Tux Machines

Review: wattOS R13

Posted by Rianne Schestowitz on Feb 06, 2024

wattOS isn't flashy, it isn't doing anything eye-catching, or innovative. It is, at it's core, a pleasantly boring distribution based on Debian Stable with an unusually small and conservative collection of applications. The distribution is minimal and provides just a handful of desktop programs to get us started. At first glance, it may not seem like there is much to draw in new users. However, I think that is the point of wattOS.

The distribution doesn't do much out of the box because it's trying not to strain the low-specification computer it is meant to power. It doesn't enable many services, visual effects, or features because it is striving to extend battery life. It's essentially what happens if someone installed Debian, plopped a minimal desktop environment on the system, and tried to squeeze as much energy efficiency out of the distribution as possible.

In short, wattOS succeeds, in my opinion, in its quest to extend battery life and provide a minimal distribution for older computers. It's not pretty, it's not flashy, it's not rich in features, but it is super fast, fairly light, and doubled my battery life.

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