November 5, 2013 at 18:47ReactOS: Autumn Marathon
Autumn is a traditional time of revitalization in the camp of ReactOS developers. In our group, before Halloween, we “scared” the participants for a long time with scary pictures, and each time, due to problems in the data center, coincidentally, our site crashed. In fact, we presented the latest development in this way - the C ++ memory manager under the code name Monstera . At the moment, the component code is in a separate branch of the same name. The new manager will allow you to get rid of 90% of the existing problems of the type " memory could not be read / write " - the main trouble ReactOS.
Parting words from Alexey Bragin
Initial commit of a small subproject I wanted to do for years. If you like it, please feel free to join me as there is more than enough place for improvement.This commit brings the first very small implemented part (mainly everything related to phase 0 initialization).
A cut from the readme file:
Monstera is a new implementation of a memory manager (along with a cache manager) compatible with the ReactOS kernel at source code level and providing the same binary compatible Native API through a lightweight wrapper.
Monstera is implemented in a subset of C ++ programming language. A document
outlining specific restrictions, coding style and other considerations is
available.
Key ideas:
1. Object oriented language for object oriented kernel. When NT was implemented, C ++ wasn't that good.
2. Simplicity> optimization. Nowadays we can sacrifice a bit of performance in favor of more robust implementation.
3. Same Native API. Internal implementation and external interfaces are two different things.
4. Don't drift away too much. It's still based on NT architecture, but think of it as if Microsoft Research would decide to reimplement NT in C ++ for fun.
Credits:
- ReactOS Portable Systems Group for the code which is used as a base in many places of Monstera.
- Alex Ionescu for his invaluable contribution to the ReactOS kernel.
- Timo Kreuzer, Johannes Anderwald for their C ++ - in-the-kernel-mode help.
- Amine Khaldi for help with the build environment.
- ReactOS team for their great work.
A cut from the readme file:
Monstera is a new implementation of a memory manager (along with a cache manager) compatible with the ReactOS kernel at source code level and providing the same binary compatible Native API through a lightweight wrapper.
Monstera is implemented in a subset of C ++ programming language. A document
outlining specific restrictions, coding style and other considerations is
available.
Key ideas:
1. Object oriented language for object oriented kernel. When NT was implemented, C ++ wasn't that good.
2. Simplicity> optimization. Nowadays we can sacrifice a bit of performance in favor of more robust implementation.
3. Same Native API. Internal implementation and external interfaces are two different things.
4. Don't drift away too much. It's still based on NT architecture, but think of it as if Microsoft Research would decide to reimplement NT in C ++ for fun.
Credits:
- ReactOS Portable Systems Group for the code which is used as a base in many places of Monstera.
- Alex Ionescu for his invaluable contribution to the ReactOS kernel.
- Timo Kreuzer, Johannes Anderwald for their C ++ - in-the-kernel-mode help.
- Amine Khaldi for help with the build environment.
- ReactOS team for their great work.
DVD Write Now
Also, we can finally officially announce that ReactOS will support recording of laser discs and the UDF file system . This was made possible thanks to the fundamental decision of an independent group of developers led by Alexander Telyatnikov to transfer his creation, the DVD Write Now program, to the community . News on the website of developers. At the moment, the source code of the program is in a closed review, later it will become publicly available. But you can try DVD Write Now now by downloading the binary package in the ReactOS Application Manager.
By the way, Alexander is already known for his other contribution to open source - a universal driver for hard drive controllers. We invite other independent developers for cooperation.
Support for multi-user mode.
Eric Kohl, one of the developers of the operating system, announced the almost complete readiness of the user account management subsystem:
Enable the new SAM-based logon system. Using your own accounts to log-on to ReactOS will still fail because of bugs in winlogon, userenv.dll and the registry. But at least the infrastructure is in place and we can start to fix the reamining bugs. All accounts still use a hard-coded privilege set, but this will be fixed as soon as possible.
It remains only to fix bugs.
NTVDM
The development of a virtual machine to run DOS programs is in full swing. The pace is encouraging that we will see this component as workers for a couple of months.
Bad weather
In fact, our data center (naturally, it’s not entirely ours, our servers are just there) was cut down due to problems with electricity, and local system administrators could not get to their work because of a hurricane that covered half of Europe. Around this time, Alexey Bragin was in Sweden:
Yesterday (moving towards the hurricane “Saint Judas”) we could not miss the opportunity to carry the ReactOS flag through the central park and the embankment of the city of Helsinki!
How it was
