ReactOS Making Progress On Its GUI-Based Installer

[phoronix]

Phoronix: ReactOS Making Progress On Its GUI-Based Installer

You may recall from a few months back that the "open-source Windows" project ReactOS was going to be working on improving its GUI setup/installation. Progress is indeed being made there as shared in the latest ReactOS blog entry around further enhancing its GUI installer as an alternative to the text-mode setup...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/ReactOS-GUI-Mode-Installer-Goes

[waxhead]

I do like that ReactOS exists and have nothing against a GUI installer, but why? A installer is usually something you use mostly once so would not the effort better be used to allow the darn thing to be updated without reinstalling instead?

[t1r0nama]

I do like that ReactOS exists and have nothing against a GUI installer, but why? A installer is usually something you use mostly once so would not the effort better be used to allow the darn thing to be updated without reinstalling instead?

You basically described arch linux. This is why they dropped gui installer and you can update it as long as arch team and community provides you with updates. I still use the same arch that i installed 9 years ago.

As for this project probably it's contributors also do not why it exists LOL

[Danny3]

Are those binary (IEC) units or the decimal (ISO) that some piece of shit installers use?

[Calinou]

You basically described arch linux. This is why they dropped gui installer and you can update it as long as arch team and community provides you with updates. I still use the same arch that i installed 9 years ago.

On the other hand, Arch Linux recently gained a TUI installer after years of not having any installer (which was a turn-off for me, at least back then).

[mirmirmir]

I do like that ReactOS exists and have nothing against a GUI installer, but why? A installer is usually something you use mostly once so would not the effort better be used to allow the darn thing to be updated without reinstalling instead?

Well, people don't daily drive this, most -if not all- people are just testing it, so why don't make that process painless. So it makes sense to make a gui installer.

Besides, there are so much to do, a small "detour" like this won't make much of a difference.

All and all, it's a nice improvement

[Ironmask]

Aw, I'm gonna miss the nostalgic text-mode installer. Still, it's nice to polish the system and make it more approachable.

[Joe2021]

They should focus much more on being deployed in VMs rather than on bare metal.

Who is going to boot into ReactOS actually, on bare metal? There is a lot of stuff not working with ReactOS, which forces you to boot back to your primary OS rather sooner than later. Being run in a VM instead it wouldn't harm the workflow but offer additional options, at least when you have to run some legacy software. I guess most people will experience it like that. Fullscreen is still possible so you will have the same UI experience.

Why waste time in supporting countless physical devices when all what is needed is a bunch of virt-xyz devices?

[nerdopolis]

I do like that ReactOS exists and have nothing against a GUI installer, but why? A installer is usually something you use mostly once so would not the effort better be used to allow the darn thing to be updated without reinstalling instead?

The TUI installer that ReactOS uses is very similar to that of NT 5.1 (XP/2003) and before, meaning that the installer they have now is actually a replacement SMSS.EXE. Windows did this too. Windows hard codes SMSS.exe, so they made the installer a native NT program, named it SMSS.exe, and then put it in to boot layout and called it a day.

It was probably designed that way because NT 3.1 could be installed with floppies, and MS didn't make a GUI installer until 6.0 (Vista)

SMSS.EXE usually starts CSRSS.exe which does something to prepare the Win32 subsystem. But when it is the installer, it doesn't do that, except show that TUI. NT native programs can't make Win32 calls. There are not a lot of pure NT programs at ALL, even in Windows, so making it Win32 gives you more flexibility.


In Windows NT, despite MS saying the NT design is multi-personality or whatever, pretty much all the system programs and services are Win32 programs, even wininit.exe and lsass.exe and svchost, are Win32 programs, (pretty much all that is left ismostly SMSS, csrss.exe and a few disk utilities that run early boot like autochk (chkdsk like uility) andand autoconv (fat to NTFS. There was the OS2 subsystem, and POSIX subsystem, but those are dead)). These can't start before Win32, so with this TUI there is no background services at all as well.

Think of that TUI installer having to be /sbin/init and only being able to link to say libc

[NotMine999]

You basically described arch linux. This is why they dropped gui installer and you can update it as long as arch team and community provides you with updates. I still use the same arch that i installed 9 years ago.

As for this project probably it's contributors also do not why it exists LOL

If you have to ask why it exists, then you do not understand the typical mainstream, not geek, consumer.

If you want to extend the "reach" of an OS, especially something like ReactOS that has many similarities to Windows, then you have to cater/pander to the target audience of that OS.

It's all marketing, but most geeks don't grok marketing anyway.