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Jack Germain reports via El Reg
Debian-based Q4OS, developed by a team of software designers in Germany, has a lightweight design that allows it to run on nearly any hardware config. I have run it on [aging] computers from the early days of Windows Vista.
Q4OS version 2.4, Scorpion, released in early October, has a lot in its favour for new users and converts from Microsoft Windows 10. One of the factors that distinguishes the distro from more mainstream Linux offerings such as Ubuntu or Fedora is the default Trinity Desktop Environment [a fork of the last release of KDE3].
[...] Prior to this latest Q4OS release, Trinity was the only desktop option available. Being able to use other desktop options makes Q4OS more attractive.
It also lets users do something that nearly all other distros with multiple desktops do not. After you install the [the OS with its] default Trinity desktop, you can run the desktop installation chooser tool to install any of the other supported desktops--and repeat the process as often as you want to try out your favourite environments or change up your computing routine.
[Supported desktops include LXQT, XFCE4, Cinnamon, KDE Plasma, and MATE.]
The Q4OS Scorpion release comes with long-term support, which means the developer provides security patches and software updates for five years, giving this release a shelf life to at least October 2022. It is based on the Debian Stretch 9.2 and Trinity 14.0.5, which are among the latest platforms available.
A trend among Linux devs is to drop support for old 32-bit computers. Not the Q4OS team. The Q4OS community released both 64-bit ISOs for newer computers and 32-bit versions with or without the PAE memory extension technology. Thus, the OS will run on most of the legacy hardware still in circulation.
So if your desktop or laptop ran Vista, it will run Q4OS Linux fast and reliably. This is a smart way to energise old computers.
[...] The distro under the hood is stable and efficient. Everything about this distro's design and functionality makes using it pleasant and efficient.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @10:08AM (4 children)
Very flexible indeed.
So flexible that it runs on a Vista machine, hardware totally overpowered for running Linux in the first place. FFS, Linux system requirements are extremely low, I think we are up to 16 MB RAM by now, it's the desktop environments that require a lot more than that. And this distro allows you to switch desktop environments until you find the one that does perform well on the hardware, just like every Linux distro except maybe Ubuntu.
And then someone mentions that apparently it uses systemd, so there is a limit to the flexibility after all. As in it's no more flexible than any other systemd based system.
This is like saying that the new Windows Creators Update is soooo flexible, it allows you to choose between notepad and wordpad.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @11:26AM (2 children)
Yeah, totally bloated. I also hear the kernel no longer fits on a floppy disk! ;-)
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @12:12PM
Well, as long as I can find a serial EEPROM/Flash big enough to hold it ...
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday November 05 2017, @01:37PM
That's a real problem on my really old thinkpad, which still works. Where can I find a Linux on a floppy these days?
(Score: 2) by forkazoo on Friday November 03 2017, @12:48AM
Ubuntu doesn't have any particular problem with you running whatever desktop environment you want. I generally use KDE, but the default is Gnome or Unity depending on the version. Other folks use xfce, which is also supported by the vendor, and just an apt-get away with no extra repositories or anything.