Last update:
September 17, 2021, 18:01

Kolibri OS

Intro

So i went on and installed Kolibri OS in a virtual machine on my laptop with their provided manual on their wiki. Gotta love the amount of details and screenshots they provided for making it work.

First findings: super fast and very little system resources needed!

I configured my VM with 24MB RAM and 4MB VRAM, works like a charm, and boots from the floppy(!) image in around 5 seconds from the moment the VM window appears. In the OS i opened up system monitor and 50% RAM is consumed, meaning i overcalulated the RAM apparently?

I did shut the VM down and reduced the RAM to 16MB, but this gave me no background anymore, so yeah, 24MB is the minimum with a 1024x768 resolution.

Could be better - list

This list is (aside from ARM support) not hard to implement (based on what the devs achieved already):

Easier storage management like add a live install option in the bootup screen
ARM arch support (would be hard to achieve sadly.)
Multiple screen resolutions
Option to bypass the startup dialog to speed up boot times even more.
A modern browser added by default, one that supports images and such.
One app to show system info, running processes and power statistics (instead of multiple apps)
A bootup password prompt with encrypted filesystem would be nice to have
EFI support lacks

If these things are there: it would be a big step towards feeling like a real OS instead of maker OS.

Done right - list

Faster than a minimal linux kernel OS.
Snappier and less OS lag than any OS i ever tried.
Needs 1.44MB storage to run (3.5" Floppy for example)
Works on really old systems (basically any x86 cpu released after 1995)
Only consumes around 12MB when booted
The OS is quite stable out of the box
One has full system control
It's free!

Final word:

Final scores (based upon one day of experience on 15 april 2018):

As hobby OS: 9/10

As daily OS: 5/10

Featureset: 7/10