I was on the look for a lightweight linux OS for an old laptop and came across Q4OS. This is a German distro based on Debian Buster and I have to say, I really like it.
It comes in the Trinity desktop or Plasma by default but offers other options too such as Cinnamon. I chose Plasma. It was installed on a system with a basic AMD CPU, shared GPU memory, a total of 2GB of ram and a 320GB slimline mechanical drive.
Running "free -m" after start up it only used 433mb of ram (as opposed to 500+ for Linux Mint or near 600 for KDE Neon). That's pretty impressive in itself.
What I liked just as much was its minimalist DIY approach. Like Arcolinux you can tailor it to suit your needs. You can choose to add in a standardised load of apps or keep it simple from the software centre. You can even choose to add an additional desktop if you wish.
I chose to keep it very utilitarian given the specs and I can say it's very very fast. Loading apps and surfing is snappy and I've yet to encounter any instabilities or bugs.
If you want dual boot with Windows 10 it offers an option to streamline and simplify this process too. I'm not dual booting, so you would need to look into this yourself.
So if you have old gear you want to rejuvenate or new tech you want to run blindingly fast, this is a really solid choice.
Here's the link:
q4os.org
It comes in the Trinity desktop or Plasma by default but offers other options too such as Cinnamon. I chose Plasma. It was installed on a system with a basic AMD CPU, shared GPU memory, a total of 2GB of ram and a 320GB slimline mechanical drive.
Running "free -m" after start up it only used 433mb of ram (as opposed to 500+ for Linux Mint or near 600 for KDE Neon). That's pretty impressive in itself.
What I liked just as much was its minimalist DIY approach. Like Arcolinux you can tailor it to suit your needs. You can choose to add in a standardised load of apps or keep it simple from the software centre. You can even choose to add an additional desktop if you wish.
I chose to keep it very utilitarian given the specs and I can say it's very very fast. Loading apps and surfing is snappy and I've yet to encounter any instabilities or bugs.
If you want dual boot with Windows 10 it offers an option to streamline and simplify this process too. I'm not dual booting, so you would need to look into this yourself.
So if you have old gear you want to rejuvenate or new tech you want to run blindingly fast, this is a really solid choice.
Here's the link:
Q4OS - desktop operating system
q4os.org
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