Lucio Diaz sent me a great FAQ but I'm just too busy to correct the spelling and grammar issues.
Could you please look at it and post the corrected version here? (Or send it to mike[dot]wirth[@]gmail[dot]com )
Thank you!
Greetings
Michael
What is ReactOS?
ReactOS is an Open Source effort to develop a quality operating system that is compatible with Microsoft Windows(R) applications and drivers.
Is this legal?
Yes, the developers have never looked at the windows code, they use the available documentation on windows OSes, and their own tests to understand how windows work. In fact, ReactOS make the same things windows does, but not exactly the same way as it does not have the same source code.
When will ReactOS be done?
ReactOS is such a big project that we don't honestly know, ourselves.Actualy only very basic programs work in ReactOS. Our goal is to have internet support and one browser working by January 2005. And other productivity programs like Open Office running by April 2005. However, no software is ever 'done', there will always be the need for improvements and bug fixes.
For more information, visit the roadmap page.
Can I help programming Applications for ReactOS?
Any help is welcome, but the developing team is not focused in making applications for ReactOS, there are already thousands of applications ready for ReactOS, wich are all the available windows compatible programs.
Will X application work in ReactOS?
If it is a Windows NT-XP compatible application it will work once ReactOS is finished, but actually ReactOS is Alpha software, and only about 60% of the windows API is finished so most complex programs wont work today at 08/11/2004 . The only way to know if one aplication can already be run by ReactOS is to visit http://www.reactos.net.tc/ a ReactOS fansite with a list of applications already tested on ReactOS or Download ReactOS and try your programm yourself.
What can i do for ReactOS?
If you have a good knowledge of C and C++ and any experience in the windows API and win32 programming you can join the Developers Mailing list, there they will guide you in the ReactOS development.
If you are not a master of C and C++ you can still help, with the website documentation and translation, installing ReactOS and reporting bugs, or just spreading the word of ReactOS.
Why ReactOS? Why clone Microsoft(R) Windows(R)?
Why Linux (an Open Source UNIX(R) clone)? In short, Linux is a great operating system, but is not the answer for everybody. There are a lot of us that like Microsoft(R) Windows(R), but are very frustrated with Microsoft's policies on various issues.
The 9X family of Microsoft(R) Windows(R) is based on DOS, and shares many of it's weakness, which is the primary reason why Microsoft(R) Windows(R) has such a bad name. The Microsoft(R) Windows(R) NT family of Windows, however, has a solid design. Dave Cutler of Digital was brought in by Microsoft to design it.
Reliability, subsystems, filesystem drivers, services and the registry are all good concepts which are implemented well in the NT kernel.
Not everything is perfect, but without access to the source code, we can't fix it, so we're choose to clone it.
Why don't you help the Wine project instead?
Actually we work very closely with the Wine project. Wine probably has a lot more in common with ReactOS than with Linux. The Wine project has the goal of implementing the entire windows API on top of WineServer. There are only a few WINE dlls that cannot be used in ReactOS. These are NTDLL, USER32, KERNEL32, GDI32, and ADVAPI. The rest of WINE's DLLs can be shared with ReactOS. We have several developers in both the WINE and ReactOS projects that work on cross-compatibility issues between the two projects.
It is our view that Linux + Wine can never be a full replacement for Microsoft(R) Windows(R). ReactOS has the potential for a much higher degree of compatibility - especially for Microsoft(R) Windows(R) drivers - which WINE does not address.
Why not let my employer host your site for free?
Thanks for the offer, but no thanks. Things may change within your organization and then we'd be either politely asked to start paying X amount or go elsewhere. With our current setup, we have direct access to the machine, bandwidth is not a problem, although the hardware does need improvement (if you wish to donate hardware for this cause, contact one of the ReactOS coordinators).
What hardware is supported by ReactOS?
* Intell Pentium processors.
* AMD equivalents.
* IDE ans SCSI hardisks (this guide explains how to use SCSI)
* FAT 16/32 are the only filesystems suported yet.
* VGA compatible cards.
* PS2 mouse and keyborad.
* Serial mouses since 0.3 (for versions prior 0.3 see how to enable them).
* Reatltek 8139
* Floopy and CDs.
Not suported:
* USB
* Sound is yet not implemented.
How can i try ReactOS?
Whether installing ReactOS on real hardware or on an emulator, it is important to know the minimum requirements to install and use ReactOS:
ReactOS Hardware Requirements
32MB RAM
IDE harddisk
FAT16/FAT32 boot partition
VGA compatible video card
Standard keyboard
PS/2 compatible mouse or Microsoft Mouse compatible serial mouse
Choosing an installation strategy
There are several ways you could try and install ReactOS, you can choose the best suited for your experience and hardware:
1. Using a PC emulator with no risk at all to your data or Hardware:
* QEMU can emulate a full system (for example a PC) -Opern source-
* BOCHS PC emulator emulates a full system (x86) -Open Source-
* VMWARE another emulator. -Comercial program-
* VirtualPC -Also Comercial-
2. Installing ReactOS in real Hardware as another Operating System
* Installing the ISO Bootable CD Disk in WINDOWS XP/2000/NT. (no change to Master Boot Sector)
* Installing the ISO Bootable CD Disk in WINDOWS 95/98 or MS/DOS:
* Instalation with Binaries and a Floopy bootdisk: (no change to Master Boot Sector)
* Using a ReactOS LiveCD (no change to Master Boot Sector)
With emulation reactOS will look more slower than it is, but there is absolutly no risk to your Data or Hardware, installing reactos in real hardware, although quite safe (to my experience) you can delete your data if you dont know what you are doing, mostly the risk is related to the change of the master boot sector (you need some knowledge to revert the change) and the manage of the partition table(Do not format the partition unless you know what it means).
Installing ReactOS with emulation:
Yes, you can test ReactOS on virtual hardware. You can test it in Bochs and Qemu, for which we have official packages available on our download page. This way you can start ReactOS in a window without leaving your operating system. However, because Bochs is an emulator, ReactOS will run very slowly. Qemu makes a less complete emulation than bochs, so it is faster, but sitll ReactOS will run at about half the normal speed.
Other Virtual Machines/x86 emulators should be able to run ReactOS as well, and ReactOS is known to run in at least Bochs, VMWare, VirtualPC and QEMU. If you know of other Virtual Machines supporting it, please let us know.
Using ReactOS Disk image Preloaded in QEMU
QEMU is the safest way to test ReactOS as no damage could be made to your system, it is an emulator that will emulate a PC with reactOS loaded inside your own PC without touching your system.The drawback, is that being an emulator it will be SLOW, imagine, ReactOs is calling the PC, the call is intercepted by QEMU who is calling Windows® to do the work and then sending the results back to ReactOS.
1) Download the Preloaded QEMU disk image with ReactOS from sourceforge
2)Extract it with WinZip or any other extracting software:
3) Execute Qemu.bat
4) You will see, the following window, there select ReactOS
5) ReactOS will load, and you will have to fill the Setup Wizard (If you exit the setup without going through it, the program may not run and you may have to re-extract the Quemu zip file to the same destination and rewrite the files).
6) Once finished the setup the program will tell you that your computer will reset, DONT FEAR!, you are inside the emulated environment of QEMU so your computer wont be reseted, go ahead and you will see how QEMU finish, now go back to the fold where you extracted QEMU and restart QEMU.bat, then reactos will start again, select ReactOS from the bootloader Menu and you will arrive to the ReactOS Desktop
Here there is a Howto of the several ways to install and try ReactOS.
Using ReactOS Disk image Preloaded in BOCHS
1) Download the Preloaded BOCHS disk image with ReactOS from sourceforge
2)Extract it with WinZip or any other extracting software:
3) Execute bochs.bat
4)Select ReactOS
5) ReactOS will load, and you will have to fill the Setup Wizard (If you exit the setup without going through it, the program may not run and you may have to re-extract the Bochs zip file to the same destination and rewrite the files).
6) Once finished the setup the program will tell you that your computer will reset, DONT FEAR!, you are inside the emulated environment of BOCHS so your computer wont be reseted, go ahead and you will see how BOCHS finish, now go back to the fold where you extracted BOCHS and restart bochs.bat, then reactos will start again, select ReactOS from the bootloader Menu and you will arrive to the ReactOS Desktop.
Installing ReactOS in real hardware:
Installing the ISO Bootable CD Disk in WINDOWS XP/2000/NT.
The instalation will copy the ReactOS files to the directory you will select, copy the files freeldr.sys , freeldr.ini and bootsect.ros to C:\ (or the active directory of your root partition) and add a the following lines to your boot.ini:
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect
C:\bootsect.ros="ReactOS"
NO CHANGE WILL BE MADE TO YOUR BOOT SECTOR, so to uninstall ReactOS, you only have to delete the folder you selected for the instalation of reactos, delete freeldr.sys , freeldr.ini and bootsect.ros and edit boot.ini with Notepad and delete the added lines.
All the steps to install reactOS directly from the reactOS CD:
1) Download the ReactOS ISO from Souceforge or the daily CVS build (the active work in progress version, not stable and more prone to bugs) from the Casper Hornstrup web page.
2) Extract it with WinZip or any other extracting software:
3) Now use Nero or any othe Software able to burn a CD image to a real CD. (if you have any doubt about burning CD image this tutorial can help)
4) Once you have created the ReactOS CD, restart your computer it will probably boot from the CD by default if it does not you have to enter in the BIOS to enable it (here a good tutorial).
5) You will be welcomed by the ReactOS setup page:
6) A screen with the limitiations of the early Setup of ReactOS will be displayed, press ENTER to continue.
7) Here you can move and select your hardware configuration:
8) Like the Video Card compatibility mode:
9) Once you are happy with your settings:
10) A list of your the patitions detectables by reactos will be shown (only Fat 16/32 and void partitions are shown at the moment of this tutorial).Choose where you want to install ReactOS.
11) Once selected you are given the choice to format the partition (YOU WILL LOSE ALL THE DATA IN THAT PARTITION!). or Keep the current file system (RECOMENDED) that will ONLY copy the reactOS files to that partition without changing the other data.
12) Another screen that tells you that ReactOS can not yet check filesystems (scandisk), press ENTER to continue.
13) Write down the Folder where ReactOS will be installed:
14) It is installing:
15) You are given the option to install the Bootloader in the harddisk (WinXP-2000 and NT recomended) or install in a Floppy (win 95-98 recomended). But last time I tried to install in a Floopy it did not work for me.
Installing the ISO Bootable CD Disk in WINDOWS 95/98 or MS/DOS:
The instalation will copy the ReactOS files to the directory you will select, copy the files freeldr.sys and freeldr.ini to C:\ (or the active directory of your root partition) and reactOS will CHANGE YOUR MASTER BOOT SECTOR WITH THE REACTOS ONE (the FreeLoader boot code is then written to the boot sector of the active partition) and save the original bootsector as BOOTSECT.DOS. So from that moment you will find on starting a menu offering to start ReactOS or Windows/MSDOS, as this change is dificult to undo unless you have some technical knowledge, i would not recomend this way of instalation (in win95/98 and MSDOS) unless you dont mind risking your data or you know what you are doing. Read the binaries/floopy boot instalation.
Apart from the above, the whole process of instalation is the same as in Windows XP/2000/NT (look above)
Instalation with Binaries and a Floopy bootdisk:
The best strategy if you dont want to mess with your hard distk boot sector in the Windows 95/98 , MS/DOS and Linux is the folowing:
1) Download the ReactOS binaries (8 Megs) from sourceforge
2) Use Winzip to extract them to C:\ that way a Folder called C:\ReactOS will be created with all the reactos files.
3) Download the Program Rawwrite for windows and extract it to any folder you wish.
4) Download the Freeloader Floopy Disk image and extract it to any folder you wish.
5) Insert a new formated Floopy Disk and Execute Rawwrite:
6) Select the image file from the folder you extracted the Freeloader:
7) Press write, and wait till the program ends writing the image to the Floopy.
8) Restart the computer booting from the Floopy Disk:
Using a ReactOS LiveCD
This option gives you the chance to test ReactOS without installing anything, the whole ReactOS will run from the CD and no change will be made to your HardDisk or Boot Sector.
1) Download the Live CD from Sourceforge or the Daily CVS build from Casper Hornstrup site.
2) Unzip it with Winzip till you get the file roslive.iso
3) Now use Nero or any othe Software able to burn a CD image to a real CD. (if you have any doubt about burning CD image this tutorial can help)
4) Once you have created the ReactOS CD, restart your computer it will probably boot from the CD by default if it does not you have to enter in the BIOS to enable it (here a good tutorial).
5)ReactOS will autoconfigure itself and you will be able to have a look at the basic elements of the Operating System.
Enabling a serial mouse:
Once you have copied your ReactOS binaries (or installed reactos) in a computer with a serial mouse, then restart in Windows.
Once in windows go to the directory where you have installed reactos, probably C:\reactos\ and then go to \system32\drivers\
In that directory you will find many files, among them sermouse.sys and psaux.sys:
1. rename psaux.sys as psaux.bak
2. then rename sermouse.sys as psaux.sys
Now you have enabled Serial Mouse in reactOS, restart your computer with reactOS and your mouse will work.
If you want back a PS2 mouse, then undo the changes, delete psaux.sys and rename psaux.bak as psaux.sys.