Linux installation guide

Option 1: Q4OS (The most beginner friendly)

Prerequesites:

• A windows computer
• Administrator permissions
• ~50GiB of free space
• 20-30 minutes of free time for a basic Q4OS desktop. Additional time is needed for a Full featured desktop.
• A network connection
• Recommended: A backup of important files.
• Curiosity

Downloading installer

Go to https://www.q4os.org/, and navigate to the ‘Downloads’ section. From there, go the the ‘Installer for Windows’ section, and click on Q4OS Aquarius, WinSetup.exe - 64bit / x64 to download the installer. For the next steps, there is an installation guide available on the website. It skips over some details which lead me to writing this guide.

Running the installer

Go to your downloads folder, and unpack the q4os-winsetup zip file by right-clicking on it and selecting ‘Extract all’.

Be sure to check ‘Show extracted files when complete’. Once the installer is unpacked, you can run it. Here, change the installation size to around 50GiB. (20GiB will be taken up by the system, leaving 30GiB available to store files in your linux installation), and optionally change the language. Set a password for the user, and press install.

The installer will download, extract and expand the image file. This takes some time so be patient. Once the install has finished, close the installer and restart the computer.

Selecting Q4OS from the boot menu

See the relevant section of the Q4OS setup guide.

First boot

When running Q4OS for the first time, after logging in it may show the following window:

If you do not wish to connect to the internet at this point, close the window or press OK, and on the following screen, press Cancel:

This will bring you to the Q4OS Welcome Screen. Enjoy!

Option 2: Linux Mint (Manual Dual-Boot Setup)

Prerequesites:

• ~50GiB of free space
• An empty usb
• A backup of all your files!!
• Curiosity

This section of the guide is a work-in-progress. I will update it when I have some time to test and write down the installation process for a dual boot.

• Follow the Linux Mint Install Guide. The most common issue I have faced is the Secure Boot message. For this, you will need to disable Secure Boot in the BIOS settings of your computer.

• Installation/Usage:

  • Ask on the Linux Mint forums for help