I quit.

padota1663 · 2025-09-08 13:03

As per the title, after a year and a half of trying to switch to Linux (specifically Q4OS) while, in the meantime, using it on old computers to not let them rot away or junking them, I give up.

I'm so fed up with all the time and energies I spent (and which I lost from actually using the PCs to do stuff productively, and also from doing anything else in my life) fixing the issues I encountered Using Q4OS daily that I wiped my PC and decided to give a try to Ubuntu standard with Gnome, to see if I can avoid going back to Windows (I HATE that WinUpdate does whatever it wants, and restarts your PC suddenly with gazillions of Firefox tabs and other stuff open).

On top of that, I decided to write this lengthy post to vent my frustration and let everyone know the details of the issues I experienced (maybe they can be of any help to the devs and to other users).

Please don't dare to say I tried everything I could to get accustomed to Linux, I already tried two times in the past with Ubuntu (both Server and Gnome Desktop), CentOS (both server and desktop with Gnome, KDE) but not continuously for a year and a half; this time I decided to be determined so I started using it daily and almost excusively over Windows, and I also registered myself here to ask help for the issues I could not solve googling (usually because they are too specific to TDE etc.), these are my threads in chronological order with a short summary:

https://www.q4os.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=5025 - Pulseaudio issues with system sounds (resolved, this PC had hardware issues with a faulty HDD, which also caused the next issue)
https://www.q4os.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=5091 - Xorg crashing with high RAM usage (solved, this one was a mix of hardware issues with a faulty HDD, software issues with a wrong version of BOINC client installed, and human error with wrong / excessive overclock)
https://www.q4os.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=5078 - Screensaver and screen lock with TDE (never resolved even if at first it seemed so; after various weeks of uptime these two things always broke so no more screen locking or screensaver turning on until a logoff / logon, or PC restart, was performed; the main suspect is xdg-desktop-por as you can read in the thread, which keeps on throwing errors in syslog, along with org.freedesktop.Platform which also throws random errors in syslog)
https://www.q4os.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=5077 - Tofu (square) boxes in file names with non conventional fonts and letters (at present not resolved, maybe in future releases; for this, I also opened a bug to the TDE devs directly as visible in the thread, it's an issue with old TQt3 libraries which TDE uses for font handling)
https://www.q4os.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=5390 - Issues mounting remote Samba folders via GUI wizard in Dolphin (resolved in other ways, as the wizard is still broken and probably will remain so, I mounted my remote folders with AutoFS in the end, and they worked great)
https://www.q4os.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=5391 - Random PackageKit errors in syslog (not resolved; they were not interfering with normal operations, it was more of a aesthetical issue in the logs to me; I was told to update, I didn't so as to avoid restarting the PC; I did it after some months in the end, when TDE crashed and had to restart, but nothing changed, errors are still present)

Other issues for which I planned to open threads but I didn't were:
- random DBus errors like "kernel is missing apparmor support" which continuously show up in syslog at every boot and sometimes, sporadically, even after
- random system-xdg-autostart errors which continuously show up in syslog at every boot
- other random errors in syslog which often lead to CPU hang and system slowly freezing to a halt, or having a sudden and complete freeze, like "general protection fault", CPU soft lockups, CPU segfaults, GPU driver crash, "task underflow" etc...
- multiple file selection using the Shift key (selection of a sequence of files) in Dolphin is a joke, and a bad one; try it yourself if you dare, four biggest issue after the next ones
- TDE after some major update was losing settings about icon placement, menu settings etc.; had to reset manually everything sometimes (third major issue after the next two)
- Pulseaudio crashing randomly and I had no more sound until logoff / logon or reboot; this is the second biggest issue after the next one
- numerous nouveau driver errors which probably is bugged, which oftentimes also lead to my PC freezing; had to disable hardware acceleration in FF and Chrome to mitigate the issue, but whatever program attempted to use 3D graphics could lead to artifacts or complete freezeup of the PC; I attempted installing NVIDIA proprietary driver for my 8800 GT card, and the issues (missing dependencies, old driver incompatibility, third party repos not working for various reasons etc.) I faced were the last straw because after many hours I realized it was a goddamn nightmare to accomplish this task, so I decided to end it all abruptly

Maybe Linux is excellent for server usage with CLI (rarely I had issues using it as server), maybe almost, if not all, the existing DEs suck in a way or another and the Linux kernel has its own fair share of issues (I found stuff online with many details, but as of now I'm too lazy to link anything to prove this point, you can however google it freely), maybe I just can't become accustomed to Linux on a desktop, but every attempt I made to switch was horrible, more so because I use the PC mainly for gaming and gaming on Linux is a nightmare (although things have improved in the last years); I didn't pretend to game with these old PCs (in fact I never did, these PCs were intended as "web browsing slaves" PCs, where to keep open dozens of tabs for weeks if not months) and in fact I never gamed with them, keeping gaming on Windows, but not to be stable and crashing for various causes (especially talking about NVIDIA drivers, which were the last straw, and also Pulseaudio) is a huge issue to me, moreover if I have to reopen dozens of Firefox tabs and notepads with to do lists etc.

So, I quit, and be damned TDE.

I wanna however thank you all for the support, especially hcipher and bin, which always helped me to the end.

I also wanna leave a positive side note: I was able to reach a little more than 4950 continuous uptime hours without ever logging out or restarting Q4OS before Pulseaudio decided to crash TDE (Pulse was crashed, I attempted to adjust the volume from the icon tray and TDE froze completely) forcing me to reset the PC; I did better on Windows but never expected to reach so far on Linux Desktop, based on previous experience.

TL:DR after many issues I decided to give up on Linux desktop almost completely and I explained why up here.

Bye everyone
padota1663

q4osteam · 2025-09-08 13:44

padota1663 wrote:

Pulseaudio issues ... resolved, this PC had hardware issues with a faulty HDD

padota1663 wrote:

Xorg crashing with high RAM usage ... solved, this one was a mix of hardware issues with a faulty HDD

With failing hardware no OS will work properly for you. That looks like quite some of the issues you mentioned are caused by failing hardware. You state crashes and freezes, but it mostly turn to be memory or general hardware failures.

padota1663 wrote:

TL:DR after many issues I decided to give up on Linux desktop almost completely and I explained why up here.

Unfortunately we are not able to resolve Linux general issues you state as well. We can work on resolving Q4OS specific issues and we do so. It would be more valuable if you would direct such unhappy reports to the upstream projects.

In anyway you are welcome here for the next time. Did you also try Q4OS Plasma, when Trinity doesn't suite you ?

klemperer85 · 2025-09-12 14:53

I am quite aware that this is not much of a tell how happy you are with Q4OS forum, but - and this is wonderful - concentrates on finding solutions and getting tips.
Still, as there is a I quit forum, decide for yourself if you would like to delete my "I am new and happy" post^^.

I know of a lot of people (well, a minority that doesn't throw away old machines, to be honest) who search for Linux distros. I started, knowing nothing, with Lubuntu 6-7 years ago, switched to LXLE, which is discontinued as it seems - and only then found Q4OS. Since then I recommended it to 2 people trying to leave Windows (one out of political reasons, the other one because he had too much of it and is searching for a reliable OS). Still getting replacement batteries for my old HP pro book from 2011^^ - I just can't thank you enough for keeping Trinity alive! This is simply wonderful for all with very old machines - it will run for years, what else can one wish for? I can use my 14 year old machine without having to buy those I despise (I never understood why I would buy a laptop with an in-built battery if I had the opportunity to simply change with moving 1 knob. But I learned that a huge majority is always saying "why on earth would you buy a laptop with replaceable batteries? You simply buy a new laptop, that's it!)

I installed Plasma (5.8) and it worked fine, too, but then learned and decided for Trinity, I set up everything 2 weeks ago - and today there is 6.1^^. So I will install it today. Some programs I used in LXLE can be installed too (Librewolf, a Firefox browser for more security, is not in the software pool, but after I found where a terminal is I could find a way to install).
So I start to learn Q4OS, still use the terminal with fun (gives you this "ah, I am not completely dumb" feel you got from old Windows days^^) and do a lot with that still.
After some time I will surely replace my old and trusted programs in part and see what you got; even if I can't find fault with them, so I will see. Audacious, Librewolf, audio-rekorder and soundconverter (from Gnome) or Nomacs - those are the ones I did not know before LXLE times. Some need their own repositories, and in some cases it is a bit of a search (the audio-rekorder seems discontinued, but I am not sure - works wonderful). But it all works so well. And then there is surely something you all use instead of those programmes, and I will test all.

So - thank you SO much, long live Trinity, even if Plasma does not throw us users of old machines out, - - and next time I will only post with some question or, after a time of course only, advice. I am in, won't quit, and happy. To the OP - maybe if you'd try with a more reliable machine, you might come to different conclusions. In my case installing and customising Q4OS was a process which just worked fine, flawless, and would there be some flaws, they would most probably come - from me. Everything seems tested so well and runs rock-solid. Long live Trinity! And Plasma, of course.

q4osteam · 2025-09-12 15:00

@klemperer85
Welcome to the forum and we can more than agree:

klemperer85 wrote:

Long live Trinity! ...

bin · 2025-09-13 06:23

Thank you for taking the time to express your happiness with Q4OS. Being prepared to 'have a go' and find what works for you is what it is all about!

Germ · 2025-09-13 14:10

My 17 year old Acer laptop loves Trinity!

seb3773 · 2025-09-13 16:23

q4osteam wrote:

@klemperer85
Welcome to the forum and we can more than agree:
klemperer85 wrote:
Long live Trinity! ...

I second this ! Q4OS is a great, and sadly underrated distribution. The plasma edition is really good of course (have some friends using it and they are very happy with it), but my opinion is the number #1 quality of Q4OS is to be shipped with trinity. Trinity is a gem, clearly: everything you need from a modern desktop environment, without the bloat and the stupid useless things. It's a perfect choice for low end computers, but, I insist on this, it is as good of course for high end ones: I'm the kind of guy that hates wasting cpu cycles for useless things.
Let me explain: I paid for my cpu, and I pay for electricity too, it's not about the cpu speed, it's about efficiency. Even on my "bigger" computer, which is a i7 8500K, with 32Gb RAM, 3 NVME ssd , so not the most recent machine, but with a lot of power available, I can see clearly the difference between Q4OS Trinity and win10/11, it's night (windows ) and day. Trinity is much much more reactive and fast to do even simple operations (searching files in windows is a nightmare of inneficiency without dedicated tools for example...) and the gap increase when I do a lot of multitasking. And, believe me, there's a difference too between the plasma edition and the trinity edition, even on this kind of hardware. And, to be honest, even if there were no "perceptible" differences, I will choose Trinity. "No perceptible" difference in user experience doesn't mean your cpu isn't doing useless things. The key of stability is simplicity. The less useless things your computer do, the less chances it will crash. That's why I like Trinity too: just what you need to work (and game if you want ) , and that's the reason I dislike more and more windows: they're going the silly way, windows11 is a nightmare at work, bundled with TONS of useless, and sometimes totally stupid stuff we don't need, and it's going to be worse with their new "let's put IA everywhere" mantra... Trinity is the exact contrary of this: Everything you need, only the good base that is required, and then you're free to add everything you want IF you want. Simple, efficient. Unbloated by nature.

So, once again, "Long live Trinity!"

Last edited by seb3773 (2025-09-13 16:28)

theasmitkid · 2025-09-13 16:31

Long live Trinity!

Q4OS Forum

#1 2025-09-08 13:03

I quit.

#2 2025-09-08 13:44

Re: I quit.

#3 2025-09-12 14:53

Re: I quit.

#4 2025-09-12 15:00

Re: I quit.

#5 2025-09-13 06:23

Re: I quit.

#6 2025-09-13 14:10

Re: I quit.

#7 2025-09-13 16:23

Re: I quit.

#8 2025-09-13 16:31

Re: I quit.

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