1. Build environment -------------------- To build the system it is strongly advised to use the ReactOS Build Environment (RosBE). Up-to-date versions for Windows and for Unix/GNU-Linux are available from our download page at: http://www.reactos.org/wiki/Build_Environment/ Alternatively one can use Microsoft Visual C++ (MSVC) version 2010+, together with separate installations of CMake and the Ninja build utility. 2. Building ReactOS ------------------- A throughout guide for how to build ReactOS can be found at: http://www.reactos.org/wiki/Building_ReactOS In the following we only make a quick overview. 2.1 Building the binaries To build ReactOS run 'ninja' (without the quotes), or alternatively run 'make' if you are using the Make utility, from the top directory. NOTE: In the other examples listed in the following, similar modification holds if you are using the Make utility instead of Ninja. If you are using RosBE, follow on-screen instructions. 2.2 Building a bootable CD image To build a bootable CD image run 'ninja bootcd' (without the quotes) from the top directory. This will create a CD image with a filename, ReactOS.iso, in the top directory. 3. Installation --------------- By default, ReactOS can only be installed on a machine that has a FAT16 or FAT32 partition as the active (bootable) partition. The partition on which ReactOS is to be installed (which may or may not be the bootable partition) must also be formatted as FAT16 or FAT32. ReactOS Setup can format the partitions if needed. Starting 0.4.10, ReactOS can be installed using the BtrFS file system. But consider this as an experimental feature and thus regressions not triggered on FAT setup may be observed. ReactOS can be installed from the source distribution or from the bootable CD distribution. The two ways to install ReactOS are explained below. 3.1 Installation from sources If you don't have an existing ReactOS installation you want to upgrade, then build a bootable CD as described above. Burn the CD image, boot from it, and follow the instructions to install ReactOS. If you have an existing ReactOS installation you want to upgrade, then to install ReactOS after building it, type 'ninja install'. This will create the directory 'reactos' in the top directory. Copy the contents of this directory over the existing installation. If you don't want to copy the files manually every time you run a 'ninja install', then you can specify the directory where the files are to be copied to during installation. Set the ROS_INSTALL environment variable. If you are on Windows this could be done by: set ROS_INSTALL=c:\reactos If you are on Linux this could be done by: export ROS_INSTALL=/mnt/windows/reactos Now run 'ninja install' to install the files to the new location. 3.2 Installation from bootable CD distribution To install ReactOS from the bootable CD distribution, extract the archive contents. Then burn the CD image, boot from it, and follow instructions. 4. Help ------- If you run into problems or have suggestions for making ReactOS better, please visit the address below. Mailing lists are available for a variety of topics, bugs should be submitted to JIRA and general chat takes place in the forums, or #reactos on freenode. http://www.reactos.org/ ReactOS Development Team