Q4OS Forum

DWRL

Member

Registered: 2025-10-04

Posts: 2

Questions on Q4OS changes compared to Debian

Hi,

TLDR: Questions at @QUESTIONS

I just installed Debian 13 on my new machine, switching from my old PC that ran Debian 12.

As a TDE user, I had to do the usual shenanigans, adding the trinity-sb repo, discourage TDE from using arts in favor of pa-play, making the theming play nice with gtk2/3 - qt5/6 and so on.

Having always been a 'build your own desktop' guy by combining my wm and tools of choice, I switched to TDE so I don't have to tinker all the time when packages disappear and so on, basically, I chose a bit more comfort.

The next step obviously would be a distro that already ships and configures TDE

I'm rather familiar with Debian (professional admin here), so reading Q4OS is Debian based sounds encouraging. Only, I couldn't really find information on what it actually changes, besides pre-configuring some stuff and adding TDE repos...?

@QUESTIONS

1) What does Q4OS change compared to vanilla Debian? Is it just Debian with some changed default configuration (which?), some scripts (again, which?) and more packages / additional repos?
2) Is there documentation / a changelog? If not, is there a github mirror or such to have a look at (I get documenting is a PITA)?
3) Making Debian play nice with TDE needs a bit of adjusting (circumventing aRts, adding some kcm modules etc), does Q4OS take care of that?
4) I'm using the trinity-sb repo right now, how does Q4OS compare / how current is the TDE version?

Basically, I did a bit of looking around and couldn't find too much information (did I look at the wrong places? I'm happy to get some links). On most other projects I just peek into the readme and their github to get a grasp about the functionality, but on Q4OS I simply found... nothing.

Thanks and all the best,
Daniel

bin

Member

From: U.K.

Registered: 2016-01-28

Posts: 1,492

Re: Questions on Q4OS changes compared to Debian

Hi
Welcome to Q4OS - good choice.
It's worth mentioning that Q4OS has been around for many years now - it is a mature and solid distro with an emphasis on long term stability.
The documentation provided for Q4OS is a major improvement over many distros and I'm sure you found it at https://www.q4os.org/documents.html
It doesn't enumerate all the changes in micro detail.
Suggest you set up a VM and install 6.1 TDE https://sourceforge.net/projects/q4os/f … o/download
Go for the Basic install and add stuff afterwards.
The Software installer library provides custom installers for common software. Helping to enhance integration with the DE these are scripts built by the excellent dev team. You can of course install via CLI as normal or install synaptic if you prefer.
Q4OS IS already Debian playing nice with TDE. Be aware that mixing Trinity repos and Q4OS TDE repos is a really bad idea - so don't.
Have a look in the forums - there are a few very keen software folks who are doing fun stuff with TDE - you may find some kindred spirits there.
The Q4OS dev team are really very good and extremely helpful.

q4osteam

Q4OS Team

Registered: 2015-12-06

Posts: 5,593

Website

Re: Questions on Q4OS changes compared to Debian

Welcome to the forum

In addition to the @bin's info provided, thanks @bin

1. Yes, Q4OS adds a few tools on top of Debian base, but it doesn't alter its base. So you can rely what works on Debian works on Q4OS as well.

2. We don't have a complete repository on Github, but we do have some resources. See https://github.com/q4os and https://github.com/q4os-installers. If you need specific source code not on Github, we'll make it available for you. You can also find source code within the Q4OS packages.

3. Yes, we have added some tools and widgets to the vanilla TDE.

4. Q4OS Andromeda uses TDE R14.1.5 from the PSB repository, with patches that we don't consider safe and stable removed.

DWRL

Member

Registered: 2025-10-04

Posts: 2

Re: Questions on Q4OS changes compared to Debian

@bin, @q4osteam: Thanks

I'll have a look, and now that I think about it, I do have a spare laptop flying around somewhere for testing purposes