Slashdot Mirror

Format drive and install one of the following operating systems:

• BeOS
• Syllable
• AROS
• Plan 9
• Minix
• FreeDOS
• DR-DOS
• OpenVMS x86 port is coming!
• Visopsys
• SqueakNOS
• Haiku
• Kolibri
• ReactOS
• Tizen
• SkyOS
• MorphOS
• MenuetOS
• CP/M 86
• Multics, also see Multicians
• Erlang as an Operating System

There have been a large number of more or less obscure operating systems and not all have been ported to x86. Unfortunately the architecture has become a de facto standard even though it's not the best architecture or the most efficient but instead a patchwork of solutions to retain backwards compatibility. We have lost many interesting architectures over the years that would have deserved a better fate to the Intel bandwagon.

Assembly language programming is still alive and in good health even for x86 processors.
And there are projects written entirely in assembly language. Get some links:

FASM assembler.
FASM clone for ARM.
Advanded RAD IDE for FASM. (and FreshLib portable library)
RWASA - High performance, scalable web server.
MiniMagAsm - Small content management system (CMS).
AsmBB - High performance lightweight web forum software.
Kolibri OS - small and very fast operating system with GUI interface

I am not counting the small exercise projects here and there. I am not counting mixed language projects where assembly language is used together with high level languages.

The above is my post. I simply missed to login. ;) Some of the above projects are mine, some of other assembly programmers.
And if someone think assembly language is hard to code and support - simply look at the timeline of AsmBB. It has been written for a month in my spare time.
The timeline contains only 89 commits:

AsmBB timeline

Assembly language programming is still alive and in good health even for x86 processors.
And there are projects written entirely in assembly language. Get some links:

FASM assembler.
FASM clone for ARM.
Advanded RAD IDE for FASM. (and FreshLib portable library)
RWASA - High performance, scalable web server.
MiniMagAsm - Small content management system (CMS).
AsmBB - High performance lightweight web forum software.
Kolibri OS - small and very fast operating system with GUI interface

I am not counting the small exercise projects here and there. I am not counting mixed language projects where assembly language is used together with high level languages.

Not Open

Yeah, KolibriOS is an open fork of MenuetOS. It was forked when Menuet was still open source. Although Kolibri hasn't been updated for almost a year.

Not sure why they want to keep the genie in the bottle. Open source would be perfect for this kind of hobby project.

Don't forget MenuetOS and its opensource derivative KolibriOS. They fit on a single floppy.

Why don't you try kolibri and find out? I tried on an old junker Pentium D with a GB of RAM and I swear it was faster than either Win 7 or Ubuntu on a Phenom II X4.

I have a modern OS that fits on a 1440 K floppy.
Still won't fit inside a 1/2 meg of RAM though. ;-)
http://wiki.kolibrios.org/

KolibriOS http://www.kolibrios.org/ fits on a 3.5" disk. That accounts for the floppy at my house.

Since all links in the article submission seem to be slashdotted, an offshoot of Menuet OS named KolibriOS is located at http://www.kolibrios.org/?&lang=en.

for anyone wanting to tinker - it had been forked before they closed it
http://wiki.kolibrios.org/
http://www.kolibrios.org/?p=SVN&kind=dir&loc=/kernel/trunk

for anyone wanting to tinker - it had been forked before they closed it
http://wiki.kolibrios.org/
http://www.kolibrios.org/?p=SVN&kind=dir&loc=/kernel/trunk

That is very true indeed, concurrency is not Python's strong, but I find mantaining big apps in Python easier than in any other language because of it's amazing object system.
Also, I really hate intermediates, if someone wants to use all the power of current CPU's they should look at Kollibri and code in assembly, but if we are talking of Mono vs Python there is no need at all for that kind of sh...ame.

That only say that one performed better than the other in a very limited set of tests. Not say exactly that one is better than the other (if so, maybe KolibriOS could wipe badly both of them in most of those benchmarks).

"Better" is another thing, and depend on more criteria, like included or available software, security, user friendliness or things like that, and there ubuntu could have the lead or not (and all of those could be very subjective).

But if you can run something in any of them, and need extreme performance, that testing really worth something.

Maybe you meant that as a joke, but you're not far off:

Kolibrios is a full, modern OS with a desktop. Written in Assembly, which as you can imagine makes in unbelievably fast. Can boot from a floppy.

I just tried it out a few days ago

http://www.kolibrios.org/

How is it not free? I can download the source and run the thing right now. What exactly are you talking about? How has he not shared? There's been forks of the source, namely http://www.kolibrios.org/?&lang=en just to prove the point.

How about an entire desktop operating system written in asm that fits in a 1.44 floppy and runs incredibly fast even under a slow machine emulator like Qemu?
Not that I'm pushing the use of assembly when writing applications, but this example should teach something to those people who ignore the art of optimizing things, then just tell you to buy a faster machine.