The wattOS team is pleased to announce
the release of the new version of wattOS - Release 8 - (also known as R8). After 5 years being an Ubuntu based distro, we have made the change to Debian. Specifically Debian Wheezy as the base, with some backports thrown in (for example a newer Kernel), and in a couple of small places a little Jessie where warranted. But for the most part, its Debian Wheezy as a base to build from.
The additional tweaks include the addition of the expected things to make it easy to use as a liveCD or install. So a reasonably complete desktop for all versions that includes things like support for multiple wireless chipsets, flash inclusion, printing support, and the ability to browse windows networks without a lot of command line magic needed.
There are three flavors included in this release. wattOS Mate edition, LXDE edition, and the Microwatt edition (running openbox this time around). The Mate and LXDE version include 32 and 64bit and the Microwatt is 32bit only.
As you can imagine there are a lot of changes since we went from Ubuntu to Debian, but the idea of a simple, quick operating system that gets out of your way, and can be a good base to build and customize on remains intact.
There will be several lengthy write ups on the wattOS website
www.planetwatt.com discussing the details of those changes. (especially with openbox and microwatt) and the expected learning curve. Also since this is our first go around wth Debian as the core, its expected that some bumps may be encountered. We have tested a good bit, but no amount of testing can replicate what the community can discover.
Core apps and versions for LXDECore system - Linux Kernel 3.13.10-1
File manager - PCManFM 1.1.2
Graphics Editing - Shotwell 0.12.3
Web Browsing (including flash support) - Iceweasel 24.5.0
File transfer - Filezilla 3.5.3
BitTorrent client - Transmission 2.52
PDF viewing - ePDFViewer 0.1.8
Music Player - Audacious 3.2.4
Video/multimedia player - VLC 2.0.3
CD burning utility - XFBurn 0.4.3
Power management utilities like powertop to optimize settings, support for power
management features of laptops
Core apps and differences for MATE-DesktopSame as before as a base build of Mate but an update to Mate 1.8
and the same core applications as LXDE
Whats New in R8- Debian based instead of Ubuntu
- Microwatt changed from PekWM to customized Openbox
- Microwatt includes Qupzilla browser
- non-pae support continues for 32bit systems/processors
- Changed to iceweasel browser for all versions except Microwatt
- Broad inclusion of wireless chipset support and their related drivers
- All versions built from scratch on base Debian images
- New simple installer (with tips and tricks taken from LMDE and Point Linux and their excellent installer implementations)
LXDE versions wattOS should be able to run on any system that has a Pentium 3 class
processor or better with 192-256MB of RAM to install but less than 128MB after
install is complete.
Microwatt version of wattOS should be able to run on the same class of machines
as LXDE but with a smaller memory footprint.
