General Announcement

[paolo]

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

[paolo]

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.

[cheiron]

Building on the "Microwatt" stable.. it might be interesting to see if we could develop the ultimate lightweight based on SliTaz (Wattaz  ) 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.....

[blaze]

First of all, nice to hear from you biffster, and that things are good. 

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!

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. 

[herndon.jeffreys]

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!

[paolo]

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

[Nuihc88]

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).

[cheiron]

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 ?

[Nuihc88]

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 ; never worked quite right, but for 1024x600 resolution, it was much better than nothing.

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] Furthermore:

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...

[cheiron]

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

[herndon.jeffreys]

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?

[paolo]

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 !

[herndon.jeffreys]

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
 

[herndon.jeffreys]

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. 

[cheiron]

hopefully........ Biffster will have something for us to chew on fairly soon