I brought my aging PC back to life with this lightweight Linux OS – and it's easy to use

There are many lightweight Linux distributions on the market, many of which are outstanding options for bringing aging hardware back to life with speed, flexibility, and security that those old computers might never have known. That’s part of the beauty of Linux — it’s not only flexible, reliable, and secure, but it’s also perfectly capable of performing like a champ on machines that modern Windows iterations would cripple.

Also: How to use Linux without ever touching the terminal

One such distribution is WattOS. This no-frills, lightweight desktop operating system will feel immediately familiar to you and will make that ten-year-old computer feel brand new again.

But before you dive in, let’s talk about WattOS for a bit. 

WattOS system requirements

This Linux distribution is specifically designed to be lightweight, which means it uses a desktop environment that won’t hog system resources. That desktop environment is LXDE, which is modular and performs well on everything from your ancient computer to a Raspberry Pi. The system requirements for WattOS paint a very obvious picture:

• 192MB RAM
• Any Intel or AMD CPU
• 700MB disk space

Even on a PC with such low resources, WattOS performs very well. And because the desktop is laid out in a very familiar fashion (start button, panel, system tray, desktop icons), anyone who’s used any iteration of Windows should feel right at home.

Also: If you’re ready to break up with Windows, this is the Linux distro I suggest for new users

I installed WattOS as a virtual machine on VirtualBox, with more than enough system resources (3GB of RAM, 2 cores, and 100GB of internal storage), so you can imagine that my VM performed like a Ford Tempo with a rocket engine.

It’s fast.

Very fast.

WattOS is fairly minimal out of the box

As far as pre-installed applications, you’ll find Firefox, Transmission (BitTorrent client), a screenshot tool, Xarchiver, Vim, gThumb, a document viewer, PulseAudio Volume Control, GDebi Package Installer, Synaptic Package Manager, HTop, the Mousepad text editor, and not much more. The good news on that front is that Synaptic makes it easy to install the software you need, and you can easily install Flatpak or Snap from the command line (sudo apt-get install flatpak -y or sudo apt-get install snapd -y).

Unlike most modern operating systems, WattOS (and LXDE) doesn’t include a System Settings or Control Panel app. Instead, you’ll find a Preferences menu that contains entries for things like network configuration, Bluetooth Manager, look and feel, desktop preferences, session settings, and much more.

You can also access the Desktop Preferences window by right-clicking an empty spot on the desktop and selecting Desktop Preferences. From there, you can configure the wallpaper, background color, text, wallpaper mode, desktop icons, and desktop-as-folder.

If you right-click the panel, you can call up the Panel Preferences window, where you can customize the panel’s position, alignment, margins, and size. You can even turn the panel into a dock by selecting either a specific or dynamic width.

Who is WattOS for?

This is a fairly simple question to answer because WattOS is a simple OS. This open-source operating system is about as daunting as a comfortable bed or a bag of pretzels. You look at it and immediately understand how it works. The only point of confusion some new users might experience is locating the software installer GUI, which is found in the Start menu under Preferences. Other than that, I cannot imagine anyone having problems with WattOS — it’s just so basic and easy.

Of course, this is still Linux, so you can’t come at it thinking everything is done the same way as with Windows. That is not and never will be the case (the same with MacOS/Windows). But that doesn’t mean you’ll have problems getting up to speed with this operating system.

Also: I’ve used Linux for 30 years. Here are 5 reasons why I’ll never switch to Windows or MacOS

The one thing I will say, however, is that if you come at WattOS thinking you’re going to enjoy a highly modern-looking desktop interface, you’ll be disappointed. WattOS is very much in line with the look and feel of Cinnamon, Xfce, and MATE, but I believe that is intentional, to avoid any sort of learning curve.

The only hiccup I encountered was when I switched from a dark theme to a light theme. When I made the switch, the panel looked terrible because some widgets forced a dark background, which didn’t blend well with the lighter theme. This is unfortunate, as it will cause most users to stick with the dark theme, even though it’s not everyone’s jam.

The only other reason new users might have trouble with WattOS is if there’s a must-have Windows app that isn’t available via Snap or Flatpak. Should that be the case, Wine could be installed and used, but that’s no guarantee. If, on the other hand, most of what you do is taken care of within a web browser, you’ll be just fine with WattOS.

Also: 10 Linux apps I install on every new machine (and why you should, too)

Although WattOS might not be the most exciting operating system on the market, it serves a specific purpose: being a lightweight Linux distribution that any computer or user will feel right at home with.

If I’ve piqued your interest, download an ISO for the latest release (R13) and install it on that aging computer. You won’t regret it.