Kolibri OS GRUB2 menu entry

Kolibri OS is another alternative operating system that is non-Windows, non-Linux. It is a super lightweight OS that was branched off from Menuet OS from 2004. It uses very little storage space and very light on hardware resources. I got intrigued with it when I happened to bump into a YouTube video showing how super fast it booted up!

Until now I still haven’t got a chance to try out Menuet OS because it needed to rawwrite onto a 1.44” floppy disk. I haven’t gotten around to collecting the stuff to try it out and then this KolibriOS came along. Ok, since they should be similar I will try this first. Besides this operating system felt simpler to prepare. The image was an ISO file and it was just a matter of burning it to a CDRW to give it a go.

After giving the live CD a spin, I decided to see if I could include it as part of my multiboot PC. Inside the ISO there was an instruction file (install.txt) to get you started for dual booting it. There were several methods and the one I’m looking for is to dual boot with Linux using GRUB2.

It took me a while to figure it out, and once it was sorted out, booting it was a breeze. Per their install.txt info:

menuentry 'KolibriOS' {
      linux16 (hd[Hard disk number],[partition number])[path]/memdisk
      initrd16 (hd[Hard disk number],[partition number])[path]/kolibri.img
      }

I used back the FossaPup partition and set up KolibriOS in its own folder. First create a folder, called “kolibriOS” or whatever you fancy. Then copy the entire ISO content into the KolibriOS folder.

Look inside the HD_Load folder and copy the “memdisk” file and place it in the same folder as “kolibri.img”

Key in the GRUB2 menu entry in the “40_custom” located in the “/etc/grub.d/” folder of Linux operating systems that would boot up from the PC. As example, my KolibriOS was copied to the fist hard disk (hd0) on the 5th partition (msdos5) making the GRUB2 menuentry as below:

menuentry 'KolibriOS' {
    linux16 (hd0,msdos5)/kolibriOS/memdisk
    initrd16 (hd0,msdos5)/kolibriOS/kolibri.img
    }

Save the file and type “sudo update-grub” in the terminal console. Once updated, proceed with rebooting and try out. If all was done well, it should boot up super quick.

KolibriOS is a simple and super lightweight operating system and generally worked on my Pentium 4, Pentium Dual-Core and Core 2 Duo computers without much issue. I’m still playing around with it and it’s good so far. A couple of hangs while trying to play some built-in games, but generally quite ok. Probably not going to be used for serious work as it hasn’t reached that level of OS sophistication. Would like to see how the open-source community would steer its direction as an alternative operating system.

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