KolibriOS. KolibriOS is an open-source operating system for x86 computers, written completely in FASM assembly language. It has been developed since 2004, forked from MenuetOS, and supports i586 CPUs or newer. KolibriOS is small sized and fits on a single 3.5" floppy disk; despite this, it features a full graphical user interface, preemptive multitasking, networking capabilities, and many pieces of bundled software.

The name "Kolibri" is the Russian word for hummingbird (Колибри) and symbolizes the operating system's tiny size and fast speed.

Development 
KolibriOS was forked from MenuetOS, a similar operating system that was built in 32-bit and 64-bit editions. It attracted much popularity in Russia and a number of other countries in the region, leading to a community contributing to the project. The first version of KolibriOS, meant to be a driver fix for the Russian-language distribution, was released by Marat Zakiyanov "mario79" in 2004. Shortly after the start of the KolibriOS project, MenuetOS's developer decided to only focus on the 64-bit version, which unlike its 32-bit counterpart was closed source. KolibriOS on the other hand has only been developed in 32-bit and remains open source.

KolibriOS has been developed by a number of contributors from different countries including Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Moldova, Estonia, Germany and Belgium. Distribution assembly is handled by Evgeny Grechnikov or "Diamond".

There are two development branches: KolibriACPI, which has extended ACPI support, and Kolibri-A, an exokernel version of KolibriOS optimized for embedded applications and hardware engineering; only few AMD APU-based platforms are currently supported.

Features 
Due to its small size (most distributions will fit on a single 1.44 MB floppy disk image) and being written in assembly, the OS boots in only a few seconds on various devices. It has support for booting from NTFS, Ext2/3/4, FAT12/16/32, exFAT, and ISO9660 based disks and can also boot from Coreboot and Windows.

KolibriOS has a graphical user interface based on, and optimised for VESA. It features pre-emptive multitasking, streams, and parallel execution of system calls. It has built-in application software (more than 250) such as a word processor, image viewer, music player, and web browser, as well as a code editor with an integrated macro assembler (FASM). KolibriOS features a shell supporting various common commands used on Unix-like systems.

Supported hardware 
USB 1.1 and 2.0 are supported (UHCI, OHCI and EHCI). There is also support for USB hubs, although the only USB HID devices  supported include keyboard, mouse and USB flash drives. Internal hard disks with PATA/IDE and SATA/AHCI interfaces are supported natively. Supported file systems include FAT12, FAT16, FAT32 (long names support), ext2, ext3 and ext4 (partially), CDFS (including multisession, read-only), NTFS (read and write but no extended functions such as encryption) and XFS (read-only).

KolibriOS supports the full TCP/IP stack and certain Ethernet network cards. Intel High Definition Audio is supported on certain motherboards while AC'97 codec support exists for various chipsets including: Intel, nForce, nForce2, nForce3, nForce4, SIS7012, FM801, VT8233, VT8233C, VT8235, VT8237, VT8237R, VT8237R Plus and EMU10K1X. Video is claimed to work on any card and drivers are available for specific Intel or AMD cards.

System requirements are:
 i586-compatible CPU
 8 MB of RAM
 VESA-compatible graphics card
 1.44 MB 3.5" floppy drive, hard disk drive, USB flash drive or CD-ROM drive
 Keyboard and mouse (COM, PS/2 or USB)

Reception 
In a 2009 review piece on alternative operating systems, TechRadar called it "tremendously impressive", noting its performance and streamlined codebase.

Dedoimedo.com reviewed KolibriOS in 2012:

Jesse Smith from DistroWatch Weekly wrote the following review about KolibriOS in 2009:

In 2024, Simon Batt of XDA Developers wrote that KolibriOS is "charming" and that it is "perfect" for giving new life to older PCs.

References

Further reading 

 Kolibri-A: a lightweight 32-bit OS for AMD platforms —University of Exeter, PCCAT 2011 p. 20-22 (2011)

External links

 
 

Floppy disk-based operating systems
Free software operating systems
Assembly language software
X86 operating systems
Lightweight Unix-like systems
Hobbyist operating systems