MenuetOS: OS on diskette
Once upon a time, while still a student, someone gave me a floppy disk on which the whole OS was located. Eka nevidal, I thought. I remember once I loaded DOS from a five-inch floppy disk with a capacity of 360kb, and the Volkov Commander and Borland Pascal, a little trimmed, was also placed on a three-inch one.
Coming home, put a floppy disk into the drive, and ... I could not believe my eyes. With a floppy disk, like a yo-yo from a snuffbox, OC loaded with a normal GUI! It was MenuetOS.
Try Windows on a floppy disk. Once I managed to cut Windows 95 to 12 MB. They say special craftsmen could otchikat another 4 meters, but with the loss of the ability to read CDs. And it was a completely naked system, in which there was not even a notebook. No software at all, only Windows.
But MenuetOS placed on a floppy disk is not naked. Look at the screenshot. There are only 3 file managers. And a bunch of other programs, including a little less than 20 games, a WEB browser, a POP3 client, IRC, development and debugging tools, a paint editor like Paint, a text editor with support for tabs and syntax highlighting (though only asm) and much more! But there are still many third-party programs. Even Doom and Quake have been ported for this OS!
')
And the speed! Sometimes it seems that the windows open even before you have time to click the button. Not surprisingly, MenuetOS, and all the programs in the distribution, are written exclusively in assembly language. Although I did not like this language in the university, I always admired his power.
And although MenuetOS was developed in Finland, now its operating systems based on Menuet are being developed in other countries, including Russia. We have created a MenuetOS port called KolibriOS. Russian developers have contributed a lot to the development of this operating system.
And looking at this magnificence, you begin to understand the full power of Open Source. Unlike commercial systems, Menuet feels the soul of the author. One can see with some trepidation the author and his associates belong to their OS, understanding that it has no future, such as, for example, Linux and Windows, but, despite this, they continue to develop. Already ready 64 bit system. In development, support for Unicode, codecs for popular audio / video formats, (maybe) support for USB devices and much more.
But still, does MenuetOS have at least some future? Well, why not? Once Linux was just fun for one (by the way, too) finals. And Linux had at first problems with hardware support, software availability. What prevents MenuetOS from repeating the path from rags to riches? For example, occupy a niche learning system. Or OS for various terminal devices, in shops, supermarkets, banks.
Although even if this does not happen, this OS has already played its useful role. On such projects, possibly initially dead-end, there is a run-in of ideas that can be applied in the future in adult systems. And I am sure that the developers of the “big” systems regularly study the code of such systems as Menuet, and find many useful ideas in it.
PS The first screenshot shows KolibriOS - the Russian port of MenuetOS.
MenuetOS official website
KolibriOS official website
Wikipedia page
Coming home, put a floppy disk into the drive, and ... I could not believe my eyes. With a floppy disk, like a yo-yo from a snuffbox, OC loaded with a normal GUI! It was MenuetOS.
Try Windows on a floppy disk. Once I managed to cut Windows 95 to 12 MB. They say special craftsmen could otchikat another 4 meters, but with the loss of the ability to read CDs. And it was a completely naked system, in which there was not even a notebook. No software at all, only Windows.
But MenuetOS placed on a floppy disk is not naked. Look at the screenshot. There are only 3 file managers. And a bunch of other programs, including a little less than 20 games, a WEB browser, a POP3 client, IRC, development and debugging tools, a paint editor like Paint, a text editor with support for tabs and syntax highlighting (though only asm) and much more! But there are still many third-party programs. Even Doom and Quake have been ported for this OS!
')
And the speed! Sometimes it seems that the windows open even before you have time to click the button. Not surprisingly, MenuetOS, and all the programs in the distribution, are written exclusively in assembly language. Although I did not like this language in the university, I always admired his power.
And although MenuetOS was developed in Finland, now its operating systems based on Menuet are being developed in other countries, including Russia. We have created a MenuetOS port called KolibriOS. Russian developers have contributed a lot to the development of this operating system.
And looking at this magnificence, you begin to understand the full power of Open Source. Unlike commercial systems, Menuet feels the soul of the author. One can see with some trepidation the author and his associates belong to their OS, understanding that it has no future, such as, for example, Linux and Windows, but, despite this, they continue to develop. Already ready 64 bit system. In development, support for Unicode, codecs for popular audio / video formats, (maybe) support for USB devices and much more.
But still, does MenuetOS have at least some future? Well, why not? Once Linux was just fun for one (by the way, too) finals. And Linux had at first problems with hardware support, software availability. What prevents MenuetOS from repeating the path from rags to riches? For example, occupy a niche learning system. Or OS for various terminal devices, in shops, supermarkets, banks.
Although even if this does not happen, this OS has already played its useful role. On such projects, possibly initially dead-end, there is a run-in of ideas that can be applied in the future in adult systems. And I am sure that the developers of the “big” systems regularly study the code of such systems as Menuet, and find many useful ideas in it.
PS The first screenshot shows KolibriOS - the Russian port of MenuetOS.
MenuetOS official website
KolibriOS official website
Wikipedia page
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/28069/
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