14 DAY TRIAL // KolibriOS is a very small open source operating system that aims to be the smallest functional OS in the world. It's extremely fast and it's still being improved by a team of dedicated developers.
There are many distros out there claiming to be fast, and the fact that SSD drives are now quite cheap, the boot times don't matter very much. On the other hand, devs are making stuff like KolibriOS that show just how much you can improve an operating system when you put your might to it. The system is not powered by a Linux kernel, but by a custom one. This makes it even more impressive.
It's not every day that you get to experience something like KolibriOS and it's something that everyone should try. It provides an interesting approach to the way we see the desktop design. It's not really a practical operating system and you probably don't want to use it as your daily driver, but it's fascinating nonetheless.
KolibriOS is still under development
KolibriOS might look like a complete system, but it's not. The developers have been working on it for the past 10 years and they have something to show for it. It's not exactly the best one, but it's definitely one of the smallest, still retaining the ability to provide a nice GUI for its users.
The only problem might be the fact that it only comes with a selection of drivers for the most important hardware and not for everything, like it's done with the Linux kernel.
"KolibriOS is a tiny yet incredibly powerful and fast operating system. This power requires only a few megabyte disk space and 8MB of RAM to run. Kolibri features a rich set of applications that include word processor, image viewer, graphical editor, web browser and well over 30 exciting games. Full FAT12/16/32 support is implemented, as well as read-only support for NTFS, ISO9660 and Ext2/3/4. Drivers are written for popular sound, network and graphics cards."
"Have you ever dreamed of a system that boots in less than 10 seconds from power-on to working GUI, on $100 PC? Applications that start instantly, immediately after clicking an icon, without annoying hourglass pointers? This speed is achieved since the core parts of KolibriOS (kernel and drivers) are written entirely in FASM assembly language! Try Kolibri and compare it with such heavyweights as Windows and Linux," is noted on the official website.
The users are encouraged to notify the developers of any problems that they might encounter. You can download KolibriOS from Softpedia. It's a Live CD and it works beautifully in VirtualBox.
