry?
More like filesystem corruption.
Walt
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Joined: Tue Sep 04, 2018 1:39 am

Re: Appreciation to Developers

Post by Walt »

binarymaster wrote: Wed Jan 29, 2020 10:53 pm More like filesystem corruption.
Thanks. I will probably reinstall that same nightly from scratch.

Is there a way to invoke the very comprehensive file system check that I used to see every time the system was not properly shut down?
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binarymaster
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Re: Appreciation to Developers

Post by binarymaster »

Walt wrote: Thu Jan 30, 2020 2:31 pmIs there a way to invoke the very comprehensive file system check that I used to see every time the system was not properly shut down?
Sure, just enable autochk in registry. But it was disabled on purpose due to bugs, it can corrupt filesystem even more.

See this change for reference: https://git.reactos.org/?p=reactos.git; ... 244d027893
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