The release of the Q4OS 5.6 distribution, based on Debian package base and featuring KDE Plasma 5 and Trinity desktops (continuing the development of the KDE 3.5.x codebase), has been announced. Both user environments can coexist within the same system, allowing the user to switch between them. The distribution is positioned as low-resource demanding and offers a classic desktop layout. The size of the bootable image is 1.5 GB (x86_64).
It includes several in-house developed applications, including 'Desktop Profiler' for quick installation of themed software bundles, 'Setup utility' for installing third-party applications, 'Software center' for additional program installations, 'Welcome Screen' for simplifying initial setup, Lookswitcher for rapid appearance switching, and scripts for installing alternative environments like LXQt, Xfce, and LXDE. An application is provided for installing the distribution in a separate Windows directory, enabling the use of the distribution alongside Windows without allocating a separate disk partition.
In the new release, the package base has been updated to Debian 12.7 with the Linux 6.1.0-25 kernel. The Calamares installer has gained the ability to load custom profiles that define the set of packages and applications selected by the user for installation. The capabilities of the Q4OS Setup configurator and the Desktop Profiler application bundle installer have been expanded. Live builds have updated the Shim boot layer and GRUB bootloader. Digital signatures for older Shim versions have been revoked.
Separately, enthusiasts are developing Q4OS builds with interfaces styled after Windows XP and Windows 10.
Source: opennet.ru
