What new OS? WattOS!
July 20, 2008 by Clair Ching
Filed under advocacy
Original upload from mozpkim. 
WattOS is the distro that is said to check out for those who want to go light. Old computer (refurbished ones included) should be able to function in the same way as common computers system should. You could even check out the variants of WattOS:
- wattOS - it uses the GNOME desktop environment
- mwattOS - it uses XFCE
- (mu)wattOS - it uses minimal GUI and it’s said to be ideal for kiosks and old systes
- substation - wattOS server
The live CD ISO could be downloaded here.
As the name implies the project wants to let users “tweak the power consumption and processor performance of their system in an easy point and click fashion.” This project is cool because they also want our feedback so that they could make sure that wattOS will be a distro that is relevant to our needs. This is probably going to be good for organizations and households which use old hardware and have been having troubles with the newer releases which seem to require so hardware upgrades that users can’t afford to make.
If you want to share your thoughts as to what hardware specs wattOS should run on, say it on the forums page. 
I really believe that if you have an old machine and you want it to be running “as if it was new”, then you have 2 options:
1.- Run the OS it was actually running when it was “new” (probably Win98)
2.- Get to learn what you are doing and install a GOOD distribution only with what you really need.
This “lightweight” distributions are only strip-down systems, wouldn’t it be nice to install a full-featured system with only the components you really need?
With this said, I would recommend Slackware 11. I had it installed and working with XFCE (kind of slow but working) browsing with Opera 9, and with several network services, in a Pentium 2 400Mhz with 198 MB of RAM.
Still, is not an awfully old system, but it worked fine. And I have a full and modern system installed (well, not that modern considering that Slack 11 is not the current version anymore) and supported.
I think Linux distributions have been getting ‘fatter’ with time. Maybe we need people porting the better features without all the graphic and cpu requirements: Linux used to be a good alternative in old systems, nowadays a Windows XP system is faster and have features that match any of the newer Linux distros. I can install Windows XP in a system with a 800MHz processor and 265MB of RAM, but I can’t do the same with a new linux distribution.
I know XP has already more than 6 years in the market, but its feature set is not obsolete.
It is sad to think that if I have that machine, I should be thinking on installing XP before thinking on installing the last Ubuntu.
Maybe this is something we should think about, instead of creating distributions for “obsolete” hardware.