Kolibri OS?

I haven't done more than tinker with it in a virtual machine because it doesn't have Emacs.

Kolibri OS is one of those operating systems (a list which includes OSes like Plan9, Oberon, QNX and FreeDOS) which really fascinates me, somehow those system invoke the question "How much Mhz / Ghz would you need if everything would be kept minimal and lean? How much bloat is in current systems?".

Thank you for the reminder, i think its time to grab my old Thinkpad again and start tinkering...

I have not played with Kolibri OS, but I have played a bit with Genode/ScultptOS. And I have always taken an interest in the "Microkernel and component based OS" Developer Room at FOSDEM. Start here to wet your appetite

Once you look, you will find out that the space of small operating systems is surprisingly large. I have written about small systems I'm aware of here:

I am a big fan of alternative, lightweight operating systems. I still often get the impulse to wipe the linux and use exclusively plan9 in an old little netbook which is where I do all my programming.

The screenshot on KolibriOS actually looks very very nice. I am actually sick of the proliferation of graphic and desktop environments in linux, one more area that gives me headaches with the dependency trees, compilation times, and the endless variety in libraries and languages that all promise to aid in building a nice UI but ends up becoming cumbersome for someone who simply wants a versatile tool to get from A to B.

I've been actually planning on attacking this issue head-on in linux, which is the subject of a post I'm planning to write, eventually.

i haven't heard of it but i find it so funny that it calls linux a heavyweight when im already as fast as 5 seconds boot time with linux