Haiku Developers Begin Optimizing Their BeOS-Inspired OS For Performance

[danmcgrew]

No, the fastest that is still maintained is KolibriOS.

KolibriOS: a pre-emptive, multi-tasking operating system written entirely in Assembly Language. Earlier versions booted in less than three seconds. So much more development has been performed that the resulting bloat has increased the boot time to ten seconds. If you value bragging rights over simply getting a job done, stay away. This is only a 32-bit OS.

"KolibriOS is a tiny yet incredibly powerful and fast operating system. This power requires only a few megabyte disk space and 8MB of RAM to run..."

https://kolibrios.org/en/

https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=kolibri

Article showing a 3-second boot:

https://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/kolibrios.html

[Vistaus]

KolibriOS: a pre-emptive, multi-tasking operating system written entirely in Assembly Language. Earlier versions booted in less than three seconds. So much more development has been performed that the resulting bloat has increased the boot time to ten seconds. If you value bragging rights over simply getting a job done, stay away. This is only a 32-bit OS.

"KolibriOS is a tiny yet incredibly powerful and fast operating system. This power requires only a few megabyte disk space and 8MB of RAM to run..."

https://kolibrios.org/en/

https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=kolibri

Article showing a 3-second boot:
https://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/kolibrios.html

The latest builds still boot in a few seconds for me, but the point was fastest in general, not just in boot times.

[danmcgrew]

The latest builds still boot in a few seconds for me, but the point was fastest in general, not just in boot times.

Admittedly; apologies for seeming to fixate on boot time--assumed readers would correlate that with KolibriOS's blazing speed; this is due, in large part, to being written in assembly language and being pre-emptive.
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"Without a doubt, KolibriOS wins the award for the most ambitious project in this feature. It's a fully fledged OS written entirely in assembly language. The KolibriOS team has managed to squeeze pre-emptive multitasking, a graphical desktop, TCP/IP networking, USB support, media playback and many other features onto a 1.44MB floppy disk.
Booting 'kolibri.img' brings you to the desktop in just a couple of seconds. There's a Windows-like Start menu and taskbar along the bottom of the screen, and the desktop is littered with small utilities.
It's all tremendously impressive...it shows what can be achieved with careful coding, especially as we're so used to bloatware nowadays."

https://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/10-operating-systems-you-ve-never-heard-of-657469/2

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Linux Magazine--
"Little Friend”
Article from Issue 204/2017
Author(s): Erik Bärwaldt

“... KolibriOS is particularly impressive thanks to its fantastic speed that even outshines minimalistic Linux derivatives such as SliTaz...
“...A small Linux, however, can easily fit on an older system. Lightweight distros such as Lubuntu, Puppy, and Damn Small Linux are all supported by loyal communities that see big value in a small footprint. But what if you want to get really small – and I mean really really small?..."
“...KolibriOS requires only a few Megabytes of disk space and it runs on 8MB of RAM...”

http://www.linux-magazine.com/Issues/2017/204/KolibriOS

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"KolibriOS is simply superb...
...It is blindingly fast, and very easy to navigate and use. The interface is very clean and precise...”

From DW’s ‘Reader Ratings’, KolibriOS.

https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=kolibri