Q4OS

Reader supplied reviews for Q4OS Average rating 8.7 from 194 review(s) 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: -- 7.0-testing6.65.94.123.162.71.8.80.5.29 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: 6.6 Rating: 4 Date: 2026-04-12 Country: United States Votes: 0 I have installed Q4OS on a number of unsusual targets in addition to standard PCs. Most recently, I put it on an old Macbook Air (A1466), and the only things that didn't work out of the box were the camera and wifi card. No problem, a quick Google search supplied me with the necessary command line fixes and I was up and running everything in a few minutes. Ths unit has a Core i5, 8GB RAM, and a 128GB SSD. It was in perfect physical condition, and you can't tell it from a new one except for one thing...the Apple logo on the lid LIGHTS UP! I picked up about 17 old Chromebooks for $100 at the same pawn shop and 10 were circa 2012-2015 HP and Lenovo models. Q4OS is ideal for those, because it allows you to select a "base" install right from the setup, which minimizes the drive space used. These Chromebooks only came with 16GB SSDs, so space was at a premium. From there, I added a few applications that would be important, leaving about 7GB free. Pop in an 8GB SD card and you've got yourself a really nice little netbook. Plus, you've got the power and flexibility of Plasma, rather thab settling for a barebones desktop environment like some of those lightweight distros package. By the way, everything worked out of the box, just like any other PC, once I overwrote the Chromebook firmware with the MrChromebook.tech firmware utility. Naturally, I have tried Q4OS on some more powerful laptops with more memory. My favorite is a `10 year-old Dell Inspiron 15 5559. with a 6th gen Core i5. I replaced the hard drive with a 500GB SSD and boosted the RAM from 8 to 16GB. Wow! what a great little machine for under $175, including a new battery and a power brick! Oh, and a case and mouse, too! So, where am I going with this? IMHO Q4OS is a well put together Plasma DE distro that can be used as a solution for a number of problems. These days, most distros end up being pretty much the same, so there are really no surprises here. One real plus is the choice Q4 gives you as to what type of installation you want during setup. And even if you take the more extensive installation, you don't end up with a lot of apps you will want to install later. There is full support for Flatpak, and other common package installers. There's even a quick app installer available from the Welcome! window that streamlines the installation of some of the favorite apps users will want. Q4OS is probably a good choice for someone moving from Windows to Linux or even Mac, although, as I pointed out, a new user might need some help if the command line comes into play. Was this review helpful? Yes No Version: 6.6 Rating: 10 Date: 2026-04-11 Country: Hungary Votes: 1 I installed Q4OS on an HP EliteBook 840 G3 with an Intel i7-6600U and 16 GB RAM. The installation process was straightforward and completed without issues. The system is very fast and responsive, even on this older hardware. Boot times are quick, and memory usage is low compared to many modern distributions. I primarily use it for web browsing, office work, and light development, and it has been stable during daily use. Hardware support is good; everything worked out of the box, including graphics and networking. The desktop environment is simple and efficient, though not as modern-looking as some alternatives. Overall, Q4OS is a reliable and lightweight distribution that works especially well on older laptops. Was this review helpful? Yes No Version: 6.5 Rating: 10 Date: 2026-02-04 Votes: 20 I put my whole family on Q40S, five people with six laptops - age range from 8 to 86. Linux had been on my list of things to explore for quite a while with an old ASUS 17'' laptop that stoped working under Windows 10 a couple of years ago to the extreme discontent of one of my users. I had three machines in my set that could not be uptdated to Windows 11 and wanted to see my boys playing with computers rather than mobile phones. Computing is my daily work, though in a Windows environment. The jungle of Linux distros confused me initially, and my first pick was a mnistake with a peculiar desktop and a hostile installation process. The mistake told me more about my personal requirements: 1. I needed a distro that also had a 32bit version for an old computer which I still want to bring to live later. 2. Debian 13 was my choice for the linux kernel with broad community support, in case I should need help. 3. KDE plasma was the desktop that promised an easy transition for my users. 4. I needed a leightweight distro particularily designed for old machines Q4OS was the distro that fulfilled all four requirements. Installing Q4OS unspectacular (I confess I struggled with two computers that were hiding the USB booting; ChatGPT helped me with the bios arrangements - but that is not a Linux issue). I felt safe once the Q4OS isnstallation was showing up. It recognised the hardware components of the six machines. Screen configuration was comfortable. The cool KDE Plasma version that comes with the package is extremely organised. I have installed Windows and Android on hardware before - here I usually spent hours on disabeling functionalities and removing programs which I do not want to have. Q4OS was a relaxing experience: totally unobstrusive. The basic configuration has all the programs I would have wanted on all six machines. I could focus on components the particular users would want to have. There are two software centres (one by Q4OS) that offer flat pack installations for programs like Kdenlive or Gimp. The KDE Plasma user interface is superbly customisable. Things I was missing on Windows 11 are all standards on KDE Plasma. My people had no problems in switching. The 8 year old understands how this is organised. My 12 year old did not like the KDE standard design. I showed him the wealth of configurations that are available through the KDE community. Q4OS has a "look switcher" which allows the fast change between complete design sets and here the 12 year old marvelled about desktops that threw him back in the era before he was born. He is presently in love with a Windows-XP look-alike thatv turns his computer into 2001 relic a time traveler would want to have. He is primarily playing Minecraft with his younger brother and listening to YouTube music through his bluetooth boxes, all without issues. Libre Office is a standard in his school. All six installations have been running without breakdowns for the past three months. My experienced users said that the switch brough silence into their lives. Old machines are working better than ever. Q4OS is an invitation for Linux novices thanks to KDE and otherwise a perfect alternative for anyone used to Windows. Very reliable so far. Was this review helpful? Yes No See all 194 reader reviews of Q4OS...