Q4OS 6 Andromeda: More Than Just Debian on a Diet for Old Machines

From hand‑me‑down laptops to brand‑new desktops, this Debian-based distro with Trinity or KDE Plasma keeps things fast and familiar.

The FOSS Force Distro of the Week — Q4OS 6 Andromeda

This week’s Distro of the Week is the Czech Republic’s Q4OS 6 Andromeda.

Based on Debian “Trixie,” Q4OS 6 Andromeda provides two desktop environments: The old-school, good-for-older-equipment Trinity desktop environment – which was the Q4OS standard for a while – as well as the up-to-date and modern KDE Plasma, which is the distro’s default.

Q4OS uniquely positions itself as a distro designed with a focus on speed, stability, and a familiar user interface, making it an excellent choice for both older hardware and for those migrating to Linux from a Windows environment.

Installing Q4OS

The ISOs for Q4OS are relatively small – 1.7 GB for the KDE Plasma version and 1.4 GB for the Trinity edition – and, as such, download somewhat quickly.

Booting from a live USB, the Calamares installer provides several installation options: Desktop, which offers a full-featured desktop and is recommended for regular users; Basic, for users who prefer a customizable desktop; Live, which is “for those who want a system identical to the live media,” meaning no additional software will be installed; and Pure, “for experts only,” which is ultimately the minimal desktop for users to set up their system to suit their needs.

We chose the Desktop option for this review, and also downloaded both desktop environments on separate computers.

Q4OS for KDE Plasma has modest system requirements: 1 GB RAM minimum with 2 GB RAM is recommended; 5 GB available storage minimum, with 10 GB or more recommended; and any x86 or x64 compatible processor. For the Q4OS Trinity version, minimum requirements drop to 256 MB of RAM, 5 GB available disk space, and a 350 MHz Pentium II or better.

Kicking the Tires

The KDE Plasma edition of Q4OS installed relatively quickly, and it has the plethora of KDE-based tools and other software common to that desktop environment, not the least of which is Dolphin file manager, Discover software installer (the distro comes with its own Software Centre, too), and Konsole terminal. This edition of the distro also comes with an above-average assortment of software, with LibreOffice leading the charge, along with Chromium web browser, Thunderbird email client, and VLC media player. In other words, there was nothing to add this time around.

The Trinity desktop environment — a continuation of the classic KDE 3.5 desktop offering a traditional Windows-like experience — provides about the same amount of software, except for the wide range of KDE-based tools.

In both cases, the user is greeted at the outset with a Welcome window with several buttons. The Desktop Profiler, which offers various options, was useful. To be safe, we chose the Full Featured Desktop option, which installs additional software to keep the desktop up to date. Next up was the proprietary codecs installer, which provides a Windows-like wizard to guide you through the process. The user also has an option of setting an autologin, which I declined.

Once I finally got settled in to each of the desktop environments, the performance of Q4OS 6 Andromeda could be described as extraordinary. The stability of its Debian base was complemented by the ease of multitasking. Using Thunderbird for email while surfing the web with Chromium and listening to music via Strawberry brought the memory up to a little over 2 GB, which is a modest amount of memory use for multitasking purposes. In addition, Q4OS also plays nice with web apps like Google Docs and Google Drive.

Oh, and the Strawberry music player has been growing on me, which has paved the way for my not having to add VLC — not that adding it would have been necessary, since Q4OS provides both by default.

Final Thoughts

A couple of things: While the Trinity desktop environment is, well, quaint in an old‑school way and serves older hardware well, there is a bit of a learning curve and it behaves counterintuitively at times. And while years ago — we’re talking over a decade here — I confess that I swore off KDE as a desktop, KDE Plasma 6 has been a sort of apology, which I’ve accepted. In other words, I like KDE Plasma now, and I’m not ashamed to say it.

Regardless of which desktop environment you use, Q4OS 6 Andromeda is a solid distro that appeals to a wide range of users. Both DEs — but especially KDE Plasma — offer beginners a familiar base from which to start their Linux journey, and intermediate and experienced users should have a field day with the distro’s adaptability and malleability. Despite its niche positioning, Q4OS has an active forum should a user run into a problem, as well as a Telegram channel for announcements, and regular blog updates by the development team.

With Debian under the hood, Q4OS 6 Andromeda is assured long-term support, access to over 50,000 software packages, and broad compatibility with the wider Debian ecosystem.

If you’re tired of slow performance on an older computer or simply want a reliable and lightweight operating system, Q4OS 6 Andromeda is worth considering. Between its low resource usage, familiar-looking interface, and stability, this distro is a compelling alternative, especially on older hardware.

You can download the ISO for either desktop environment on the official Q4OS download page.

Do you have a distro you think would make a great feature for FOSS Force’s Distro of the Week? Don’t be shy—let us know! Offer your suggestions in the comments below (or use the “contact us” link under our masthead) and we’ll make an effort to make it so… No suggestion is too mainstream or too niche—let us know what you’d like to see!

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