Episode: 2257
Title: HPR2257: Watt OS
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2257/hpr2257.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-19 00:28:24

---

This is HBR episode 2,257 entitled Watto S and in part on the series Hardware Brains.
It is hosted by Tony Huma, Tony H1, 212 and in about 4 minutes long and Karim and exquisite flag.
The summary is a short show about the Linux distro Watto S.
This episode of HBR is brought to you by an honesthost.com.
Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code HBR15.
That's HBR15.
Better web hosting that's honest and fair at an honesthost.com.
Hello, I could public radio, this is Tony Hughes speaking from Blackpool in the UK.
This is my first recording of the new year 2017.
I was going to do it a few weeks ago but then fate landed me in hospital after a stroke.
So I've only just got around to doing this.
Just before that happened, I was playing around with an old ASA1 Aspire netbook.
The very early one that only came with an 8GB SSD.
I was having a look at it, it was still working all about, although the battery is knackered.
But it's still functioning PC, a little 9 inch screen, it's quite nice actually.
I'd upgraded it to 1.5 gig of RAM and it's got an Atom 1.6 processor.
It will only take 32 bit operating systems, even though the processor is hyper threading
and shows up as two cores in Linux, it's still only a 32 bit processor.
So I was hunting around for a 32 bit operating system that would deploy in 8GB.
And I came up with what OS, that's WA, WTOS, they do a 32 and a 64 gig operating system,
which is based on a Ubuntu core, very minimal with an LXDE desktop environment.
I had a hunt around and all the other distros needed a minimum of 10 gig hard drive space,
but this one was saying it could get away with a quite bit less, so I decided to give it a go.
And I installed it on the netbook and it worked.
Gave a very clean install, very minimal install, there's very little software
available after install, but it's only a pseudo app getaway or
using certain app type package manager to add other software from the repositories.
Full access to the repose, so if you want to and that way inclined with a little netbook,
you can install LibreOffice and all the other software, but if you just want something that will
get you online as a little traveling machine for accessing the internet and emails and stuff,
WTOS fills the belt and can bring an old little netbook back to life, so I highly recommend it.
I could say before installing WTOS, I had a bit of a break because I couldn't find an operating system
that would work on the ASA Spire 1, but now I've got a little netbook that's working and is
currently at the makerspace in Blackpool awaiting some use, so if you want to have a go at the
installing or reinstalling an old netbook that you can't find any other operating system,
to install on it because it's got too small the hard drive or you want something that's really
ultra lightweight, give WTOS a go because it really is a superb little operating system.
Well that's all from here in Blackpool, hopefully I'll get around to recording something I'll
pursue, and happy listening. Thanks very much, bye.
You've been listening to Hacker Public Radio at HackerPublicRadio.org.
We are a community podcast network that releases shows every weekday, Monday through Friday.
Today's show, like all our shows, was contributed by an HBR listener like yourself.
If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then click on our contribute link to find out
how easy it really is. Hacker Public Radio was founded by the Digital Dog Pound and the
Infonomicom Computer Club, and is part of the binary revolution at binrev.com.
If you have comments on today's show, please email the host directly, leave a comment on the website
or record a follow-up episode yourself. Unless otherwise status, today's show is released on
creative comments, attribution, share a like, 3.0 license.
