Q4OS 5 for Raspberry Pi

q4osteam · 2024-02-25 13:45

First testing version of Q4OS 5 Aquarius for Raspberry Pi is out. Anyone is welcome to download, try and post a feedback. Reporting would be appreciated.

Download: https://sourceforge.net/projects/q4os/files/unofficial/
First user login credentials:
user: pi
password: raspberry

Create bootable SD card:
Use Q4OS imager https://www.q4os.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=4444 , or Raspberry Pi imager https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/ . Click "Choose OS" > Use custom > select the downloaded image.
Alternatively you can check instructions here https://dai-trying.com/tutorials/q4os-on-raspberry-pi/

Note, this is a testing release not recommended for use in production. Q4OS for Raspberry Pi is based on Raspbian armhf operating system, the default desktop environment is Trinity. Raspberry Pi hardware reference https://www.raspberrypi.com/

Last edited by q4osteam (2024-02-25 14:37)

q4osteam · 2024-03-04 22:16

An updated image "q4os-5.4-rpi.r2-testing2.img.xz" has been released with several fixes and improvements. You can install as described in the original post. Testing and reporting would be greatly appreciated.

seb3773 · 2024-03-05 13:52

Testing it right now on a raspberry pi 4 with 4gb of ram. Clearly, this looks promising
Some observations: Right after booting and setting up language, I encounter a problem with the apps installer, something about an inconsistent state of the packages; there was this error i was able to catch in terminal:
debconf: DbDriver "config": /var/cache/debconf/config.dat is locked by another process: Resource temporarily unavailable

I resolved that by doing:

sudo rm /var/cache/debconf/*.dat
sudo apt upgrade

and after that, I succeed in installing vlc, synaptic etc...

however, it seems libre office can't install, will try to copy/paste the error.

The desktop is really responsive although I'm running it from a regular sd card, will try from an ssd connected to the usb3 port soon.

I will try it more and will report any bugs.

q4osteam · 2024-03-05 15:35

Thanks for the valuble feedback.

seb3773 wrote:

I will try it more and will report any bugs.

Great, it would be helpful definitely.

NoMoreWindows · 2024-03-09 09:36

I only see this now, thanks! I'll give it a try next week or so.

NoMoreWindows · 2024-03-09 21:31

I gave this a quick try.

1. Q4OS imager hung on “Writing 99%”. I ignored this and the created SD did boot the Pi.
2. First boot succeeded without apparent problems, although it took quite some time (5 min?).
3. After reboot a few things started to go wrong. I have to look further into them to be able to report.

I’m not sure how far I’ll go with this since my Raspberry 4 with 4GB is processing this very slowly so it’s rather frustrating to try things out.

q4osteam · 2024-03-09 23:59

Thanks for the feedback. Would you specify what went wrong ?

NoMoreWindows wrote:

I’m not sure how far I’ll go with this since my Raspberry 4 with 4GB is processing this very slowly so it’s rather frustrating to try things out.

It should perform fine on this board, could anyone confirm this issue ? Does Raspbian Bookworm perform better then Q4OS ?

NoMoreWindows · 2024-03-10 07:38

I took the first SD card I found lying around, probably it is a bad/slow one. I’ll let you know when I have access to a quality one.
...
With a good SD card it goes a lot better. After regular boot and reboot (those went flawless) I tried to install "Full" profile which gave "error code:80". After this I tried installing only BlueMan but installer seems to be broken.

I will now try latest Raspberry OS to compare performance, Q40S performed reasonably well.
After that I will start from scratch and use the Q4OS installer and install each component seperately to see which one gives the error.
...
Nice stuff. I never really used my Pi because of poor performance, maybe that was also just an SD card issue... lol.

Last edited by NoMoreWindows (2024-03-10 10:46)

q4osteam · 2024-03-10 11:58

NoMoreWindows wrote:

... I never really used my Pi because of poor performance, maybe that was also just an SD card issue...

Yes, it really looks the SD card has some problems with read/write operations. It's a common problem with older SD cards.

NoMoreWindows wrote:

I will now try latest Raspberry OS to compare performance, Q40S performed reasonably well.

Please use the identical SD card for comparison as different SD cards can perform quite differently.

NoMoreWindows wrote:

... I tried to install "Full" profile which gave "error code:80". After this I tried installing only BlueMan but installer seems to be broken.

Yes, we can confirm both issues, they will be addressed. Keep in mind, it's an early testing version, so major issues could occur.

Anyway, thanks for reporting, it can confirm issues and helps us a lot to investigate. More reporting would be really appreciated.

NoMoreWindows · 2024-03-10 12:15

I used the raspberry imager to get the latest Pi OS on the same SD card. Performance is the same as Q4OS on the Pi with that SD.

Some observations with Q4OS on Pi:

- During boot, a keyboard layout selection screen shows and disappears before you can do anything. this is a bit confusing.
- Installer warns “apt update” needs to be done. So I did “sudo apt update” and “sudo apt upgrade”.
- I used the installer to get Blueman. This worked fine.
- I used the installer to get Update Manager. This warned that setup system is not in a consistent state and it failed to install Update Manager.

I’ll leave it there for now.

Overall amazingly easy to setup the SD card and boot Q4OS on the Pi.
The installer (“Software Centre”) seems to need more work before it’s functional.

q4osteam · 2024-03-10 12:52

NoMoreWindows wrote:

I used the installer to get Update Manager. This warned that setup system is not in a consistent state and it failed to install Update Manager.

Thanks, we will test it as well. It would be helpful, if you would post the error messages of install process.

NoMoreWindows · 2024-03-10 14:02

I've send a mail with the messages of the install process to develop@q4os.org.

q4osteam · 2024-03-10 14:24

@NoMoreWindows
Got it, thanks. You could also attach a simple text file to your post on the forum, However the e-mail way is correct as well.

You can find installers log files at: $HOME/.appsetup2/log/

Last edited by q4osteam (2024-03-10 14:26)

NoMoreWindows · 2024-03-10 15:32

OK, I attached the log for the software centre installation of Update Manager that caused the error.

For the rest Pi+Q4OS working quite nicely, some lag on video etc, but that is to be expected with the hardware given.

Q4OS booting in 50 seconds on the Pi 4 which is nice.

Attachments:

setup-q4os-updater_20240310105037.log, Size: 8.61 KiB, Downloads: 25

q4osteam · 2024-03-10 15:52

Checking the update manager installer log file, the installer seems to be fine, but some process is locking the debconf database. It seems to be more common issue as already reported by @seb3773 https://www.q4os.org/forum/viewtopic.ph … 301#p26301 . We will conduct further investigation.

Please run in terminal:
$ sudo fuser /var/cache/debconf/config.dat
$ sudo lsof /var/cache/debconf/config.dat
and post back the output.

You can try to solve this by clearing the cache:
$ sudo rm /var/cache/debconf/*.dat
$ sudo apt update
and run the installer again to see what happens.

Last edited by q4osteam (2024-03-10 15:54)

NoMoreWindows · 2024-03-10 16:40

seb3773 wrote:

The desktop is really responsive although I'm running it from a regular sd card, will try from an ssd connected to the usb3 port soon.

I'm certainly interested to know if USB disk further improves performance.
I also understand that it requires a firmware update of the Pi 4 to boot from USB, so I'd like to know how easy that goes.

Last edited by NoMoreWindows (2024-03-10 16:41)

NoMoreWindows · 2024-03-10 18:59

q4osteam wrote:

Please run in terminal:
$ sudo fuser /var/cache/debconf/config.dat
$ sudo lsof /var/cache/debconf/config.dat
and post back the output.

Output from these commands:

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo fuser /var/cache/debconf/config.dat
/var/cache/debconf/config.dat: 841
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo lsof /var/cache/debconf/config.dat
lsof: WARNING: can't stat() fuse.gvfsd-fuse file system /run/user/1000/gvfs
Output information may be incomplete.
lsof: WARNING: can't stat() fuse.portal file system /run/user/1000/doc
Output information may be incomplete.
COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME
dpkg-reco 841 root 4uW REG 179,2 38350 1661 /var/cache/debconf/config.dat

After this I succesfully installed from software centre:

- Update Manager
- LookSwitcher
- GParted

Encouraged by this I installed the "Full" Profile which also ran without errors. I've seen a few warnings which you can find in a file I've sent via email.

q4osteam · 2024-03-10 19:12

That looks fine. We can confirm the warnings are not significant and you can safely ignore them. So the root of the issue is blocking config.dat file, we will continue to investigate and fix that. More reporting is welcome.

NoMoreWindows · 2024-03-10 20:21

Once I had everything set up, the system became a lot slower, to the point that it became unusable. Mainly typing was annoying, keys entered showed only after a delay.
When I used the LookSwitcher to go back to "Q4OS Default" from "Debonaire" the problem went away.

Is this expected that Debonaire uses more resources?

It's not that important but it is the most modern and good looking option in my opinion.

q4osteam · 2024-03-10 20:24

Yes, the Debonaire theme uses some more resources, but it should perform fine on your board. There must be some bug that is overloading your system, but we have no idea what it could be. More investigation is needed. You could do some basic memory checks with the "htop" tool.

Last edited by q4osteam (2024-03-10 20:25)

q4osteam · 2024-03-11 10:54

@NoMoreWindows
It would be helpful, if you could do some debugging for us to be able to investigate further.

First test: Use Debonaire theme so your system will slow down and try to disable rtkit service:
$ sudo systemctl stop rtkit-daemon.service
$ sudo systemctl disable rtkit-daemon.service
$ sudo systemctl mask rtkit-daemon.service
reboot and report what happens.

Second test. Switch to the Debonaire theme, so your system will slow down. Now, in control panel, switch components of Debonaire theme off one by one. Always reboot after a single component change:
- Style: QtCurve -> Q4OS 02 style
- Icons: Waterleaf -> Crystal SVG
- Fonts: Noto Sans -> Dejavu Sans
- Wallpaper: Lineart -> single color background
- Colors: switch to default color scheme
- Switch of screensaver completely
to see on what step the system gets the normal performance.

Third test would be to use Debonaire theme, run "htop" in terminal and report what process exploits most of CPU and memory resources.

NoMoreWindows · 2024-03-11 15:16

OK, I think I have time this evening to look into this and report on another issue I found concerning the keyboard dialog that is showing during boot.
(I couldn't enter password on login screen due to faulty (Korean?) keyboard layout.)

Pi diagnostics gave slightly low specs on my SD card speed.

Raspberry Pi Diagnostics - version 0.13
Mon Mar 11 14:00:50 2024

Test : SD Card Speed Test
Run 1
prepare-file;0;0;16641;32
seq-write;0;0;16141;31
rand-4k-write;0;0;2128;532
rand-4k-read;4749;1187;0;0
Sequential write speed 16141 KB/sec (target 10000) - PASS
Random write speed 532 IOPS (target 500) - PASS
Random read speed 1187 IOPS (target 1500) - FAIL
Run 2
prepare-file;0;0;15964;31
seq-write;0;0;16339;31
rand-4k-write;0;0;1772;443
rand-4k-read;5943;1485;0;0
Sequential write speed 16339 KB/sec (target 10000) - PASS
Random write speed 443 IOPS (target 500) - FAIL
Random read speed 1485 IOPS (target 1500) - FAIL
Run 3
prepare-file;0;0;16637;32
seq-write;0;0;16973;33
rand-4k-write;0;0;2685;671
rand-4k-read;5209;1302;0;0
Sequential write speed 16973 KB/sec (target 10000) - PASS
Random write speed 671 IOPS (target 500) - PASS
Random read speed 1302 IOPS (target 1500) - FAIL
Test FAIL

q4osteam · 2024-03-11 15:36

@seb3773
Do you have any experience running Q4OS-5 on RPi ?

seb3773 · 2024-03-11 17:14

For the moment, I didn't experience any slowdowns, but I'm using a high quality sd card, maybe that's the reason ? Tomorrow I will put the image on a ssd, and begin to work on adapting my Q4OS scripts (mainly theming & perfs) for the arm version, and will report any bugs.

Now, I noticed the same problem than NoMoreWindows, keyboard setup app (terminal whiptail menu style) appearing 2/3 sec before login.

NoMoreWindows · 2024-03-11 20:18

I started from a new SD card.

After boot I did a “sudo apt update”.
I installed LookSwitch from software center.
I changed theme to Debonaire.
I installed Update Manager from software centre.
I installed “Full” profile.
I got the errorcode:80 error.
I applied the fix mentioned above.
I installed “Full” profile again.

All works well.
Speed is good but not lightning fast on heavy applications like Firefox Browser or LibreOffice Writer. But it is workable (same as Pi OS).
Videos play well in lower resolution <=360p.

As for the keyboard delays, I have this funny suspicion now that it is a general Debian/Q4OS problem since I have this now and then since a few weeks also on my main PC.
I blamed this on my use of PowerTop, which I want to get rid of, but now I’m starting to doubt, since the effect on the Pi and on my main PC look and feel very much the same… weird. (I use different keyboard and mouse on both systems.)

Q4OS on Rasperry Pi is very close in my opinion.
We have this errorcode:80 problem on the Q4OS installer, and the unwanted keyboard configuration screen while booting. That’s all I’ve found.
I'll test more tomorrow.

Last edited by NoMoreWindows (2024-03-11 20:36)

Q4OS Forum

#1 2024-02-25 13:45

Q4OS 5 for Raspberry Pi

#2 2024-03-04 22:16

Re: Q4OS 5 for Raspberry Pi

#3 2024-03-05 13:52

Re: Q4OS 5 for Raspberry Pi

#4 2024-03-05 15:35

Re: Q4OS 5 for Raspberry Pi

#5 2024-03-09 09:36

Re: Q4OS 5 for Raspberry Pi

#6 2024-03-09 21:31

Re: Q4OS 5 for Raspberry Pi

#7 2024-03-09 23:59

Re: Q4OS 5 for Raspberry Pi

#8 2024-03-10 07:38

Re: Q4OS 5 for Raspberry Pi

#9 2024-03-10 11:58

Re: Q4OS 5 for Raspberry Pi

#10 2024-03-10 12:15

Re: Q4OS 5 for Raspberry Pi

#11 2024-03-10 12:52

Re: Q4OS 5 for Raspberry Pi

#12 2024-03-10 14:02

Re: Q4OS 5 for Raspberry Pi

#13 2024-03-10 14:24

Re: Q4OS 5 for Raspberry Pi

#14 2024-03-10 15:32

Re: Q4OS 5 for Raspberry Pi

#15 2024-03-10 15:52

Re: Q4OS 5 for Raspberry Pi

#16 2024-03-10 16:40

Re: Q4OS 5 for Raspberry Pi

#17 2024-03-10 18:59

Re: Q4OS 5 for Raspberry Pi

#18 2024-03-10 19:12

Re: Q4OS 5 for Raspberry Pi

#19 2024-03-10 20:21

Re: Q4OS 5 for Raspberry Pi

#20 2024-03-10 20:24

Re: Q4OS 5 for Raspberry Pi

#21 2024-03-11 10:54

Re: Q4OS 5 for Raspberry Pi

#22 2024-03-11 15:16

Re: Q4OS 5 for Raspberry Pi

#23 2024-03-11 15:36

Re: Q4OS 5 for Raspberry Pi

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Re: Q4OS 5 for Raspberry Pi

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Re: Q4OS 5 for Raspberry Pi

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