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Russian Univ. Launches Course Based On ReactOS Led By Alex Bragin
New submitter jeditobe writes "Aleksey Bragin reported that starting in February he would be a lecturer at the Moscow State Technical University teaching the operating system course. He said that he intends to incorporate ReactOS into the lab work so that students would have the opportunity to work on an actual operating system. He also intends to translate and upload the slides he will use for class for others to see." (Bragin is the Project Coordinator for ReactOS.)
I'm fed up with the posts "Why not use .." just shut up, ReactOS works and well it is not without bugs and not matured so it's perfect for .. what bugs me more is that an open source develloper turns into Vladimir Putins la(p/b) dog to get funding,
students to get their minds dirty
btw.
Why not use FreeBSD ? the soruce for kernel & userland is extremly well organized within the source tree
and well it's a unix, happy now ?
btww.
Why not use BananaOS instead ?
PRO: ...
a.) it's virtually non existent
b.) the architecture is highly adaptable due to it's virtuallity
c.) the memory footprint is rather low (8 bytes!!)
d.) it can virtually do everything
e.) has a nice gui it appears of the OS tast the user likes!
CON:
it really does only exist in ones mind
I'm assuming by 'work on' he means the actual code of the OS.
Its impossible to do this with Windows, and Linux is already fairly feature complete. Maybe ReactOS has places where it could use some fairly simple code that would at the same time teach the students how to write code for an OS...
If the problems are already solved, then it's more difficult to be the one who solves them. If the solutions are already extremely optimized then it's more difficult to be the person who provides a better solution. Sometimes you want to repeat other people's work, but sometimes it's worth trying to be the first person to do something. A less tuned OS like ReactOS might be good for teaching on.
I'd be more concerned about the question "why use a complex OS like ReactOS rather than a simple one like Minix" since lots of the key teaching points could get lost in the arcane details, but again, there's also plenty to be said for showing the real world from time to time rather than just academic theory and using one thing doesn't stop you using the other.
The most important thing is probably the quality of the teaching and if ReactOS motivates the professor to be interested in what his students are doing then it's probably going to give them a better course than they could ever have otherwise.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Why not use Linux or any OS that actually works? ReactOS is terrible.
The obvious reason is Aleksey Bragin is a ReactOS developer and thus has intrinsic knowledge about the ReactOS system. Apart from that it could also be claimed that ReactOS is smaller and less complex, making it a good example to study.
Because Aleksey is a clever young fella who was offered a teaching gig. Naturally he'd pick an area of interest that he's expert in.
I'm sure there are plenty of other OS theory courses worldwide that use Linux, Minix, Hurd, L4, FreeBSD etc - this is one unique course, so why the hate?
> Its impossible to do this with Windows
If the course is focusing on Windows internals, there's a program called Windows Research Kernel from Microsoft, which some universities can apply to and get access to Windows XP / 2003 kernel source code complete with a build environment. So you can compile it and test any changes. It has the advantage of being bug-free (relative to ReactOS), having well-structured and well-commented code (I've seen it), and it being something that is being used by millions of people out there as production OS.
I had no idea this existed, it is very cool and would make for a good learning experience. If I hadn't already posted I'd mod your post up..
But how about the feeling you'd get if you were a student and the code you wrote or modified actually made it into an OS that you could install and run on your own computer, and that thousands of others would also install and run.. and your teacher is the guy who maintains the project, so you should have a good chance of your code actually making it in.
It has the advantage of being bug-free (relative to ReactOS),
That is actually a disadvantage for an academic OS. When there are obvious problems, there is no need to think much of lab assignments.
Problem is, as system programming goes, Windows is very boring. As you say, it is very stable - but it is also closed-source. Meaning that whatever students implement remains an academic exercise.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
What would Linus do? Do you think, if you were involved in an OS project and you were to teach folks about OSs, you would use some other OS you're not very involved with as a teaching implement?
When my little brother wanted to learn about programming I didn't teach him C or Java or Lisp, or JavaScript, or Perl... I taught him about the LanderScript language, named after our family name. It's one of my toy languages that I created on a whim to teach myself how to write compilers, when I was 11. Why? Because I wanted to teach him how to build programs with logic, and outgrow his 1st language instead of getting deeply mired in the complexites of a full featured language. If he wanted to learn of OS design I'd have taught him with a toy OS of my own creation too.
If the ReactOS course work were going to be beginner stuff I might suggest other simpler OSs first. If the course covers more advanced stuff then it's probably better that the instructor to know all the ins and outs more intimately, so ReactOS would be the optimal choice for him.
How has this not made it onto the internet yet? If this it running on any kind of scale, sooner or later someone is going to sneak the code off on a USB stick and try to make a name for themselves as the activist who stole the Windows code.
I think it's a great idea, and I'd like to see it spread. In particular, I'd like to see there be a lot of project assignments to have working the various parts of ReactOS so that you have a system that is up to date w/ Windows 7. In the past, they had moving targets, be it NT, 2000, XP or 7, but I don't think anybody will argue that there should be a Windows 8 compatible ReactOS.
Have 2 OSs if necessary to map against all the Windows versions that have been there since 1995. Have something like a ReactOS 32 which can use anything from 32MB to 2GB of RAM, and have it support all applications written for win32. That way, everything - Windows 95, 98, 2000, ME and XP will be supported. Then have ReactOS 64 which would require anything from 4GB and let the upper limit of addressable memory be a simple 2^64 B. That way, once written, they won't have to update file systems for a really long while, until they need to go to 128 bit OSs. ReactOS 64 should be made identical to Windows 7, and support anything written for either Vista or Windows 7.
Once it's done, give it a more marketable brand name. ReactOS is terrible.