zlacker

>>luke2m+(OP)
KolibriOS is an open-source Operating System for x86 (32-bit, 586-class and above). It is entirely written in assembly (assembled with FASM). It requires only 8MB of RAM to boot. It has a TCP/IP stack and USB support. It has a graphical user interface which is actually on par with most of the "lightweight" Linux window managers, such as LXDE (but I think LXDE is probably larger than this entire OS lol). It fits on a single floppy.

>>phendr+ko
I remember when I could (and did) run Linux on a 486 with 8MB of RAM and 200MB of HD. Ran X11, fvwm, emacs, Netscape. It used to be possible. These things were done in the 90s :-)

>>cmrdpo+tz
fvwm is still updated, and it still consumes very few resources. Apart from Netscape, nothing is stopping you from recreating that experience, heh.

>>ainar-+4A
For anyone interested in trying, remember to cut down your kernel. The default kernel on my (64 bit, granted) laptop is 12MB, compressed, without any modules.

NetBSD is a bit easier to run on 8MB systems these days. Still not super easy, but less fat to trim off. I think you might still need to trim down the default kernel, but at least there is a premade config for that (GENERIC_TINY)

If you're daring, it should work on 4 MB machines... ;)

>>spijda+4Q
> remember to cut down your kernel.

yes, my Linux kernel is 3.4M, bz2 compressed. Unfortunately, some things are no more possible to get removed from the kernel, like the xattr in ext4.