1. OT: complaining about your OS

Forked from ReactOS + OpenEuphoria

_tom said...

ReactOS is a free and opensource "Windows" operating system that runs OpenEuphoria.

I downloaded ReactOS 0.4 as a VirtualBox download of 90MB. I tested OE4.0.5 (32-bit) and it works! This will take you back to W95 and NT days.

_tom

This is something we could add to the docs. Sounds like a good alternative to Linux and MS Windows X. ( My post kind of went off topic here. ;) )

I am a fan of Linux but it does have its draw backs: POSIX filesystems allow too many symbols in the files. Normally this is not a problem if you are only using Linux files and people behave when they name files but I do sometimes accidentally get uppercase and lower case versions of the same file when backing up multiple times. Another is not able to distinguish distinct mice in its APIs. Multiplayer games. ;) Also no option to mount an ext2 filesystem and give another user full access. When restoring with an ext2 backup this makes me regret not having used vfat. Linux has no way to detect whether you are running your program in a terminal visible to the user or the program was opened in X-Windows to properly implement has_console(). Oh and also not being able to run new-binaries of older Linuxes. This bothers me the most. I make available a Euphoria binary but I cannot expect all the users to keep glibc to the newest incompatible version. So sometimes they just wont work. I rented webspace and upload my a EUPHORIA interpreter for CGI. It wouldn't work because of this problem. I had to port my CGI to some Interpreted language they already had, go with a Windows based web host, or install an old Linux for development. What is more of a pain? It depends on the size of the CGI script.

Windows X sends too much of the user's information to the Internet, according to a security researcher (www.grc.com).

Shawn

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2. Re: OT: complaining about your OS

ReactOS 0.4 is supposed to be usable on a real partition, not only in a VM. Did someone test it this way ?

Jean-Marc

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3. Re: OT: complaining about your OS

SDPringle said...

I am a fan of Linux but it does have its draw backs: POSIX filesystems allow too many symbols in the files.

Speak for yourself. I like this feature.

SDPringle said...

Normally this is not a problem if you are only using Linux files and people behave when they name files but I do sometimes accidentally get uppercase and lower case versions of the same file when backing up multiple times.

The flip side of this is when a person creates a web site (using Windoze), and uses the filename case inconsistently. So links work when developing, but the web server software used (which also runs on Windoze) is case sensitive so when the site goes live, the links suddenly break.

I like case sensitive systems for those rare cases where a name really does differ only by case - e.g. Apple's iPad vs Proview's iPAD. http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2012/02/22/and-you-thought-you-knew-what-an-ipad-looks-like.aspx

SDPringle said...

Another is not able to distinguish distinct mice in its APIs. Multiplayer games. ;)

Hmm. It looks like this is in fact possible, but it looks complicated.

http://blog.ankurs.com/2010/10/multiple-mouse-keyboard-in-linux/

https://ao2.it/en/blog/2010/01/19/poor-mans-multi-touch-using-multiple-mice-xorg

Doesn't look like Windoze supports it out of the box either, though. http://superuser.com/questions/29432/using-windows-7-how-can-you-use-multiple-mice-to-get-multiple-cursors

SDPringle said...

Also no option to mount an ext2 filesystem and give another user full access. When restoring with an ext2 backup this makes me regret not having used vfat.

I can see how having uid/gid options for the ext family of file systems would be nice. On the plus side, a workaround with bindfs does exist. http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/14671/mounting-an-ext3-fs-with-user-privledges bindfs.org

SDPringle said...

Oh and also not being able to run new-binaries of older Linuxes. This bothers me the most.

I take it to mean you want to run a binary built on a newer GNU/Linux system on an older GNU/Linux system.

I do this on a regular basis.

SDPringle said...

I make available a Euphoria binary but I cannot expect all the users to keep glibc to the newest incompatible version.

I understand your pain. It's possible to make this work, but this isn't something one expects a neophyte to be able to deal with.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/271089/how-to-statically-link-an-existing-linux-executable

http://askubuntu.com/questions/537479/is-there-any-open-source-way-to-make-a-static-from-a-dynamic-executable-with-no

SDPringle said...

So sometimes they just wont work. I rented webspace and upload my a EUPHORIA interpreter for CGI. It wouldn't work because of this problem. I had to port my CGI to some Interpreted language they already had, go with a Windows based web host, or install an old Linux for development. What is more of a pain? It depends on the size of the CGI script.

Hmm. Maybe we should add a staticlly linked euist for the nix builds. Seeing as you have the source code to the Euphoria interpreter, I don't see why you didn't just alter the build file to link everything in statically.

SDPringle said...

Linux has no way to detect whether you are running your program in a terminal visible to the user or the program was opened in X-Windows to properly implement has_console().

This is so wrong that it's hard to know where to start.

1) It is possible, just troublesome. E.g. checking if $WINDOWID is set. http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/3197/how-to-identify-which-xterm-a-shell-or-process-is-running-in (But this isn't perfect as someone might have reset it, e.g. via sudo http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8633461/how-to-keep-environment-variables-when-using-sudo) The most accurate way is to look at /proc/<your pid>/fd and see if 0,1,2 point to a pty, then trace back at your parent pid, and that 'parent's pid, and so on, until you find an xterm that owns that pty. (If your stdin/stdout has been redirected to a file or a pipe, you effectively don't have a "console", which is why we have to check that those are connected to a pty device first.)

2) It's not a Linux (the kernel) issue. It's arguably not even a GNU (the rest of the OS) issue. It's an X Window system issue.

3) has_console() is a hack due to Windoze brain damage. (We need to know if we have a console or not because applications that run under the GUI subsystem have their stdin/stdout/stderr pointing to nothing, and no way to connect them to an actual console.) We don't need to implement it on a nix system because a nix system doesn't have this kind of brain damage.

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4. Re: OT: complaining about your OS

_tom said...

ReactOS is a free and opensource "Windows" operating system that runs OpenEuphoria.

I downloaded ReactOS 0.4 as a VirtualBox download of 90MB. I tested OE4.0.5 (32-bit) and it works! This will take you back to W95 and NT days.

_tom

Hmm.

From the wikipedia page:

Wikipedia said...

On 27 January 2006, the developers responsible for maintaining the ReactOS code repository disabled access after a meeting was held to discuss the allegations. When approached by NewsForge, Microsoft declined to comment about the incident. Since ReactOS is a free and open source software development project, the claim triggered a negative reaction by the free software community; in particular, Wine barred several now inactive developers from providing contributions and formal high level cooperation between the two projects remains difficult to this date

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReactOS

This got so bad that there was a moratorium on WINE accepting ReactOS patches. I haven't heard any news lately but AFAIK it's still in place (though a given patch may be reviewed and accepted on a case-by-case basis).

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5. Re: OT: complaining about your OS

SDPringle said...

This is something we could add to the docs. Sounds like a good alternative to Linux and MS Windows X. ( My post kind of went off topic here. ;) )

I would not recommend this until the folks over at ReactOS consider their release to be relatively stable (which, apparently, 0.4.1 will be considered BETA).

SDPringle said...

POSIX filesystems allow too many symbols in the files.

One could argue that Windows doesn't allow enough symbols. blink

SDPringle said...

Another is not able to distinguish distinct mice in its APIs. Multiplayer games. ;)

Is this possible in Windows? I've never come across a multiplayer game that uses multiple input devices on the same system, except for joysticks or gamepads.

SDPringle said...

Also no option to mount an ext2 filesystem and give another user full access. When restoring with an ext2 backup this makes me regret not having used vfat.

Sure you can! There are a few options here.

Additional mount options... http://superuser.com/a/196678/462661

sudo mount -o uid=<userid>,gid=<groupid>,nosuid,noexec /dev/whatever /media/wherever 

  • uid=<userid> - mount using this user's id number
  • gid=<groupid> - mount using this group's id number
  • nosuid - prevents root escalation (optional, security measure)
  • noexec - prevents executing files (optional, security measure)

Using bindfs to remount as another user... http://superuser.com/a/196684/462661

sudo bindfs -u <userid> -g <groupid> /media/whatever /home/<user>/whatever 

I prefer bindfs for this. I use it to remount my /media/storage (a 4 TB disk) so that my user has full read/write access via /home/shared.

SDPringle said...

Linux has no way to detect whether you are running your program in a terminal visible to the user or the program was opened in X-Windows to properly implement has_console().

In my experience, it's unusual to even try and detect such a thing. One either writes a GUI application or a console application, or maybe a GUI application with a --nogui option or something. Detecting the presence of a console only seems relevant to provide a "Press any key to continue..." prompt.

SDPringle said...

Oh and also not being able to run new-binaries of older Linuxes. This bothers me the most. I make available a Euphoria binary but I cannot expect all the users to keep glibc to the newest incompatible version. So sometimes they just wont work. I rented webspace and upload my a EUPHORIA interpreter for CGI. It wouldn't work because of this problem. I had to port my CGI to some Interpreted language they already had, go with a Windows based web host, or install an old Linux for development. What is more of a pain? It depends on the size of the CGI script.

I am pretty sure this is a Euphoria build problem, not a Linux or glibc problem. Here is a blog post demonstrating how to link to multiple versions of glibc: http://www.trevorpounds.com/blog/?p=103

SDPringle said...

Windows X sends too much of the user's information to the Internet, according to a security researcher (www.grc.com).

This sounds very strange. I am having trouble connecting to their website. I have also not been able to find anything via Google describing this. Do you have more information?

-Greg

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6. Re: OT: complaining about your OS

ghaberek said...
SDPringle said...

Windows X sends too much of the user's information to the Internet, according to a security researcher (www.grc.com).

This sounds very strange. I am having trouble connecting to their website. I have also not been able to find anything via Google describing this. Do you have more information?

-Greg

Look here: https://voat.co/v/technology/comments/835741

For french speaking people there is an article here: http://www.silicon.fr/windows-10-meme-muet-il-parle-encore-138243.html The title of the article means: "Windows 10: even dumb it still talks"

Jean-Marc

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7. Re: OT: complaining about your OS

jmduro said...
ghaberek said...
SDPringle said...

Windows X sends too much of the user's information to the Internet, according to a security researcher (www.grc.com).

This sounds very strange. I am having trouble connecting to their website. I have also not been able to find anything via Google describing this. Do you have more information?

-Greg

Look here: https://voat.co/v/technology/comments/835741

For french speaking people there is an article here: http://www.silicon.fr/windows-10-meme-muet-il-parle-encore-138243.html The title of the article means: "Windows 10: even dumb it still talks"

Jean-Marc

Sorry, I misread that originally. I thought Shawn was saying that X-Windows sends information to the Internet. By saying "Windows X" he must have meant Windows 10.

I am very much aware of the privacy and reporting concerns regarding Windows 10. I am currently leading the project at work to deploy it to the organization (about 50 PCs).

-Greg

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8. Re: OT: complaining about your OS

Hallo

jmduro said...

ReactOS 0.4 is supposed to be usable on a real partition, not only in a VM. Did someone test it this way ?

Jean-Marc

http://www.reactos.org/wiki/Installing_ReactOS

No more to say, maybe it works for you (it does not work for me).

Andreas

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9. Re: OT: complaining about your OS

I tried with it a Live-USB. First try in normal mode: Blue Screen Of Death during initialization. Second try in debug mode: it freezes during initialization. It is simply unusable out of a virtualized environment.

Jean-Marc

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