Has anyone loaded ReactOS and tried laz 32 bit apps on it?

[MarkMLl]

How can I help testing the FPC installer on ReactOS project?

Haven't a clue. I don't know whose code it is, or which of the core team has responsibility for it.

MarkMLl

[valdir.marcos]

How can I help testing the FPC installer on ReactOS project?

Haven't a clue. I don't know whose code it is, or which of the core team has responsibility for it.

MarkMLl

These information might be a start point:

https://wiki.freepascal.org/Inno_Setup_Usage

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1. Examples
2. The Lazarus setup for Windows was created with Inno Setup.
3. This script includes PascalScript sections used to customize the installer, which may serve as inspiration for your own installers.

Revision history of "Inno Setup Usage"
https://wiki.freepascal.org/index.php?title=Inno_Setup_Usage&action=history


https://jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php

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1. Inno Setup is a free installer for Windows programs by Jordan Russell and Martijn Laan.
2. First introduced in 1997, Inno Setup today rivals and even surpasses many commercial installers in feature set and stability.

[CM630]

This post made me install ReactOS in a VM:
https://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,71447.msg557593.html#msg557593

ReactOS installed (ISO was approx 150 mb).
Then I tried to download a browser - the inbuilt Wine browser seems to have no download ability.
Then I run the ReactOS installer - I installed Firefox and Opera. Vivaldi was not in the list.
Chrome was there, but it did not install.
I downloaded Vivaldi from FF and installed it, but it did not start, complained about sth. missing in a DLL.
Then I downloaded the latest version for Win 7 - the same complaint.
Then I downloaded an even older version - the same.
So I tried to install Lazarus. Opera could not open a website, only google.com, but pressing the search button lead me to an empty screen.
FF took me to the website of Lazarus, I tried to download, but sourceforge started checking if I am a human and never took a decision.
That is it... seems the same as it was 10 or 15 years ago.

[MarkMLl]

That is it... seems the same as it was 10 or 15 years ago.

I'd add for completeness that generally speaking I am very sympathetic to the "retro" and "alternative OS" communities.

However at various points over the last 40 years or so I have wasted far more time than I'm comfortable admitting on OSes etc. which are /supposed/ to provide a full emulation of something better-known, or are /supposed/ to support certain hardware in what is believed to be an off-the-shelf branded system. But during most of that time I was backed up by at least one commercial entity with an interest in finding a solution.

We've now got a situation where there are both application- and OS-level projects which are nominally supported by the goodwill of their communities. If neither community is particularly interested in working with the other, then the individual user at the intersection of the projects is screwed: he would be better off not wasting his time on at least one of them.

I've been told in the past that there was no area of the bug reporting system for things like the installer (in the context of the ReactOS filesystem-sensitivity), or the FPC/Lazarus projects' homepages (in the context of links incompatible with standard browsers etc.). I know that I'm not the only person who finds this cackhanded approach unfortunate, but by now I'm really not sure how much I care.

MarkMLl

[Thaddy]

Both Lazarus and FPC run fine under reactOS, since both of them do not use "undocumented" shortcuts.
But reactOS lacks in some features from newer windows versions. Obviously that does not work.
If it works under Wine, it also works on reactOS.
But that does not mean that the compiler and the IDE core apps would not run: they do.
The cooperation with the Wine community makes both these have made big steps.

[MarkMLl]

Well Thaddy, https://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,43820.msg489556.html#msg489556 and https://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,43820.msg557820.html#msg557820 suggest you're wrong.

My experience was that Lazarus ran about as well on ReactOS as anything does- once past the install problem. I concede that that was a couple of years ago, but don't have time to start fossicking around.

My recent experience was that the Docker+WINE combination I was playing with a couple of weeks ago didn't have some component needed for installation, but is reasonably solid if given a copy of Lazarus from a Windows system.

Note that I have substantial respect for both projects, but think it appropriate to remind you of the Darwin quote:

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge

MarkMLl

[PascalDragon]

I've been told in the past that there was no area of the bug reporting system for things like the installer (in the context of the ReactOS filesystem-sensitivity), or the FPC/Lazarus projects' homepages (in the context of links incompatible with standard browsers etc.). I know that I'm not the only person who finds this cackhanded approach unfortunate, but by now I'm really not sure how much I care.

Any bug encountered on ReactOS, but not encountered on Windows is a bug in ReactOS, not the installer. They claim to be binary compatible to Windows, thus even if they provide a file system that isn't normally available on Windows (namely BtrFS) it should nevertheless just work without modifications needed by us.

[MarkMLl]

Any bug encountered on ReactOS, but not encountered on Windows is a bug in ReactOS, not the installer. They claim to be binary compatible to Windows, thus even if they provide a file system that isn't normally available on Windows (namely BtrFS) it should nevertheless just work without modifications needed by us.

I consider myself to be very much MITM here, and am- I assure you- extremely uncomfortable in the role.

This is hardly the first time that I have had cause to criticise btrfs, although in the past (elsewhere) it has mainly been related to incompatibilities between the Linux kernel and the filesystem driver: generally speaking, an insufficient negotiation of capabilities, and a failure to report a mismatch of capabilities as an error.

I haven't a clue how to find my report on Mantis, but I think I phrased it that the problem appeared to be that ReactOS's btrfs driver assumed that there was some maximum amount of data that could be committed per 30-seconds, but that the Lazarus installer exceeded this.

It should not be the installer's responsibility to fix this by inserting explicit flush or sync syscalls: the operating system (i.e. ReactOS) should Just Work.

At the same time, I feel that as the more specialised project it is FPC/Lazarus that should be on the defensive here, and that /if/ there was some way of keeping the host OS happy it would be to our advantage.

Updated: I'd incorrectly written bcachefs when I should have written btrfs.

MarkMLl

[Thaddy]

@MarkMLl

Were your problems before or after the Wine cooperation? Because that makes a huge difference and may warrant you to try again. I am not aware of your specific issue: may be already solved.
I am aware of some chromium issues, though.

[MarkMLl]

@Thaddy It must have been before my https://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,43820.msg313220.html (earlier in this thread) which was March 2019, but was definitely not long before.

I /will/ try again at some point Deo volente, but it's a very long way down my list of priorities.

MarkMLl

[CM630]

Once upon a time (some 15 years ago) I was somehow involved with ReactOS. I think that they (stated that they) cooperated with Wine at that time.

[Thaddy]

Not officially. But now they are almost sister projects, which is a bit different.
(I used to test delphi compilers on it)
The rule is now: if something works on Wine, it works on ReactOS too.

[d2010]

Like it says
 has anyone tried 32 bit laz apps on ReactOS ?

Yes, I try in old days,I install delph5 and  lazarus 2.2.
----
Even you can can try-it the ReactOs, ooops, I discovery many bugs   (e.g. TregIni read--the files*.ini). You  need the ReactOs, if if you got many error/s inside your application/s.
Shame the developers of ReactOs forget and put him=the ReactOs as obsolute, and forget.

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Good hint=You  must,  install TotalCommand & ProcessExplorer.exe


[CM630]

Since I found no working web browser in ReactOS, I installed Lazarus 4.0 32 bit from a USB drive.
It seems to work, I installed TLazSerial from Online Package Manager.
Then I tried to install UniqueInstance from OPM, but it failed during compilation.

[Thaddy]

Both chromium and Firefox work in reactOS. There may be some dependencies you need to install.
Both are dependent on older versions, like Chromium version 49.
But I never wrote it is perfect, just that it slowly matures.

The current release is from June 23, 2025....

I do not use it professionally except for testing older software, like win95 and for that it is very good.