React OS template VM?

BBro · December 21, 2021, 1:33am

I’m just curious have you ever considered the ReactOS as an “better open-source windows compatible runtime app environment”, that you could tweak and even include in base image!

I have no opinion, I just want to open discussion and hear about advantages and disadvantages.

Iambchop · December 21, 2021, 1:39am

github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues

Explore possibility to create ReactOS-based template for Qubes

opened 09:30AM - 14 May 17 UTC

rootkovska

T: enhancement help wanted C: windows-tools P: major business C: windows-vm

Inspired by this thread: https://twitter.com/reactos/status/863673534710788096 … Idea is to distribute ReactOS-based template for Windows AppVMs for Qubes. Specifically a template optimized to run specific MS Windows applications, such as MS Office. In Qubes 4.1 or 4.2, i.e. when we will have GUI domain, we could even consider using RactOS as an alternate GUI domain, to provide some users with familiar Windows look and feel. Potential benefits: 1. Seamless integration for Windows-based AppVMs done _right_. We have faced lots of troubles when implementing proper seamless mode for MS Windows-based AppVMs. On Linux-based (X-based) AppVMs, we can easily get addresses of all the windows composition buffers and send their PFNs to our GUI daemon, which provides a very nice, native look and feel. However this task seems undoable on MS Windows because of undocumented win32k internals. AFAIK no body else, i.e. no other VMM vendor, has implemented proper seamless mode for Windows VMs. Most (all?) attempts revolve around cutting rectangles from one framebuffer, which has many disadvantages: 1) non-zerocopy, so slower, 2) visible artifacts when one moves overlapping windows, 3) occasional difficulty in determining windows structuring. 2. ReactOS is GPL and BSD licensed according to the project wiki [1]. This is a great benefit in itself in a few ares: transparency (think: backdoors), easy of tinkering (think: better integration with Qubes), ability to distribute freely, no need for users to worry about licenses (yet still would need to have licenses e.g. for MS Office). [1] http://www.reactos.org/wiki/ReactOS 3. Possibility to create much lighter (i.e. with smaller memory footprint) Windows AppVM, likely due to ability to customize (disable) unneeded stuff. Steps to proceed: - [x] determine if there is joint interest between ReactOS devs and Qubes - [ ] determine resources needed (developer-months), discuss funding possibilities - [ ] sketch roadmap - [ ] apply for funding Likely stages of creating ReactOS-based template: - [ ] Run in Qubes HVM (should just work) - [ ] Try porting qrexec and all Qubes Tools, except for the GUI agent, run in full desktop mode - [ ] Ensure works well as Qubes template (i.e. root/system filesystem separated from "home dir") - [ ] Write GUI agent Many of these tasks could likely be directly copied from our MS Windows Qubes Tools: https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-core-agent-windows https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-windows-utils https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-vmm-xen-windows-pvdrivers https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-builder-windows https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-gui-agent-windows (with not-so-great seamless mode)