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Help and Support => Archives => wattOS R11 => Topic started by: biffster on March 25, 2017, 04:56:26 PM

Title: General Announcement
Post by: biffster on March 25, 2017, 04:56:26 PM
Hi all ! This is the area were the information on wattOS R11 will live.

We will be changing things up with development this time around as I would like a more transparent process, and to actually hit a release date. :) - Those of you who have been around know that has been sometimes a moving target. In any case, look for updates here next week on how that works. I have plans to put up a Kanban board that members can view and look at the development progress, programs, dates, and other information relative to wattOS.

Thanks for the patience, and support as always. Its a bit of a thankless job for folks here in the forums sometimes, but its always appreciated.
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: bob on March 25, 2017, 09:23:51 PM
wattOS R10 was great, looking forward to R11!!!!!!
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: blaze on March 26, 2017, 08:08:48 PM
No worry boss, stay  8)
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: CharlieK on March 30, 2017, 09:27:19 AM
I can't wait! Still using it on both systems and loving it!
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: gideon277 on April 02, 2017, 04:10:55 PM
I have been around from the beginning I have been absent from the board for a long while as work has been crazy.  I had to reregister but I remamber the days prior to the 64bit version etc.  Working with R10 right now and looking forward to R11.
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: meleeman on April 27, 2017, 10:35:30 PM
Really excited for the new release. hopefully will be stable for my system.
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: veggie on June 27, 2017, 02:40:06 PM
Hello . Can you put scrot simple in WattOs 11 or just dont put it  ?  I would like to have scrot set like automatically ......we hit the print screen and the photo goes to the image  folder. In wattOs 10 when I hit the printscreen on the keyboard it send a pop up saying if I want to save it and so on. That is useles to me because I need to take several screenshots in seconds.
So If the scrot is set automatically to put the screenshot into the image folder that would be perfect. 

This is the only reason why I am not using WattOS 10. You could just take the scrot off in WattOs 11 and then I could install it. As it is now its worthless to me cause everytime I tried to screenshot it comes with that pop up thing saying if I want to save it where I want to save the screenshot etc .. thats a waste of time. I need to take several screenshots in seconds. Do you understand what I mean ?

Thank You
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: teejay on June 28, 2017, 01:22:57 AM
@veggie
If you want to use R10 but need that default changed, you might look at this :

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/42746/how-can-i-take-a-screenshot-in-lxde-using-scrot-and-the-print-screen-button-on-m   

It looks to me as if scrot config is in the file noted, so any change to add the "file location prompt" could be there too.   

If you are using microwatt, then you should got to the i3 FAQ.
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: leenie on June 29, 2017, 12:15:32 AM
Anyone can install scrot via synaptic.
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: veggie on July 06, 2017, 08:55:31 AM
Obviously when I come here I already tried to uninstall what was there in WattOS10 but when I install it again it doesnt install by  default ... it comes with that same pop up thing etc......
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: blaze on August 30, 2017, 06:40:50 PM
And now five months later...what is happening?  :)
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: biffster on September 09, 2017, 03:21:32 PM
Hi Blaze - good question. Look for an update this weekend with details. Working on that now :)
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: blaze on September 10, 2017, 08:35:48 PM
Very good answer!  8)
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: biffster on September 13, 2017, 03:12:02 AM
Hi all,

Thanks for the patience - Below is a Trello board for those who would like to track progress of the various items, and periodically look for updates, comments, decisions, etc.

https://trello.com/b/EruMNqr2/wattos-r11-dev-test (https://trello.com/b/EruMNqr2/wattos-r11-dev-test)

The most relevant news you probably care about is "when, and what"

That will be that R11 will be released on 10-26, and will be a remaster of 17.10 :)

The plan there is to support it just like Ubuntu until July 2018. This gives folks something to try/play/test and use until R12 comes out which will be LTS just like Ubuntu and will occur a week following the release just like this one.

The most important thing that we will need between now and early October are suggestions, questions, and apps/things you would like to see. The Trello board will be the working canvas for this. The board is read only, but public, but I need a couple of trusted volunteers who will have access to add new requests, questions, topics to the board. Feel free to throw them here in the forums and they will get added also, but the board will be the "official" canvas of what is being done for this release. I would suggest we use this release just like Ubuntu does to try new things, looks at things and consider what we want our LTS R12 to look like :)

Of course Blaze and Leenie and Cheiron come to mind, but I am open to discussing others if you want to help contribute in a constructive way. The most important trait is to be available to help and add things, comment, discuss, etc. as needed. The tempo of things over the next 6 weeks will be much more active obviously than the previous 6 months :)

Onward and upward.....

Biff
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: prassee on September 21, 2017, 04:32:53 AM
Iam using WattOS for a couple of months now and Iam happy using it.   Do guys have any plans to support Wayland by replacing X11. Especially for i3 there already exist a drop-in alternative called Sway (http://swaywm.org/) .
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: biffster on September 22, 2017, 04:46:06 AM
Great question on i3 and sway...Not likely on R11 release.

I am an avid i3 user and have used it for 4+ years as my primary interface. I have also tested sway. I think I would like it to "bake" for a little longer so it might be an R12 release, but not thinking for R11 at this point, but watch for the release notes to be sure, we still have a month to go and who knows I could be "swayed" ...ha :)

Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: heripunk on October 04, 2017, 07:14:13 PM
Consider using the Pale Moon browser as default in the following versions of WattOS, greetings from Mexico
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: veggie on October 24, 2017, 01:32:05 AM
Pale Moon Browser is good :) I have it running :) Good old Firefox look
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: prassee on October 29, 2017, 12:30:11 PM
is R11 release on the way or we have any issues to release it
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: blaze on October 30, 2017, 05:03:09 AM
On it`s way probably. The homepage says: "R11 Coming soon!". Have patience, and remember that devs got a life too. ;)
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: prassee on October 31, 2017, 01:37:09 AM
Its "on its way " ever since R10 got released  :). But I realize that devs have life too  :) :) :) :) :)
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: pezfeo on November 04, 2017, 08:51:05 PM
I thought R11 was coming out Oct. 26...  my main HDD is nearly full,  I need to repartition and adjust partitions sizes.
Was waiting for R11, but the situation can't wait.... guess I will have to use Lubuntu for a bit.
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: blaze on November 08, 2017, 09:37:39 AM
Guess so pezfeo, sounds also like you need an external storage disk? It is always good to have a backup! ;D
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: pezfeo on November 12, 2017, 09:24:59 AM
+blaze, you offering a HDD? :D I have two 640gb hdd but my motherboard only has 2 sata connectors so I need to buy a 2gb+ hdd
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: blaze on November 13, 2017, 08:13:27 AM
Sorry pezfeo, I do not have a spare hd with the storage volume you probably need. What you need is a new motherboard with six sata connectors ;D

Or seriously, get yourself an external storage disk connected with usb for simple backup and storage. Your very own personal cloud. An alternative for you? :)
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: veggie on November 24, 2017, 02:49:38 PM
I hope it comes with LXDE  :)The LxqT is nonsense. I have tried the LxqT and it has a lot of software and is very heavy on the machine.
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: biffster on November 24, 2017, 05:15:44 PM
Happy Thanksgiving all...apologies for the delay...non-computer life gets in the way sometimes. :)

More updates this week, all is good....There will not be LXQT - so no worries - it will be LXDE

cheers
biff
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: prassee on December 10, 2017, 01:21:24 AM
when R11 is coming ....
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: ginnie on December 16, 2017, 11:22:23 AM
is WATT OS still alive...or partly passed away? ???
try using USB stick installed LIVE R10 but can't install to HD...breakdown installing GRUB2 ...always using live release is not my favored thing...
greets from german coastline... ;-)  :-\
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: blaze on December 17, 2017, 05:12:53 PM
Hi ginnie and welcome to the forums. :)

wattOS is still alive and well as far as I know, but as you see here, this is not a very intense moment for the distro. ;)

Please consider open up a help thread about your install problems. I can assure you that there are someone here checking out the situation regulary. Remember to include all possible information about your install trouble, what you have done, and what you not have done. And be prepared to answer some follow up questions too. Most important, stay  8)
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: ginnie on December 18, 2017, 07:11:42 PM
thank you @blaze... try another run and will send a short report within narrow time frame...
CU  ;)
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: biffster on January 02, 2018, 06:39:18 PM
Alive and well...apologies to all for the slow roll right now. Will get this cleaned up and updated this week! Thanks to all who are minding the forums...its appreciated. :) - All is good and welcome to 2018.

tks
biff
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: prassee on January 03, 2018, 07:22:10 AM
can we expect a R11 release atleast this year?
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: leenie on January 03, 2018, 01:18:46 PM
Thank you Biff for the update! I have a computer specially picked out for our new release!
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: paolo on January 03, 2018, 02:33:50 PM
Thanks Biff!
I am a newbie here and I am happy to see WattOs alive!
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: blaze on January 04, 2018, 04:04:34 PM
Thanks for the update. Sounds  8)
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: bob on January 09, 2018, 08:13:39 PM
Any update??
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: veggie on January 10, 2018, 02:41:54 AM
WattOS could be a distro following  only  Ubuntu LTS releases. Mint is doing that. Just an idea.
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: drizzt on January 11, 2018, 07:02:25 AM
I guess with Meltdown and Spectre, things might get delayed further?
Anyway, in general, I rather wait for a more 'solid' version - than have something less 'solid' because of needing to have it out by a certian date.  But that's just my (newbie) opinion.   It is probably a 'chicken and egg' situation, that.  I can only leave it to the experts...  : )
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: biffster on January 12, 2018, 11:15:10 PM
Hi all,

Things are good...yes I have been slowed a bit with real world issues (I work for income in Infosec and healthcare). In any case, I think its probably prudent to go ahead and follow 18.04 since its now only 3 months away. (probably best unless someone has a burning desire otherwise)

That being said, I am still playing with 17.10 mostly to test out what works well or not. I still want to "bake" the features list and see if we can polish this release well and squish some of the longer term bugs that have been around.

I am spending some time this weekend as I am home and not in a crisis I believe (someone could always call the biff-phone) and some screens of some things might be forthcoming. Thanks again for those lingering about and helping/providing feedback as we get close to year 10 :)

biff

Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: ulisseskat on January 13, 2018, 12:52:14 PM
Really aprecciate the news update; thanks a lot!
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: blaze on January 14, 2018, 08:23:38 PM
Thanks for the update biff. The only logical thing to do at the moment. See you around people and keep it  8)
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: paolo on January 14, 2018, 10:49:44 PM
thanks for tour info Biff. Microwatt 10 wirh i3 is one of the best lite distro.My netbook now work better than ever.
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: bob on January 21, 2018, 04:52:59 PM
Thanks for the update. ;)
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: damendieta on February 14, 2018, 11:15:58 PM
I'm really glad to see that you keep on development of this distro.

Microwatt is excelent and my default distro.

Thanks for your excelent work.
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: blaze on March 23, 2018, 03:06:12 PM
@biffster, I think it could be a good idea to change the R11 info at the wattOS blog page. It is a little bit yesterdayish. ;)
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: biffster on April 03, 2018, 02:12:22 PM
Yeah probably :) - also since its time to get with it again since 18.04 is right around the corner. Final Beta is April 5th...thats when my fun begins :)
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: leenie on April 04, 2018, 03:50:07 PM
Are we doing a test version?
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: biffster on April 06, 2018, 12:09:41 AM
Yes there will be a test :) and I am playing right now with it...Everyone has been great and patient, but now its time to get back to it...Look for many updates over the next couple weeks as beta ends and 18.04 goes final and we will do one private invite test version, and then release for real :) - Time to dust things off...new work is happening now.

(http://planetwatt.com/pics/r11/R11-beta.jpg)
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: leenie on April 06, 2018, 12:50:59 PM
You know I'm in. Puter is ready!
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: veggie on September 09, 2018, 05:33:02 AM
How is WattOS 11 doing?
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: cheiron on September 09, 2018, 01:07:53 PM
We think Biff has been kidnapped by aliens and abducted at the moment due to his current job and his hours.. but please bear with us!
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: blaze on September 15, 2018, 08:42:25 AM
^In that case maybe we should call Kirk and Spock for a rescue mission! ;)
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: veggie on September 24, 2018, 09:09:17 AM
What about making WattOS a Rolling Stable Release with the LXDE  flavour ? That way less work :) Could be a Arch or Debian spin :) Just a idea I had.
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: biffster on September 25, 2018, 02:24:06 AM
Back from the planet Vulcan...Survived Spock's 7 year Pon Farr. Apologies folks for the lack of communication. Especially those of you who have stuck around. I will be posting some more news in a couple days. Battle On! :)
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: blaze on September 28, 2018, 03:29:22 PM
No worry, just keep it  8) No news is good news sometimes  ;)
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: veggie on December 02, 2018, 11:14:45 AM
I went to see the Distrowatch page and it says WattOS OS dorment. So what is going on?
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: blaze on December 09, 2018, 04:25:08 PM
Quote from: veggie on December 02, 2018, 11:14:45 AM
I went to see the Distrowatch page and it says WattOS OS dorment. So what is going on?

Only biffster can answer that. But dorment means, and this is a direct quote from Distrowatch;

"A distribution which has not put out a new release in two or more years is marked as being Dormant in our database. The distribution may still be worked on, but has not published any new stable releases. When a dormant distribution publishes a new stable release it is then marked as being Active. A project may also be marked as dormant if it no longer plans to put out future releases, ie planned inactivity, while older releases are maintained."
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: veggie on December 15, 2018, 12:27:31 PM
I hope WattOs has scrot as default so I can take  several screenshots in seconds and also LXDE. LXQT is horrible with tons of software and really heavy. LXDE is magic for old laptops and desktops.
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: smccrary on April 03, 2019, 01:50:50 PM
Any update on R11 Microwatt ?  Anything the community can do to help the process?

I am loving my R10 i3 install, but it is a bit dated at this point.






Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: veggie on April 21, 2019, 04:08:57 PM
Any News ? Biffster?
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: biffster on July 24, 2019, 03:49:59 AM
I hear people are looking for me  ;D

Apologies folks. I know things seem dead. I would explain what I am doing, but it would be complicated. Lets just say I have responsibilities that cross 3 time zones and thousands of people and am fighting the infosec stuff every day. :)

I've actually been thinking about it and think it might be an opportunity to "re-tool" and maybe get creative and collab on the release.

So with that I will open this question....What are the things that are most relevant to you today for an OS? What distro is your jam? What window manager, biggest pains, etc. I still love minimalism, and run i3 window manager and build things by scratch.

But what really matters now in 2019? Fire away and give me some thoughts? (also probably going to just blow the whole web site up and start fresh, but keep an archive...(both the last version and this one, but again..being a web master is about 30th on the list right now)...so steady state there...
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: torddu on July 24, 2019, 11:12:53 AM
Greetings from the Highlands of Scotland.

I'm quite new to this forum, but have been using Watt R10 for a while now.

Please; no apologies for having a life! 

Thankyou for bringing Watt OS into the World.

As someone who is a reasonably competent "operator", but in no sense of the word a "technician", my own needs from an OS are fairly simplistic:

(i)  It actually works and does what was originally intended of it.  Not all distros are equal in this respect.
(ii)  It will run on low-end machinery and give a decent battery life when used on a laptop.
(iii)  It allows the performance of basic tasks such as browsing and dealing with documents and images.
(iv)  It can be added to as the need arises and it is difficult to break the system by doing so.
(v)  It is easy to re-trace your steps and fix it if (iv) results in breakage.

You can probably see from this how I came to settle on Watt OS in the first place...

My all-time favourite distro (and the one I still occasionally use on my old Eeepc 701 4G when I've screwed everthing else up...) is Easypeasy.

My machinery:

Mid 2007 iMac running El Capitan
MSI U180 running Watt R10 32-bit
Eeepc 701sd running Watt R10 32-bit
Eeepc 701 4G running Debian Jessie

Best Wishes to all.


Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: leenie on July 24, 2019, 01:14:25 PM
Hi Biff,
Glad you are OK. My needs on computer are to use a light weight as possible system and still have LXDE.
I am using an old business computer, Intel Core Quad CPU Q6700 @ 2.66 GHz, 8 Gb ram and AMD Cedar graphics.
I just need Chromium and I add all the rest.

At work I use FreeOffice 2018, Gimage Reader, Iscan, Recoll, Gimp and Chromium on iMac 11,2, 4 Gb ram. It would
be nice to have the fan control actually work properly. A fellow employee allowed my work computer to overheat...will
be changing hard drive this weekend.
Leenie
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: cheiron on July 24, 2019, 06:57:40 PM
Firstly wb Biff! you have been missed sorely.


Whats important on an OS for me.. hmm... smooth interface, lightweight sub 700mb installer (you can always add what you want).. a nice lxde interface and good support for today's hardware (i'm now running ryzen 5's with gpu's and surround sound which linux sucks at supporting) and the ability to use all my cpu cores.


Thats pretty much where i stand.. R10 was a darn fine follow up to the 9 and I felt just needed to be polished a little bit
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: veggie on July 26, 2019, 12:45:08 AM
Helllo Biffster ;) Well ;) I wish to have WattOS with LXDE :) Light and fast :) with Scrot so that I can take 20,30,40,50 screenshots quick and easy :) . For the rest I would like to have a rolling release stable perhaps Debian Stable or Arch  :) and thats it :)
We have a good oportunity of having a LXDE linux with many followers because Lubuntu gave up LXDE for good and other distros also gave up LXDE and are now LXQT.
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: leenie on July 26, 2019, 04:32:03 PM
@veggie, I like the idea of rolling release. However LXDE is not supported anymore...Maybe go with XFCE?
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: cheiron on July 26, 2019, 04:34:24 PM
Quote from: leenie on July 26, 2019, 04:32:03 PM
@veggie, I like the idea of rolling release. However LXDE is not supported anymore...Maybe go with XFCE?


I think i'd prefer mate due to gtk3 over xfce but either would do for me
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: veggie on July 26, 2019, 10:12:01 PM
Quote from: leenie on July 26, 2019, 04:32:03 PM
@veggie, I like the idea of rolling release. However LXDE is not supported anymore...Maybe go with XFCE?

what ? Not Supported??? Manjaro has a LXDE version
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: leenie on July 27, 2019, 03:44:57 AM
I did search: https://www.startpage.com/do/dsearch?query=lxde+not+supported&cat=web&pl=opensearch&language=english
I think that is why Lubuntu is going to LXQT.
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: cheiron on July 27, 2019, 11:38:56 AM
Quote from: leenie on July 27, 2019, 03:44:57 AM
I did search: https://www.startpage.com/do/dsearch?query=lxde+not+supported&cat=web&pl=opensearch&language=english (https://www.startpage.com/do/dsearch?query=lxde+not+supported&cat=web&pl=opensearch&language=english)
I think that is why Lubuntu is going to LXQT.


Straight from LXDE veggie ...
Final release (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_release_life_cycle)

0.99.2 / 22 November 2016; 2 years ago[/t]

In 2013, they announced the LXQT project as they werent happy with the GTK3 which is a shame and decided to carry with the QT side of things


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LXQt (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LXQt)


as for Manjaro...


https://manjaro.org/download/ (https://manjaro.org/download/)


they are only offering XFCE, KDE and Gnome really now...
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: veggie on July 27, 2019, 12:16:17 PM
Quote from: cheiron on July 27, 2019, 11:38:56 AM
Quote from: leenie on July 27, 2019, 03:44:57 AM
I did search: https://www.startpage.com/do/dsearch?query=lxde+not+supported&cat=web&pl=opensearch&language=english (https://www.startpage.com/do/dsearch?query=lxde+not+supported&cat=web&pl=opensearch&language=english)
I think that is why Lubuntu is going to LXQT.


Straight from LXDE veggie ...
Final release (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_release_life_cycle)

0.99.2 / 22 November 2016; 2 years ago[/t]

In 2013, they announced the LXQT project as they werent happy with the GTK3 which is a shame and decided to carry with the QT side of things


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LXQt (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LXQt)


as for Manjaro...


https://manjaro.org/download/ (https://manjaro.org/download/)


they are only offering XFCE, KDE and Gnome really now...



Here it is >>> Manjaro LXDE Community Edition >>>  https://osdn.net/projects/manjaro-community/storage/lxde/
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: cheiron on July 27, 2019, 02:45:21 PM
Ah yeah.. the community side based on 18.04. its not on the official circuit though. make the most of it whilst its there
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: herndon.jeffreys on July 30, 2019, 12:42:45 AM
Hello Biffster:I

Thanks so much for posting....  and don't be sorry for having a life.  What I look for is:

(1) Lightweight - I loved LXDE.  LXQT is ok, but feels heavier and slower.  I have a single core with 2 GB of ram. 
(2) A Rolling Release that is based on "Stable" version (Debian???).   I am not aware of ANY rolling stable releases.   
(3) Base Programs used most often - LibreOffice, KOrganizer, KAddressbook, KFind, Gimp, and KeepPassX. I also use a couple  of Windows based programs....  so compatibility is important
(4) If Stable Rolling Release isn't possible, is there a way to make it so personal data is saved during fresh install?  That would be new and different and would save a lot of time in upgrading.... It really does take a lot of time on a fresh install to bring it back up to speed....
and I don't think anyone has done that.

Thanks again for all that you do!

Hern
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: herndon.jeffreys on July 30, 2019, 12:49:02 AM
Sorry, one other thing on the wish list....  32 bit as well as 64 bit...  I still use a 32 bit computer.  I live in a rural area with spotty satellite internet, so have not upgraded to newer computer able to handle faster internet; there is no need to invest in the latest greatest.

Thanks again for asking, Biffster

Hern
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: paolo on August 04, 2019, 02:27:43 PM
hello to you all and hello Biff, I am very happy to see all these message here after all the silence.
for me the best is something like  Microwatt 10,
maybe Debian based (rolling? wow!) on my eepc with a new battery I have 9 hours of standby (!)
Thanks for all
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: paolo on August 05, 2019, 12:59:16 PM
Biff

I am in holiday far from home and from my laptop.
I must admit I miss Microwatt 10, the best distro I use from the time I start using Gnu/Linux in 2002.
Also I have tried many time to add the "battery magic" of WattOs to others distro but I never have the perfection I find in Microwatt.
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: cheiron on August 10, 2019, 05:19:31 PM
Building on the "Microwatt" stable.. it might be interesting to see if we could develop the ultimate lightweight based on SliTaz (Wattaz  ;D ;D ;D ;D ) 32bit fully compatable... and a truly barmy 192mb ram requirement would see all old pc's supported still..


Browsers on Slit are Midori.. you have support for todays wifi too.. runs via QT / Openbox


Food for cheeky thought ! ISO size.. a truly cd busting ... sub 200mb bwahahahaa


However.. all is not silver lined.. as Spectre and Meltdown come into play.....
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: blaze on August 20, 2019, 09:37:21 AM
First of all, nice to hear from you biffster, and that things are good.  8)

Quote from: biffster on July 24, 2019, 03:49:59 AM
I still love minimalism, and run i3 window manager and build things by scratch.

Second, why not this? A minimal i3 release, based on LTS, with a minimal setup that you would like to find yourself if you should download an iso and install it.

Leave the rest to the user. Installations of applications, alternative WM or DE and configurations. That opens up for discussions in the forum, and there would probably be very little to maintain in the base that you create. Not much work after the release! ;D

Plus the users can enjoy tinkering if they want to, and hopefully learn a trick or three. The important thing here is that you do what is right for you, and something that you can live with and be proud of.

Just me blazing away as usual.  ::)
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: herndon.jeffreys on August 20, 2019, 12:36:06 PM
Hello Biff:

I agree with Blaze... you need to do what is right for you and your life. 

His idea sounds interesting...  would that be something like Porteus used to be except based on LTS?  Minimal, but you choose the DE you want?  I don't think it would have to be fancy with a web page with "buttons" to choose the DE, browser, etc....  maybe just some instructions on how to install the DE. 

It would still be great if it were a "stable" rolling release.... maybe even less work for you in the long run, but I am grateful for whatever you do!
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: paolo on August 20, 2019, 04:13:31 PM
Hello Biff

I too agree whit Blaze,
Microwatt forever.

I have a request: how to add the Battery Magic from Wattos to other distros? My netbook eeepc  1001px have 9 hours of standby with Microwatt and a new battery of 6000 mah <3
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: Nuihc88 on August 28, 2019, 08:15:40 PM
Hi, i have previously used WattOS as a base system for some of my eeePC laptop setups, but never posted here before as the project seemed dead by the time i found it. Anyway, here's what i'd want to see in future versions of WattOS:

Moksha Desktop Support (with Everything Starter as panel menu by default)
- Responsive and lightweight, while still having both a nice set of usability features and eye-candy.

Tuned Kernel(s) (like XanMod, Liquorix and/or Zen)
- For better CPU frequency-scaling & Underclocking support, plus extra responsiveness on old hardware.
- Automatic configuration of kernel modules like 'eeepc_laptop' (for eeePC Super Hybrid Engine support) out of the box would also be a great time saver.

Improved Tiny Resolution Support
- Something akin to 'maximus', (but preferrably more configurable,) to make large windows fit smaller displays better.

Continued 32-bit Support
- Lots of Distros are dropping it these days, yet nothing currently on the market really even seems like an upgrade compared to an upgraded eeePC.

Increased Modularity (in form of things like):
- Inplace System Upgrades.
- Repository of commonly used extra repositories organized by category.
- GUI for adding & removing of kernel modules (with descriptions of what they do).
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: cheiron on August 29, 2019, 08:12:46 PM
Quite a few programs i havent seen in a loooooong time there!!


Never been too much of a fan with E17 though .. Did Moksha fix all the problems and half finished stuff that plagues E17 and Bodhi ?
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: Nuihc88 on August 31, 2019, 12:49:30 AM
Quote from: cheiron on August 29, 2019, 08:12:46 PM
Quite a few programs i havent seen in a loooooong time there!!
Yeah, haven't been using linux much in the last 3 years; been mainly into ReactOS & Android lately.
Last i saw of maximus i think it was a mod of a port of a clone of a fork of an unofficial patched version, as an extension for some other window manager :P; never worked quite right, but for 1024x600 resolution, it was much better than nothing.
Quote from: cheiron on August 29, 2019, 08:12:46 PM
Never been too much of a fan with E17 though .. Did Moksha fix all the problems and half finished stuff that plagues E17 and Bodhi ?
I haven't used Enlightenment Desktop much so i can't really do a proper comparison between the two, but Moksha is actively developed and i didn't run into any notable problems when i last test-ran it. The low memory footprint of Moksha is amazing considering all that it offers and the project even got a new (yet experienced) lead developer recently.[source] (https://www.bodhilinux.com/2019/06/11/new-lead-developer-robert-ylee-wiley/) Furthermore:
Quote from: http://www.bodhilinux.com/moksha-desktop/
It consists of the back porting of bug fixes and features from future Enlightenment releases, as well as the removal of half finished / broken things E17 contained.
PS. Bodhi Linux v5.0.0 has an onboot memory footprint of ~190MB...
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: cheiron on August 31, 2019, 02:52:08 PM
Many thanks for the reply Nuihcc88 and nice to see Moksha got on top of E17 flaws.. I might have to look into it at some stage.


I do believe going back the topic at hand that we will still be supporting 32bit with the next generation of WattOS so keep tuned for updates from Biffster
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: herndon.jeffreys on September 02, 2019, 01:17:39 PM
I considered installing Bodhi for the same reasons cited...  I love how fast and light it is.  However, my family also uses my computer.  Bodhi, they found, was a little counterintuitive - options are located under strange names and headings...  there is more of a learning curve to it for those transitioning from Windows/Apple to linux, or even those (like our family) that still uses Windows on some computers (because of specific software needs) and linux on others.  My daughters have found the organization of LXDE/LXQT menu easy to use and intuitive.

I am also a fan of Microwatt, but it likewise has a learning curve for those in homes with multiple computers and multiple operating systems.  My fear is that if Microwatt or Bodhi is the sole basis of Wattos, we might be relegating Wattos to a smaller "niche" audience...  and that would be a shame (at least to me).

Maybe we need to have some discussion on what type of user we are interested in appealing most to, rather than individual OS tastes.  We all have our favorites, after all.

Wattos distinguished itself primarily by saving power (hence the name "Wattos" and the green theme) and by being lightweight (which also saves power).  Is that a where we want to keep heading?
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: paolo on September 03, 2019, 09:06:10 AM
Hello to you all,

In this months of silence I have distro-hopping a bit… but always
I come back to Microwatt 10. I have try some distro using i3 as gui on my netbook Eeepc Asus 1001px

- Manjaro i3 community edition is nice but too bloatead

- Regolith Linux (based on the last Ubuntu LTS) is absolutely bloated

- Miyolinux i3 (based on Devuan Gnu/Linux) have some small problems, I can't use as my daily drive
(I have tried the Ascii based version and the Beowulf based version, the developer is a nice and kind person very helpful on the Devuan forums).

I think Microwatt must live, is a very pity if a nice small and very stable distro disappear.
The problem is for people who need a 32bit .iso, now many distros offer only 64bit .isos …
Maybe a new versions of WattOs and Microwatt based on Debian or Devuan can resolve this problem.
As always thank Biff for your work, Microwatt is still fantastic !

Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: herndon.jeffreys on September 03, 2019, 03:29:41 PM
What I am hearing from Paolo and others is that FIRST AND FOREMOST we need to keep focusing on being a lightweight distro with 32 bit support....  whether the DE is based on Microwatt or Bodhi/Moshka or LXDE/LXQT....  Is that fair???  I think Biff wanted a more "fundamental" discussion of the focus of Wattos in the future.

If lightweight is the main focus, then obviously "eye candy" and the ability to "customize" aren't primary...  these tend to cause more "bloat."

Maybe a lightweight "core" with instructions on how to add the lightweight DE of your choice...  (someone else proposed this)

Are we interested in something with "core" packages (LibreOffice, Chromium/Firefox, pdf reader, VLC,  Brasero, etc....) OR do we want to do something truly minimalistic (browser and package manager - user adds everything else).  Personally, I like the balance Biff has currently struck with Wattos.  The only request I would have is that we have a more mainstream browser that can handle all web pages.  AOL, for example, throws up an error page if I try to use Pale Moon, Madori, or any other "lighter" browser.

The only other preference I would have is that we explore the possibility of a rolling release based on "stable" repositories....  Get rid of the system upgrades where you have to backup your own files, browser  bookmarks, whatever.... wipe your computer, install the new version, add in your favorite programs, copy your backup to the computer, etc....  It gets kind of tedious, especially if you have a busy life. 

Thanks again, Biff 8)
 




Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: herndon.jeffreys on September 03, 2019, 04:02:07 PM
One other thought...  We have heard lots of votes for different Desktop Environments (Moshka, LXDE, Microwatt, etc)....  AntiX has chosen a different route...  From what I understand, it is based on the IceWM (a window manager, not a true desktop environment)...  start from ground up.

One thing I DO NOT THINK anyone wants is for Wattos to become just another "lightweight" distro...  it is special, and should have something to distinguish it make it stand out from other lightweight distros...  Wattos needs to "shine!"  No pun intended.  :D
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: cheiron on September 03, 2019, 05:37:56 PM
hopefully........ Biffster will have something for us to chew on fairly soon
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: blaze on September 12, 2019, 04:26:11 PM
^Yeah, would be interesting to hear his reflections of what has been said here.
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: Nuihc88 on September 14, 2019, 06:03:17 AM
On the topic of DEs & WMs:
I happened to be looking into Snaps and saw that some people were using them to streamline testing and development of DEs. Did some more digging and stumbled into Wayland display server, which apparently removes tearing/vsync issues, while having performance similar to Xorg. [Link] (https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=gnome-326-x11way&num=1) Then saw this Wayland port of i3: SwayWM (https://swaywm.org) (might be worth looking into.)

Anyway, from all of that i got the following idea:
How about using Snaps/Flatpaks/AppImages to streamline maintenance and installation of all potentially messy system components like DEs/WMs?

However, since running them sandboxed would add overhead to the end system, i would also suggest the following approach:
0. Do most of the testing, debugging & maintenance sandboxed.
1. Use a selection of sandboxed DEs/WMs for preview purposes on a single live CD.
2. Extract only the user's DE/WM choice over to the final OS during installation.
This way there would only need to be one .iso and potentially more DEs/WMs could be supported and/or maintained in less time.

On the Project Direction:
If the Distro's name were to be taken as a mission statement, then shouldn't the main focus be further extending battery life? ...which would imply adding functionality like improved out-of-box support for underclocking/undervolting, which various kernel modules can accomplish for many if not most systems. [Link1] (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Undervolting_CPU)
The main problem with those modules is that they require some manual tuning from the user, which is why they are essentially ignored by mainstream distros and aren't always compatible with their kernels. sometimes you can simply build the necessary module from source, other times you have to configure and compile the full linux kernel because some feature you need was disabled by default; worse still, system updates on mainstream distros frequently break these sorts of configurations.

I think most people here would prefer a system that is extremely minimal by default, while still giving the option of adding recommended and frequently requested packages/features (possibly on a skippable extra page) during installation; especially when this would normally require many additional steps from the user, while also being fairly easy to automate during installation.
For example: adding Web Browsers, Media Players & Codecs, Office Suites, etc. should be optional, as it takes several additional steps to add or remove them afterwards.
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: drizzt on October 01, 2019, 02:51:05 AM
You're not giving us false hope just to shut us up art you Biff? 
haha... just kidding. 

Sorry if this comment comes up in the wrong box or watever... still learning to use forum... and linux

i won't repeat what others have said, especially on the performance aspect.  That's a main thing in my opinion   i got to know of i3 and love it from wattos, my netbook wor%s much better with it than other WM.  i hope that will stay.  my opinion given :)   i shifted from wattos to use antix and install i3, but it doesn't have the same 'smoothness' or integration as with wattos - maybe coz i'm jjust a newbi.  :)      i shifted coz of the whole spectre thingy.... maybe again coz i don't really know what i'm doing so got scared and wanted something with patched kernel. . now eagerly await v11.

My sincere thanks to all who made wattos possible.
Title: Re: General Announcement
Post by: ulisseskat on October 03, 2019, 06:55:25 PM
I still use R10 LXDE 32bits in a Vaio laptop (11 years old); it's the best OS ever!!!
I install in all my friends and family computers and have no problem for them to leave Windows for Linux! Thanks Biff!
What I like and want is just an update for the next LTS release.
I tried MX and Peppermint, but always come back to Wattos. Hope you can manage some time for us.

Thanks again!