Limited Success Installing ReactOS

[Bob Deb]

Acting upon your response to my initial post, I have finally acquired a PC which I believe meets the necessary criterion for the installation of ReactOS. Unfortunately I have only had limited success with the installation and surmise that the failure to effect an internet connection during the install process may have been the culprit. Post installation attempts to get internet up and running via WiFi have not been successful and I'm sincerely hopeful that I may be able to make some progress via the forum. I have compiled 3 x A4 images which contain screen images etc. and graphically detail how things went and I'm hopeful that I can embed all three of them into this post. I apologise in advance for the enormity of the details but felt it was necessary to fully explain what has happened. I would be most appreciative if someone could take the time to look at them and perhaps offer a way forward. Here's hoping I can get the three images on board. Many thanks - Bob Deb.
Whoa back - Although the "Img" button associated with this post says "Insert Image", it is obviously not as straight forward as browsing to an image file and attaching it to the post. And yet we are invited to post images so there must be a way. So my first question now has to be - how do I attach image files (jpg's) to our post? Do I need to convert them to some other format? Sorry about all this confusion, it must be one of the most convoluted posts ever encountered and certainly won't earn any accolades. Thanks again - Bob Deb.

[milon]

Hi Bob Deb,

The IMG forum code is just to display an image that's already available on the internet. You can upload them to one of several image services, such as imgur or imgbb etc. I don't know if A4 format is widely used or not, but you could always convert them to jpg/png to be safe.

I probably can't help much with the wifi stuff, but I'll take a look and help however I can.

[justincase]

To include images, you'll need to upload your image(s) somewhere else, and then copy it's location (URL) and paste it between the opening and closing [img] tags.
One place I've used is Post Image. You can choose to resize it if necessary, and choose an expiration date of desired (though you probably won't want it to expire if you're posting it here). Once you've uploaded your image, it'll take you to a page where you can rotate it (in case it appears sideways), and has some text boxes below. Copy the content of the "Direct" text box, and paste it between the img tags that appear when you click the "Img" button here.

[Bob Deb]

Superfluous post - edited back to zero by Bob Deb.

[dizt3mp3r]

[ external image ]

[ external image ]

[ external image ]

[hbelusca]

What's the actual difference between these 3 images?

[Bob Deb]

My Apologies, Page 1 has been duplicated where Page 2 should be, and Murphy's law dictates that Page 2 is the critical one. Please bear with me whilst I muddle some more and hopefully get Page 2 to display. Thanks again - Bob Deb.

[Bob Deb]

[ external image ]
images upload

Hopefully - somewhere amongst the above we should find Image 1. I will submit the post, review it, and see what happens.

[Bob Deb]

[ external image ]
images upload

Preview of Image 1 appears to be OK - will submit & review this one.

[Bob Deb]

[ external image ]
images upload

This should be Image 3 - I've no doubt I could have condensed them all into one post, but my archaic 73 year old brain can generally only handle one thing at a time.
Will submit and preview - thank you for bearing with me.

[milon]

Thanks for all the work you're putting into this.

I'm going to guess (and maybe someone else can confirm) that the underlying systems needed for WiFi aren't yet mature enough to properly support it. As you can see in your screenshots, there are several things that aren't yet implemented/functional. But if you test this again in a few months, please let us know the results!

[Bob Deb]

Many thanks for info re WiFi - I will keep across it in case the situation changes. In the meantime I see the crux of the matter being the necessity to install the basic device drivers necessary to bring ReactOS fully to life. As I pointed out , during the installation process this part of the install consisted of a message "cannot find drivers" (or words to that effect) for each of the devices. Is there a repository of these drivers somewhere that I can access independent of ReactOS? If so, I would welcome the opportunity to access them via another (32bit) PC, download & burn them to a CD and attempt to install them that way. Perhaps my analysis of the problem may be incorrect and I would appreciate the thoughts of others. Many thanks - Bob Deb.
Incidentally - I tried to delete my superfluous posts,particularly the first series of images, but did not find a way to do so. Is it possible for a poster to delete his own posts when they prove to be superfluous? Many thanks again.

[milon]

I did a little looking into WiFi, and found this:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=16201#p124782

WiFi is not working at all. Unless you have a driver with own config app and are happy with WEP encryption. Use LAN

So it's confirmed - WiFi isn't ready yet.

About deleting posts, it looks like I can't either. You could leave it as it is, or edit the post to something else. (I could have *sworn* there was an issue a long time ago about deleting posts, but I can't find anything about that now...)

[oldman]

Incidentally - I tried to delete my superfluous posts,particularly the first series of images, but did not find a way to do so. Is it possible for a poster to delete his own posts when they prove to be superfluous? Many thanks again.

Try this:
Use the Edit icon and just highlight everything, then delete it, then submit it. Hopefully your post will not show.

Edit:
I have tried the above and it does not work!
What you can do is to delete everything, then type the word edited or Post edited by me, Bob Deb and submit it. That will get rid of all the images and other text. The editor will not accept an empty post!

[Bob Deb]

I edited the post containing the image URL's back to square one but then realised that the images to be deleted are actually in a post by dizt3mp3r. Perhaps, if they are still across it, they may do the honours and edit their post similarly.
Incidentally I temporarily restored the Ubuntu hard drive to the PC hoping to see if I could get the ethernet LAN up and running but my total ignorance of Ubuntu OS left me with ambiguous results. So (thankfully I have a good supply of 2.5" hard drives) I installed yet another hard drive and restored the PC to its' OEM config (Win XP Professional) giving me access to the more familiar Device Manager. This enabled me to find and install the appropriate ethernet controller driver and get the ethernet network adapter up in "Network Connections". My joy was short lived though as, despite device properties indicating that the device is working properly, the Task Bar LAN icon continually displays "No Connection". I've tried all sorts of connection combinations and suspect that the RJ45 connector of the LAN card may be the culprit. The PC is at least 10 years old and I'm guessing that continuous insertions/removals of an ethernet cable plug into the LAN socket may have flattened the connector pins to the extent that some of them may not mate with the corresponding plug pins. It's only a theory and the notion that I can physically raise each socket pin by prising it up with some magic microscopic lever (as common as 'sky hooks' around here) is pure fantasy but I'm determined to give it a go. I consider it essential that a fully operational LAN facility is necessary for installing the basic device drivers during the ReactOS install. So interesting times lay ahead in my quest to get ReactOS up and running. Many thanks - Bob Deb.