KolibriOS
I'm toying with KolibriOS, need to find a machine that has a network interface with drivers supported by KolibriOS. The OS is so fast (starts instantly even on very old machines). I'd love to see some modern web apps run in the browser that comes with it. Has anyone here used it to do any real work?
posted by: Nick 13-Oct-2024/23:53:38-7:00
I am thinking of switching from Ubuntu to Elive: https://www.elivecd.org/
posted by: Arnold 14-Oct-2024/6:06:34-7:00
I used it a lot and for a long time. And as a thin client (vnc) and as an ftp server and as a backup system for editing configs and rescuing files. You can access the Internet through a proxy, such as PHProxy (https://github.com/PHProxy/phproxy), which also allows older browsers, such as Netscape, to surf the Internet. There was a wonderful assembly of Kolibri-n (https://web.archive.org/web/20240722120036/http://kolibri-n.org/download) - one of the attempts to put everything in order for the user. There is also DOSBox for it. I haven’t tried running Rebol in it yet ;)
posted by: Sergey_vl 14-Oct-2024/6:30:02-7:00
Thank you, checking out both Elive and Kolibri-n today...
posted by: Nick 14-Oct-2024/8:30:47-7:00
BTW, Knoppix 8.6.1 is a very performant, usefully functional Linux flavor which runs as a live OS on USB, which not too many people seem to have used. It runs on 64 bit or 32 bit machines (using the same USB stick), and does a great job, on both very old and new machines. I've used it on many netbooks with less than 1 GB of RAM, and a single CPU core running at less than 1 Gigahertz, which originally shipped with Windows XP, for example, and it makes those basically unusable machines actually very usable again, for many purposes.
I've got Q4OS running on several machines that previously had Windows 10, and it's been a great alternative for users who are primarily comfortable with Windows. It has a very familiar feel for people not otherwise used to Linux, it runs fast (even on older 32 bit machines), and supports software needed to be a legit daily driver.
Slitaz is the fastest usable version I've found that actually seems to work acceptably on many machines. It doesn't come with much software (only very lightweight browsers, for example, compared to Chromium, Firefox, and Konqueror which come with Knoppix), but wireless networking seems to typically work right out of the box (although settings are not automatically saved). It's not nearly as practical and useful as Knoppix or Q4OS, but a neat little distro, which is potentially useful for ancient machines.
Ubuntu 20.04 and 22.04 are what I currently use in most production server environments, for software running on Anvil, or a variety of other frameworks. If I need to run servers on MS servers, it's usually Windows Server 2022 (sometimes 2019, and rarely 2016). For client machines I usually expect Windows 11, and see most mobile work performed on some relatively recent version of Android, although I expect apps to run 100% reliably in Chrome, Chromium, or any not-ancient mainstream browser, on almost any client platform, desktop or mobile (Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, Chromebook are most common).
posted by: Nick 15-Oct-2024/20:30:46-7:00
I did get the browser in KolibriOS to open a SQLPage app, although the forms weren't functional.
Wow, that brought back memories of connecting to the Internet using a 286 laptop running DOS (which was very old at the time), with a 9600 baud modem, while sitting in bed, phone cable running across the house, using Lynx, back in the mid 1990's.
That triggered memories of watching my first 300 baud modem print characters in real time across the green screen of an IBM PC XT, which printed to paper using a massive typewriter-like daisy wheel printer - utter magic at the time - but nothing compared to what the Amiga was about to be able to do... :)
posted by: Nick 16-Oct-2024/11:00:31-7:00
I'm getting flooded with memories of connecting to BBSs to download shareware, writing GW-Basic and Qbasic code, coaxing sound out of PC speakers, feeling the excitement of moving from CGA to EGA to VGA displays, reading news via a PeoplePC account and feeling like the whole world was accessible with Telnet, Archie, and Gopher. That was a decade before interacting on message boards in Yahoo Chat, over a mobile Internet connection which used a clamshell cell phone and a Compaq Ipaq mobile device in the mid 1990s (that was mind blowing 30 years ago).
And now we have AIs that can perform many intellectual feats better than humans - which will seem outlandishly archaic 30 years from now. Airplanes, cars, skyscrapers, and highways didn't exist when my grandmother was born.
It's cliche to reflect, but wow, what an amazing amount of progress humanity has achieved in such a short time.
posted by: Nick 16-Oct-2024/11:22:01-7:00
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