Q4OS

Reader supplied reviews for Q4OS Average rating 8.7 from 159 review(s) Please specify which version of the distribtion you are reviewing. Please select a rating in the range of 1-10. Please write at least a few sentences about the distribution while limiting your review to 4080 characters. What are your thoughts on Q4OS? Please include a few pros and a few cons, along with your overall impression of the operating system. Our FAQ page has tips on writing a good mini-review. Version: -- 5.74.123.162.71.8.80.5.29 Rating:    -- 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 out of 10 Your review (minimum 250 words): Past reviews - sort by: DateVotes Version: 5.7 Rating: 9 Date: 2025-03-22 Votes: 0 After trying maybe 20 different Linux distros the last couple of weeks, this one produces a smile on my face, because it can easily resemble the look of a Windows XP or even earlier (Win2000?) with its Trinity desktop. They even rebuilt the typical application installers and control panel! The first part of the installation is text-based but this does not bother me because it works without headaches. Especially I like that Q4OS - is light-weight so I can use it on a very old Core2Duo notebook with just 2GB RAM and still have - is made with some passion to details, and - allows to install a clean system where I don't have to uninstall a lot of bloatware first. Where else do you have the possibility to run Windows XP with the latest software and security updates? ;) Was this review helpful? Yes No Version: 5.7 Rating: 9 Date: 2025-03-19 Votes: 0 Ten years ago, all but one of my machines ran a variant of Microsoft Windows. Today, I have five machines running Linux. I have a server running Rocky 9.5 (sans GUI) that hosts Adobe ColdFusion/Apache websites. I have a tablet and a 64-bit VirtualBox VM running straight Debian 12 (KDE Plasma GUI). And finally, I have two machines running Q4OS 5.7 (KDE Plasma GUI). The Q4OS units include an Intel XEON based machine running as a file server that also provides DNS/WINS services for my network. The other Q4OS unit is a Lenovo X1-Yoga ThinkPad that serves as my main laptop and also hosts an 32-bit Windows 10 VirtualBox machine that I use to run ancient Windows apps. I am amazed at how well Q4OS has handled both of these roles, i.e. file server and laptop client machine. Q4OS is remarkably stable. It installs a very clean Debian environment without all of the usual clutter. The only anomaly that I've noticed (and that I'm still puzzling over) is Q4OS seems to take significantly longer to logout/restart/shutdown compared to a machine running straight Debian 12. It is clearly doing some essential housekeeping, but I'm not exactly sure why it is so noticeably different from Debian 12. Was this review helpful? Yes No Version: 5.7 Rating: 9 Date: 2025-03-02 Votes: 4 Q4OS is a very lightweight and responsive Linux distribution, even on old machines. At the same time, it’s lightning-fast on new hardware, extremely responsive especially with TDE. I installed it on my main PC instead of Mint XFCE, and it’s a recommended switch if you’ve gained some experience with Linux. Regarding themes, I installed Darkonaire/Debonair, which are the most modern and acceptable options. If you prefer vintage themes, they’re available, but I don’t like them. In my opinion, there should be more modern themes that are selectable from a ready-to-use menu. Q4OS is a Linux distribution theoretically suitable for everyone, but I wouldn’t recommend it to an absolute Linux beginner. For those approaching Linux for the first time, I suggest Mint, Linux Lite, or Zorin OS. After gaining some practice with these distributions, you can try switching to Q4OS. Extremely stable and lightweight, it’s hard to find flaws in Q4OS. One potential downside might be the adjustments for themes, effects, and window appearance, there’s a bit of confusion in this area. I would’ve preferred all the general appearance settings grouped together in one place, perhaps in the control panel under a single entry. Instead, there are multiple ways to access these settings, and it’s not immediately clear what overrides what. It takes some time to figure out, but you get there eventually. Still, I’d prefer fewer options with less outdated and poorly supported themes. It’s evident that the aesthetic aspect needs some reorganization, eliminating overly old elements, unifying all settings under one entry, and using a menu with a selection logic that leaves no doubt about what’s being modified. Overall, stability gets a 10+ Responsiveness/lightness 10+ TDE/KDE theme 9 Ease of use 8 Market for installing developer-predefined programs 6. Was this review helpful? Yes No See all 159 reader reviews of Q4OS...