Board.KolibriOS.org

I have noticed that the application nsinstall will download netsurf to /tmp0/1, but however I navigate there, I have found no way to actually run the application. The nsinstall doesn’t put it anywhere immediately obvious to begin with, but regardless, once it is successfully downloaded, how do you run it? Also, can that data be moved and written to the working environment (the ramdisk image I’m booting the system with?)

I am posting an update of my findings in this thread for newcomers looking for answers, or in other words, historical purposes. I would honestly welcome any corrections!

As of this posting, it is not inaccurate to say Kolibri doesn't really have much of a web browser. There is a built-in browser called webview that is a text based browser, but doesn't seem to work with too many sites. You will find an app icon called nsinstall on the desktop that supposedly downloads and installs netsurf, something more like an actual web browser. As it turns out, for Kolibri specifically, this is entirely dead. When you run this, it downloads some data that does not include an executable binary. I found a sort of debug console that outputs what the OS is doing when running certain things.

This "installer" tries to download data from the personal site of some guy named "ashmew", and that data is no longer present. In digging around thru these very forums, he was apparently helping develop for the project at some point. His site no longer hosts the netsurf binary and the guy stopped working on this stuff about three years ago (2016 was the last I read things correctly.) So as it stands, there is no current internet browser available for Kolibri.

Those things alone are a bit discouraging, and it would look like the project is either dead or almost dead right? However, I don't think so. Indeed the latest OS images are dated from June of 2019 on the Kolibrios.org website. There's also a website for something called Kolibri-N (Kolibri Next), but unfortunately for me I don't read Russian so I'm not sure what all is happening over there. All in all, my guess is that development is still ongoing, but it's such a small group of people that things are obviously not going to be moving quickly. I never had interest in coding after trying it once in high school, it was just not something I could get my head into, but man I wish I were the type. I'm betting this project needs any help it can get.

For the time being, I'm going to maintain some loyalty because despite it's lack of....well a lot, to me this little OS is really something beautiful and unique. Being as small as it is and easy to boot, I implore you if you're a newcomer or someone just tinkering around to keep an eye on this project. I believe it will eventually have some of the basic necessities it needs like a browser and a proper text editor. But please excuse my rambling.

In the meantime, no, netsurf is not happening right now. I have not been able to ascertain what it is in the works, if anything at all, but We will see what the future brings. Good luck everyone.

if thou are don`t read russian just use kolibriN download link
http://kolibri-n.org/files/KolibriN10.zip
I suppose when new versions will come digits 1 and 0 will be updated to correspond new version (other URL parts remain untouched).

I have downloaded that image and have added it to my GRUB to try it out.

Kolibri-N is in Russian, but because I am getting comfortable with the regular Kolibri OS, I can get around just fine. It would not hurt me to learn some Cyrillic text would it It's a beautiful language in my opinion.

Can I ask you.....other than visual changes, what are the differences between "Kolibri OS" and "Kolibri-N"? Are they separate projects? Is regular development still happening for Kolibri OS or is all effort dedicated to Kolibri-N now? I just want to know which project I should be following as a regular end-user. Thank you sir.

differences is about 70 megabytes.
While kolibriOS is minimalistic (couple of skins, couple of etc.) - 1,440Mb (but it too fully workable and contain up to date core & api).
KolibriN is 72Mb and include everething ever developed for Kolibri and compatibable with current version.

they both evolve in parallel (Kolibri evolves step by step, KolibriN by commulative updates (of step by steps)).

You are very kind for responding. Thank you.

I wish Kolibri-N were available in full English as well. In the meantime though, I am now using both

Very happy to have found Kolibri. If there is any way I (as a regular user) can help support the project (besides talking about it in videos and social media), please let me know.

Hi MrNobody,

Glad to see a rare well-qualified guest.
Hope you'll find something useful here for your projects, and will improve something you might find improvable.
There are no language barriers in the open asm code...

10 years ago I suddenly discovered this project and made an exokernel fork 'Kolibri-A' for my own hardware applications.
Nobody dictated me what to do - just do it if you feel need to.

...but (in the other hand) there is usually nobody here to ask an advise as well - please dig yourself inside their code, and get the answers there.