Zorin OS

https://zorin.com/os/

by oldfuture • 1 year ago

206 198 1 year ago

zorin.com

LorenDB2• 1 year ago

Zorin is one of the best distros to recommend to noobs.

- Ubuntu based, so it has full compatibility with every .deb package that you find online

- Not actually Ubuntu, so it doesn't have that weird Canonical corporate push stuff (ads in terminal, etc.)

- Has a .exe hook preinstalled that asks you if you want to install Wine to run Windows apps

- Has a very Windows-like layout so it's instantly familiar (which is not uncommon, but Ubuntu certainly goes the other way)

dlivingston• 1 year ago

Interesting. Is it pretty polished or are there some rough edges?

LorenDB2• 1 year ago

I don't daily-drive it myself (openSUSE Tumbleweed user here) but in my experience it's pretty smooth and polished.

debo_3• 1 year ago

I daily-drive it because of the polish.

worthless-trash• 1 year ago

I've not used ubuntu for some time, but

- Ubuntu based, so it has full compatibility with every .deb package that you find online

I don't think that .deb files are universally portable.

kvdveer• 1 year ago

They are not universally portable, but if your running an Ubuntu derived system, most debs can be installed jus fine. Thats not because deb is so compatible,but because virtually everything assumes Ubuntu.

jeroenhd6• 1 year ago

You need the .deb files to match your architecture and to have the necessary dependencies available, but for programs like Google Chrome, Discord, and VSCode, those dependencies seem to come down to "any recent version of glibc and openssl" and the .debs themselves are available for multiple architectures.

You're not going to be installing random Debian packages from the Debian FTP server, but for most proprietary software that resorts to "install this .deb", it'll work most of the time, which beats many other distributions.

On the other hand, installing software this way is a great way for upgrades to the next major version to fail spectacularly halfway through, so I'm not so sure if it's a feature or not.

biggestfan2• 1 year ago

And in place upgrades! It was a massive problem for years with Zorin (and still exists with other "user friendly" distros like Elementary), requiring a full system reinstall every time a new version released.

That being said, I still think this is a bit of a strange option when there's several Ubuntu flavors with more Windows-esque desktops, plus Linux Mint which offers a lot of these benefits with a much larger userbase and therefore better support (though Zorin is more "modern" looking). Not a bad option but not one I'd think to recommend often.

tvgirlfan2004• 1 year ago

elementary supports upgrades since OS 8

https://blog.elementary.io/os-8-available-now/#:~:text=In%20...

roger_• 1 year ago

“Bundled with alternatives to over $5,000 of professional software”

That sounds spammy and misleading to me. I’m assuming they’re just including open source alternatives and assuming the same value as commercial offerings.

koakuma-chan2• 1 year ago

I would rather they didn't bundle anything at all lol

debo_3• 1 year ago

The lite install doesn't bundle anything.

ChrisRR3• 1 year ago

So just the kernel?

jonnat• 1 year ago

Doesn't sound misleading to me. I read "$5,000 of professional software" as paid-for software that would have cost $5,000.

yoavm2• 1 year ago

So clearly it is misleading, because what they mean is definitely along the lines of "we include GIMP while Photoshop costs $999".

djaychela• 1 year ago

But for many, they wouldn't even know this was possible. Yes, when you look into it it will be all the usual software, but 95% of people don't even know there is a world beyond windows and macOS, so that might be something that gets them to look for a couple of minutes and consider they might be able to use this.

But I get what you're saying.

nartho• 1 year ago

Zorin OS is built on the same Open Source software that powers the New York Stock Exchange and computers on the International Space Station.
Thanks to the advanced security features of Linux, Zorin OS is resistant to PC viruses and malware

The whole landing page is full of those statements. It seems like they are targeting a demographics with low tech literacy, but I don't know how productive those statements are really.

qualeed• 1 year ago

Those two statements rubbed me the wrong way (more than the $5000 statement). Reminds me of military-grade encryption, etc. Completely void of any meaning, but sounds great to laypeople.

kjellsbells• 1 year ago

It's simultaneously too much and too little. If the reader is genuinely a tech layperson, eg, someone who grew up on iPad and nothing else, then "open source" and "Linux" are just confusing filler words and a better statement would be

"Zorin OS is built from the same software that powers the New York Stock Exchange and computers on the International Space Station.

Thanks to its advanced security features, Zorin OS is resistant to PC viruses and malware."

The root is that the writers are pushing Linux, and writing through that lens, instead of internalizing the ur-problem that the readers have of "needing to get off Windows" (for whatever reason) and writing content that addresses that.

And I say this as a fan of Zorin.

lproven10• 1 year ago

It seems like they are targeting a demographics with low tech literacy

True, and often overlooked in the world of Linux.

but I don't know how productive those statements are really.

What it really means is that it comes with 20GB of so of preinstalled Flatpak apps for a whole bunch of use cases: graphic art, sound and music production, video and podcast editing, live streaming, etc.

Stuff you need domain-specific knowledge to find and install on Linux, and which on Windows costs real money and probably will get you a tonne of spyware, ad banners etc.

Nothing vastly demanding if you have the knowledge.

Rather than giving you an app store and leaving you to it to find it, learn it, navigate it, and find the apps you need and avoid anything dodgy, they take a whole catalogue of premium big-name FOSS apps and preload the lot.

It's big, and when I reviewed it, it filled my VM and then a real disk partition -- but in real life, you nuke Windows and dedicate a laptop to this, and then it's fine.

My most recent review:

https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/03/zorin_os_173/

My first:

https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/02/zorin_os_162/

mitkebes4• 1 year ago

My father has gotten distrustful of windows, and wanted an alternative. I sent him a link to the Zorin home page, and it convinced him to try it out on a new laptop they were buying (I installed it for them). They've been quite happy with it, and I expect they'll want to swap over their other PC as well.

So it seems to me that this homepage was very successful, at least in this case of a linux user being able to recommend it to a non-techie.

yesfitz2• 1 year ago

How would you rephrase the sentiment?

DSMan195276• 1 year ago

I would add - I don't mind them describing it like that, the questionable part is how the advertising heavily implies that to get access to that software you have to buy the "Pro" version. The software is of course free and available to install on the "non-pro" version, it just doesn't get installed during installation, and they're definitely betting on people not knowing this detail and buying "Pro" to get the listed software.

andsoitis• 1 year ago

You also get support with the Pro version.

dartharva2• 1 year ago

They are specifically targeting enterprise customers, so corpo speak was going to be evident in their promo material.

frollogaston4• 1 year ago

GIMP, a $23/mo value, yours for $0/mo!

mitkebes4• 1 year ago

I think that's mostly there to give people confidence that they'll have real, quality software available. A concern for new linux users is that they'll be missing software they need, that statement expresses that there will be a lot of software available, and that the quality is comparable to profession quality.

a2128• 1 year ago

I wouldn't consider GIMP a real, professional-quality alternative to Photoshop (I say this as someone who uses GIMP on a daily basis)

replete3• 1 year ago

I reviewed ZorinOS last year when considering going all-in on Linux at home last year, testing around 30 distributions.

While it wasn't a good fit as a techie, I rated Zorin the best distro for 'general desktop computing' for "normal" people who have used Windows their whole life.

I was impressed by how integrated and easy to use the desktop environment was. Now, this is not a statement of Gnome vs KDE etc etc, it is of the experience of using it - e.g. simple settings for making the general OS feel like Windows or MacOS, lots of sensible things.

franczesko• 1 year ago

Link?

mrheosuper2• 1 year ago

how would you compare it with PopOS

lproven10• 1 year ago

For most purposes, much better.

Pop OS has a whole new desktop metaphor. That doesn't bother a techie; it can totally throw non-technical folks.

Zorin coerces GNOME into a Windows-like design, but unlike too many distros, it looks good while doing it, and the paid version comes with a tonne of apps pre-installed and paid support.

replete3• 1 year ago

I have my eye on COSMIC Desktop, but ultimately decided Fedora was a better fit for me from a perspective of 'latest stuff with less hassle, mostly stable' as a technical person.

The real comparison is 'stable distribution for developer/techie type people' vs 'stable distribution that is easy to use for newbies'. Zorin is the latter, comparing the two doesn't quite make sense. If you are the former, you wouldn't pick ZorinOS.

Not to say you can't do anything on Zorin you couldn't on PopOS, but the point of Zorin is a well integrated operating system for non-technical people, which means packages won't always be latest because they want to ship a stable operating system for non-technical people.

If you had an older system and wanted to use it for basic web type activities, Zorin would probably be a better fit for that scenario

afavour2• 1 year ago

I hope this succeeds where others have, well, not failed, but not had overwhelming success. Years ago I installed Linux Mint on a family member's computer but they got frustrated enough with it (and required my regular intervention enough) that we ended up switching away. Zorin boasting about you being able to play "an enormous library of your favorite games" or boasting about the vast software library feels like asking for trouble. It won't be long before users run into rough edges.

TBH in the current environment I still think the best OS for "revive an old computer for a not very tech savvy person" is ChromeOS. I've never tried the open source alternatives for that but I'd be much happier setting up a relative with a glorified browser as an OS than something that attempts to do everything.

tombert2• 1 year ago

My cousin got my grandmother moved to Linux Mint with some actual success. All she did was check her email and browse the internet, and Linux can do that perfectly competently.

zamalek• 1 year ago

Same story here. Purchased a System76 machine for my ex-wife's grandmother. She "enjoyed learning about the new system". As a bonus she is now completely support scam immune, one of the advantages of the year of the Linux desktop not having happened yet.

spjt• 1 year ago

There's a big difference between noobs on their own and noobs with a competent relative.

Way back in the day, I set up my grandpa with Slackware and FVWM. Yeah, I had to edit a configuration file to add a program - but that also meant that once I set it up, it would never break.

replete3• 1 year ago

FYI: FydeOS[0] is ChromeOS without google services

[0] https://fydeos.io/

biomcgary• 1 year ago

I'm curious about whether FydeOS would get in the way of technical work or just be another Linux for most things?

pogue2• 1 year ago

I'm surprised to hear that about Linux Mint. I installed it on an ancient laptop for my octogenarian mother and she could get around in it just fine after I explained to her how to use their 'store' to install apps. The interface is quite intuitive, I felt.

qn9n14• 1 year ago

My guess is if you are comfortable on Windows then Mint is perfect and works how you expect, if you come from macOS then perhaps Elementary would be better for you.

Zorin negates this worry entirely and allows you to install one OS for everyone and then just choose the Windows or Mac mode depending on the end-user.

penguin_booze• 1 year ago

OOC, what were the frustrations about? I jumped ship as soon as Ubuntu started shipping with Unity. For me, as a moderate power-user, it's been pretty smooth sailing so far.

qn9n14• 1 year ago

I think that's the issue, you're a moderate power user so feature discoverability is more natural to you. I guess the issues his family had were related to things not functioning how Windows or macOS does (although Mint is pretty Windows focused) hopefully Zorin is much more user-friendly to casual users.

pjmlp9• 1 year ago

As someone that nowadays lives mostly on Windows, and uses Linux since kernel 1.0.9 days, Unity DE was so much better experience than GNOME will ever be again.

After Unity got removed from Ubuntu as default DE, I eventually adopted XFCE.

coffeebeqn• 1 year ago

Zorin boasting about you being able to play "an enormous library of your favorite games"

This has nothing to do with “zorin”. Proton, wine, lutris, are available for all Linuxes

marssaxman• 1 year ago

There is genuine value in having it all set up out of the box, and not having to figure it out yourself.

I have been using Linux since the '90s and haven't used anything else in at least a decade, but I struggled to understand what all the pieces were and what I was supposed to do with them when I wanted to play a Steam game with my kid several months ago. I'm still not sure I did it right; I think I probably did install Lutris, maybe, but I have no idea what problem it is meant to solve.

fao_8• 1 year ago

Zorin boasting about you being able to play "an enormous library of your favorite games" or boasting about the vast software library feels like asking for trouble. It won't be long before users run into rough edges.

Out of the top 1000 games on steam: https://www.protondb.com/dashboard

29 are "borked" (unplayable)

26 are "bronze" (issues playing like "might crash")

82 are "silver" ("runs with minor issues but is playable")

823 are "gold"/"platinum" (works perfectly with tweaks, and works perfectly ootb)

TBH in the current environment I still think the best OS for "revive an old computer for a not very tech savvy person" is ChromeOS.

Only 52 games are listed as "certified" for proton on Chrome OS.

jeroenhd6• 1 year ago

Proton isn't Wine. The version of Wine that Zorin ships won't run games quite so well.

Installing Steam and running games through Steam will fix that, but it won't help with users downloading the Epic Game Store or GOG or the Rockstar Launcher.

Having helped a few users get acclimated with Linux, I've found that there are always a few rough edges around games. Zorin seems to hide them very well out of the box, though, much better than any of the other distros I've tried.

Kaytaro• 1 year ago

I find protondb misleading because GTA V is supposedly "Gold" except Online does not work at all because of anti-cheat. Same goes for many other popular multiplayer games.

jeroenhd6• 1 year ago

The advantage of Zorin is that it comes with some level of Wine integration. If it detects that there's a Linux version of a Windows installer, it'll guide the user towards the Linux version instead, but opening .EXEs works quite well out of the box as well.

Getting a recent version of Wine on anything but Arch-based distros without some kind of confusing intermediary is quite tricky, so making Wine somewhat usable goes a long way for non-tech-savvy users.

I've seen Zorin on computers sold for cheap in several second-hand stores. All PCs that have no hope of running Windows 11 (and probably struggled to run Windows 10 before getting a RAM+SSD upgrade). For reusing old tech, it's not a bad solution, though some users might have someone install Windows 10 later anyway.

lawlessone• 1 year ago

. If it detects that there's a Linux version of a Windows installer, it'll guide the user towards the Linux version instead,

My anecdotal experience with the steam and steamOS has been that the windows versions of games run better via proton than their native linux versions.

One game i have didn't run even run when i was on windows, but the windows version worked in Linux..

cosmic_cheese2• 1 year ago

Something that I believe is dragging down “mass audience” sorts of distros like Zorin is that they’re only Windows-like in a vague sense, leaving them in an “uncanny valley” of sorts. One of these distros really needs to commit to the bit of Windows-like-ness so it’s a seamless drop-in to the greatest degree possible.

prmoustache3• 1 year ago

I don't know, when I installed a linux distro with xfce on her laptop after he hdd died it took my partner months to realize she wasn't using windows.

I mean she only figured out libreoffice was installed instead of the pirated copy of office she used to run and complained the menus were different. Little she knew that a more recent version of Office would too have different menus/items placement anyway.

debo_3• 1 year ago

I've installed Zorin for several elderly folks who were bewildered by the Windows 11 upgrade, and they all seem to like it.

malomalsky• 1 year ago

I use arch btw

tombert2• 1 year ago

I remember seeing this a few years ago. It certainly looked interesting, and maybe something I could convince my parents to use.

I've been so entrenched in Linux for the last two decades and have come to Stockholm-syndrome myself enough to genuinely like modern Gnome desktop, and Sway nowadays, so a part of me isn't completely sure why you'd want Windows on Linux, but of course I'm not the target audience for something like Zorin.

That said (and this is coming from a guy who is running Linux on the computer typing this and has spent a lot of time customizing Sway [1] and lots of other tinkering to the desktop), I'm skeptical of the claim that moving to Linux will be "faster". I haven't used Windows 11 yet at all, but for day-to-day desktop use I haven't really noticed Windows being slower than Linux. I haven't done benchmarks but I doubt the people running something like Zorin will either; it's all vibes based, and personally I don't really think that Linux feels faster than Windows, at least not Windows XP, Windows 7, and Windows 10.

[1] https://github.com/Tombert/rs-swanbar

webdevver• 1 year ago

THE ROTATING CUBE IS BACK!!!! LFG!!!!

https://youtu.be/4QokOwvPxrE&t=120

NackerHughes• 1 year ago

I’m glad to see it. It really didn’t get much better than Desktop Cube back in the day.

netbioserror• 1 year ago

Being Ubuntu based, I really think Zorin should be combining efforts with Linux Mint. There is quite a bit of work duplicated here. IMO Mint is the prime project; I prefer an ideal form of the core OS to a facade of others. Mint's choices have, as a side-effect, made it rather familiar anyways.

hrdwdmrbl• 1 year ago

And Mint should be combined with Pop OS?

lproven10• 1 year ago

They're both in Dublin, as well.

Clement Lefevbre is French, and Artyom and Kyrill Zorin are Ukrainian, although they grew up in Dublin. I met them and had lunch with them. They sound like it. :-)

The big difference is that Mint is free and runs on donations; the premium Zorin OS edition is paid-for and had paid support.

I can't see how the business models would combine. But, apart from that, I think you're right.

Both have an Xfce edition, and in Zorin's case, it's free.

Mint's flagship has a fork of GNOME 3 called Cinnamon. Zorin uses real upstream GNOME, but with pre-installed GNOME extensions to recreate a Windows-like desktop. Zorin sponsors Dash-to-Panel, and was involved in the original fork from Dash-to-Dock. It also uses Arc menu and a bunch of other extensions, and they're on Github, but they're not in the GNOME extensions store.

And there's also GNOME Flashback, which is a separate Windows-like desktop based on GNOME $Current tech, but maintained by the GNOME team.

There must be some way to combine these things and make a better experience with the combined efforts, but none of the three companies wants it.

jestinjoy1• 1 year ago

My computer lab with 20 computers working fine due to Zorin. Was fidning it difficult to run Ubuntu in these systems - 2 GB RAM, Intel dual core.

trklausss• 1 year ago

My only issue with this project is that, after navigating the webpage for a while, I can't see _any_ reference to open source software, and compliance with their licenses.

They should at least put a link anywhere in the webpage, where people can click and at least be redirected to their components.

I know compliance is about "you only provide it if asked for", but they could be a bit more proactive and _embrace_ that they are using FOSS, not merely try to sell it.

By the way: How does selling of the Pro version work with GPL? Or is it covered because they offer the Core version?

OsrsNeedsf2P• 1 year ago

It depends what's included, but if it's only extra apps/better integration made in-house, those don't need to be open source

Also you can charge money for GPL software. If someone wants to pirate Zorin OS, that person seems outside their non-techie target audience

abhinavk• 1 year ago

https://zorin.com/about/#source-code

The link is also in the middle of the home page.

guestbest• 1 year ago

Is this the spiritual successor to Lindows?

lproven10• 1 year ago

Lindows became Linspire.

Because Microsoft sued over the name:

https://www.networkcomputing.com/data-center-networking/micr...

Linspire was paid-for, and later introduced Freespire as the free community version.

https://practical-tech.com/2007/08/05/linspire-ceo-kevin-car...

Remarkably enough, it is still available. I reviewed the then-latest version in 2023.

https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/15/freespire-95-breezes-...

It's a successor in name only; the company acquired the Freespire and Xandros brands. The product, sadly, is unrelated. (I say "sadly" because it had a pretty good desktop based on KDE 2.x.)

But -- yes, you're right, it sort of is.

jim201• 1 year ago

I’m glad that there are distros catering towards less techy people. Linux needs this. But I take issue with selling open source projects that could otherwise be downloaded for free.

The $48 Pro version resells open source software (Blender is mentioned on their website) and slaps on a few themes. Even if legal, this just seems highly unethical.

bigyabai4• 1 year ago

it is highly unethical to resell open source software produced by volunteers intending to make their work free.

Why? ZorinOS users can still download Blender for free if they don't pay for the mega-pack. You have to imagine that it's not very hard for Zorin to follow GPL guidelines ("here are your 13,000 source tarballs, good sir") with this business.

You also can't prove that any of these volunteers are against downstream repackaging of their work. If they were really ideologically against the idea of people being able to sell Free Software, then they probably wouldn't be putting time into a GPL project. Commercial redistribution of GPL software has been a thing since the 90s, with much larger pricetags than $48.

0x6c6f6c• 1 year ago

I still don't understand the conflation of free as in freedom with free as in free beer.

You reserve certain rights to the code, that's not to say no one gets paid for _putting in work_.

If anything these models are about as close to providing _some_ manner of income to upstream projects. If Zorin donates a portion back, that is.

yesfitz2• 1 year ago

Would it be less unethical to charge a $48 installation fee?

Because as far as I know, there's nothing stopping you from installing the free version of Zorin OS and then installing Blender, Krita, Inkscape, etc.

thisislife2• 1 year ago

They aren't selling a product (open-source software). They are selling a service - the effort to customise the distro and package it with free, useful softwares. Hopefully, they also donate some time and money back to those free, open-source softwares. Note also that GPL has never been hostile towards commercial software. In fact, with MySQL (before it was owned by Oracle), the FSF even endorsed MySQL's dual-license open-source business model.

apopapo• 1 year ago

Strongly disagree on the "unethical" part. Maintaining a distribution is a lot of work, and the infrastructure also costs money. Paying for the distribution of software is totally fine. You are not even forced to pay anyway.

dartharva2• 1 year ago

The Pro version has dedicated support and is meant for enterprise customers.

carlosjobim2• 1 year ago

But I take issue with selling open source projects that could otherwise be downloaded for free.

Why should they concern themselves with you taking issue? What I mean is what gives you the right to have an opinion on their conduct?

jraph5• 1 year ago

I disagree with them, I find selling free software to be a pretty solid and ethical way of funding free software, but why would they not have the right to have an opinion on this?

I certainly have strong opinions about many software vendors, who distribute proprietary software, often full of ads and tracking on top of that, why would I not have the right to find that strongly unethical?

crossroadsguy• 1 year ago

I miss my early days of CS college and tinkering with distro installs and installs and so on. In fact it was so fulfilling that it felt like “cooking your own meal”. I never used Windows. So in last two decades my experience has been Linux distros to osx/macos. If it was not for the internet cafe computer+internet usage before college (had no other exposure to either, otherwise) my experience of Windows would have been absolutely ZERO which is what it is now.

I wish OEMs had made Linux distros first class citizens for their laptops and computers and I wish these distros also imagined “regular people” using their OS/software. I guess both never happening kinda kept nullifying each other. Maybes it’s too late now?

In fact there was a time (around a decade ago?) when the Linux based laptops had started becoming kinda “normal” — I remember buying a Linux Dell Vistro with Linux pre-installed from Dell, had helped a friend buy an XPS with linux pre-installed. We both haven’t touched anything other than a Mac in a really long time and last two times I had to buy a laptop I found zero Linux options (in India) — let alone “good” options.

PS. Oh, my favourite was always Elementary OS even though it was clearly in beta when I migrated to the macs. There was just something about that distro.

bigyabai4• 1 year ago

I wish OEMs had made Linux distros first class citizens for their laptops and computers

What more are you waiting for? Pretty much the only holdout is Nvidia, and they don't really make great laptop chips anyways. Almost every x86 chipset with UEFI and ACPI supports Linux to some degree. At this point, if your chip isn't running Linux it's because you've made a concerted effort to prevent users from accessing the bootloader.

When people say 'first class citizen' I feel like it's always a moving goalpost. First it's 'working WiFi drivers' but Broadcom modems have been supported for a decade now. Then it's 'proper Wayland support' but even Nvidia has a working Wayland session now. So then the goalpost moves to 'but I want Wayland on XFCE' and the cycle starts anew. These days, the 'regular people' workload I see on most computers boils down to gaming and running Google Chrome. Linux does both of those fine; it's the culture that has to change before people accept it. Look at how successfully the Steam Deck penetrated the market.

frollogaston4• 1 year ago

"First class citizen" never moved that much other than Bluetooth being kind of a requirement now, since it's increasingly hard to find good headphones that use 1/8" jack.

mrheosuper2• 1 year ago

first linux is just the kernel, you can't do much with only the kernel, you have to target a distro.

But which distro to target?, Ubuntu, Linux mint or fedora, or all of them. That would take a lot of effort to developing and validating (And no, we don't only validate the kernel, it's not enough).

qn9n14• 1 year ago

Elementary's terminal emulator and the notification bell which rang every time my computer finished a bell is embedded in my brain. I learned how to program properly on that OS and enjoyed every minute of it.

tslocum• 1 year ago

Just because you can charge for open source software, doesn't make it moral to do so. Concentrating our efforts on making Debian even easier to use seems much more in line with the ethics of the FOSS ecosystem.

pogue2• 1 year ago

If you want to check out Zorin, or other popular Linux flavors, in your browser to see if you like them without having to install them on a VM/separate partition, try Distro Sea: https://distrosea.com/

There's also quite a few good reviews on Zorin on YouTube.

People should also note Zorin sells a "pro" version for around $50. I'm sure most people could achieve the same features the pro edition has without much trouble, but it also helps them with development costs and everything else.

https://zorin.com/os/pro/

jazoom• 1 year ago

DistroSea is amazing. I just tried it and it worked well. Though huge latency for me.

qn9n14• 1 year ago

I get a `proxy detected` error whenever I try a vm on distrosea, I've tried disabling all content blockers and am not running a proxy of any kind.

gxonatano2• 1 year ago

I know there's a place for distros like these, designed to be familiar to users of Windows or MacOS, but to me it shows Linux at its laziest: where exciting new ideas in system and UI design are skipped over, in favor of bad design ideas from 1995 (looking at you, Start menu). On MacOS and Windows you're stuck with whatever OS UI those respective corporations decide you get—the Apple menu, the Start menu, floating window management, and so on—and there's nothing inherently good about those paradigms; they mostly just exist for legacy reasons. On Linux, you have the freedom to customize everything, and to so it just seems sad that so much good development effort is going into building systems that value familiarity over innovation.

Put differently, I find it sad when user-friendliness is valued over user-centrism. Linux is full of software that is user-centric more than user-friendly: look at Vim, for instance, which is famously difficult to quit, yet is designed to be ergonomic and efficient in a way which puts the user first. The Vim philosophy (modal editing, ergonomic arrow keys, etc.) has even been extended to web browsers (Qutebrowser, for instance), and to window managers (i3, sway, etc.). These types of programs, in my opinion, are where Linux really shines.

Most people commenting here, however, describe this familiar/innovative or friendly/centric dichotomy in terms of user archetypes: "techie" and "normal" people. That feels unnecessarily essentialist, implying that "normal" people aren't curious enough to learn something unfamiliar, like a new style of user interface. But if we always assumed that, we'd never have had any innovative interfaces at all: mouse-driven desktop interfaces, smartphone touch screens, or any of it.

Of course, Linux distros are diverse enough to have something for everyone. I just think that conventional, familiar ones like this represent a missed opportunity.

frollogaston4• 1 year ago

As a longtime Mac user, I kinda wish it had a start menu. So much useful stuff easily accessible. But also, none of those choices affect my productivity all that much.

qn9n14• 1 year ago

As a longtime Mac user, just use Command-Space.

qn9n14• 1 year ago

I agree that it's important for user-centrism to be a focal point of Linux, however I am also happy that distributions like this exist, yes you do lose some of the _magic_ of Linux by replicating a workflow a user is already used to, however this is perfect as non-technical people simply just don't care about that and just want to check their emails, social media, do some shopping, research stuff and watch some content online. They don't need to learn user-centric workflows like Vim to do such a thing.

lproven10• 1 year ago

in favor of bad design ideas from 1995 (looking at you, Start menu)

For what it's worth, that's the point when your comment jumped the shark. I knew then that this was just a rant.

The Start menu was a _superb_ piece of design, as was Win95 in general. If nothing else, the existence proof of this is the sheer number of other desktops that imitate the design:

KDE; GNOME 1/2; MATE; Xfce; QNX Neutrino Photon; Inferno; OS/2 Warp 4; BeOS Tracker; Enlightenment; Moksha; XPde; Fvwm95; IceWM; JWM; Lumina; LXDE; LXQt; Cinnamon; GNOME Flashback; EDE; Budgie; UKUI; Deepin; Aura; FyneDesk.

I could probably find more, but 24 should do for now. Even combining forks, there are over 20.

You may not like it, and that's a legitimate view I am not arguing with, but billions of people use desktop interfaces modelled upon it, representing the combined work of thousands of developers, reimplementing it in dozens of languages.

gxonatano2• 1 year ago

the existence proof of this is the sheer number of other desktops that imitate the design

That's where you're wrong. The desktop environments that imitate Win95 elements do it to provide something familiar for their users. The KDE team is not sitting around going, "you know what was designed really well? The Start Menu!" In fact, many of the desktop environments you mention (GNOME Flashback, Cinnamon) were a conservative reaction to the new GNOME 3 design which broke from the Windows aesthetic. The Wikipedia page for Cinnamon, for instance, says it aims to "follow traditional desktop metaphor conventions" and aims for a "gentle learning curve." They're explicitly choosing familiarity over innovation.

The Start menu was a _superb_ piece of design

Not really. It achieves a reasonably clean look, but at the expense of excessively hierarchicalizing programs and documents. GNOME's Activities panel allows you to click "Activities" then click the program you want to run. Even better, you can just tap the Super key, type a letter or two of the program, and press enter. On Windows 95, I remember trying to launch a calculator, and clicking Start, then clicking Programs, then clicking Utilities, then clicking Calculator. In 1995, lots of people were complaining about the Start Menu, how clunky it was and how it slowed down common tasks. GNOME 3's approach is better, as is MacOS's Launchpad, as well as lots of other desktop launchers.

billions of people use desktop interfaces modelled upon it, representing the combined work of thousands of developers, reimplementing it in dozens of languages.

The idea that pervasive ideas are somehow good, just because they're popular, is a well-known logical fallacy called Argumentum ad Populum. The Start Menu was never good. It was just popular. One does not follow from the other.

pjmlp9• 1 year ago

The only UNIXes that I consider ever caring for the whole experience as a full stack, for users and application developers alike, were Irix, Sun NeWS, Solaris, NeXTSTEP and its evolution as OS X.

Sure you can argue Linux distributions can also offer something similar, the problem is which flavours and for how long, which brings us to shipping the Linux kernel underneath Java and Web frameworks, as being the most successful approach thus far.

jraph5• 1 year ago

the problem is which flavours

Whatever distro which is pre-installed on the computer you buy, or whatever your geek acquaintance picks, or whatever you pick as a geek yourself (any mainstream distro will do).

for how long

The lifetime of the computer in all of the cases, or, in the last case, until you want to try out something else.

Seems decent in any case.

anonymousiam• 1 year ago

It's a catchy name that I haven't seen in very many places. A few years back, I met a salesman named Zorin. I thought for a moment and realized that was the name of a Bond villain (played by Christopher Walken). I mentioned it to him, and he said that his mom had named him after the character.

The OS looks interesting, and may be appealing to non-power users who want more freedom and/or privacy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvxumh7ULx4

nemothekid• 1 year ago

Why has the spinning cubes / compiz demo remained a mainstay for desktop linux presentations for 20 years now?

vivzkestrel• 1 year ago

can someone kindly explain to me how this is capable of running AAA steam games? is it running them natively or through some virtualization layer?

lpzimm• 1 year ago

They mean through proton, which is Valve's compatibility layer based on wine. It was made for the arch-based steam deck but can be used on most (any?) distros. IME it works surprisingly well, although some games drop out when the anti-cheat gets updated, then might come back when proton updates.

https://help.zorin.com/docs/apps-games/play-games/#steam

__loam• 1 year ago

I assume it's just using proton like the steam deck.

t_mann2• 1 year ago

This looks like my favorite for installing on relative's PCs before the Windows 10 sunset - I'm just a bit worried about Dual Boot, I've heard some stories about hiccups there. Does anyone have comments about how Dual Boot works with Zorin today, or general experience with that use case?

sonderotis• 1 year ago

Been dual booting for 2 years and I have distro hopped over 6 distros. Never had a hiccup. Ever

jeroenhd6• 1 year ago

For what it's worth, Windows 10 will sunset in two years. You can pay $30/year for security updates (or get updates for free by enabling Windows Backup or spending Microsoft Reward Points you earn by using Bing) and keep using Windows 10 until programs stop working, which will probably take a while with the current status.

My advice on dual booting Linux in general:

1. Resize the partition from Windows if you're going to install to the same disk

2. Do not use MBR mode to install anything. Windows updates will break your Grub bootloader, and Grub updates will break the Windows bootloader. Most PCs default to UEFI these days already, but it's always good to check

3. If at all possible, use the computer's UEFI OS dialog rather than chainloading Windows from the Linux bootloader. Kind of requires a user-friendly motherboard GUI, but if Bitlocker decides to turn itself on, you'll be struggling with recovery keys a lot less if you let both bootloaders just manage themselves.

4. If that's not possible or the motherboard OS selection sucks ass, and Bitlocker is enabled, write down the recovery key, boot through the Linux bootloader once (Windows will notice the boot process changed and prompt for a recovery key), and enter the recovery key. After a reboot, Bitlocker should unseal when booting from the Linux bootloader automatically, and now directly booting from the motherboard OS selection will require the recovery key.

5. If you're going to use a new disk, make sure to create a sufficiently large UEFI partition (>1GB, storage is cheap these days!) so bootloader/kernel updates don't break in the coming years.

6. Not really a dual booting issue, but if you're doing tech support for your relative, do yourself a favour and set up a tool like Timeshift (including automatic snapshots on updates, and if your configuration permits automatic integration into Grub). It'll offer system restore-like features, allowing you to revert the system to a known-good configuration in case an update breaks something. Timeshift itself works best on btrfs installs, but it'll also work in rsync mode on any file system, and other tools like it exist.

t_mann2• 1 year ago

Great tips, especially the recovery keys. I wouldn't have thought of that, thank you. One question, some distros like Pop OS offer drive encryption as part of the installation process. Do you know whether that would affect the whole disk (and hence could replace Bitlocker) or only the partition it lives on?

pjmlp9• 1 year ago

Just another Linux distribution.

If it wants to be better than Google, Apple and Microsoft desktop offerings, needs to be available on random shopping mall stores, with the same adoption complexity as the competition.

johnisgood2• 1 year ago

Without Pro, I cannot choose macOS style interface at all? I think that looks the best.

jeroenhd6• 1 year ago

The macOS style looks very close to out-of-the-box Gnome from what I can tell.

There are free themes that will also look like macOS if going for the macOS look is your goal: https://forum.zorin.com/t/making-zorin-os-look-like-macos-bi...

Comes down to installing WhiteSur, a few fonts, and an icon pack.

johnisgood2• 1 year ago

Your link says: "You need to have Zorin OS Pro and the macOS style enabled."

At any rate, as techie, I could make it look like macOS, but I was thinking of installing it on family members' computers without much effort.

tom_• 1 year ago

But there's already a Zorin OS! Example footage here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=043WEs_6TAo

ThinkBeat• 1 year ago

I used this (pro) for a few years. It is ok but it does not have any particular feature I found worth the cost of the upgrades.

I bought the current version back then. I dont remember the number so X. Less than a month later they released the new version X+1 and that was at €39 I believe for a discounted upgrade.

(numbers may not be 100% accurate it has been a while)

But they do have a free version and that is nice of them.

kwanbix• 1 year ago

The full price is 48+tax, so 44+tax for the upgrade sounds wrong.

I personally use Mint/Ubuntu with XFCE which I found it to be the closest to my work habit and the closer to Windows (I use both Linux and Windows).

About ZorinOS Pro, I think it is too expensive. They are competing with Free Windows, Free MacOS, and Free Mint/Ubuntu/Fedora/Arch. That said, if it works for them, let them be. AS long as they respect the GPL/LGPL and contribute back, I don't see a problem.

neiesc• 1 year ago

It`s open source?

jeroenhd6• 1 year ago

Some components, like paid-for themes in the Pro version, aren't. But most of it is as open source as any Linux desktop.

olejorgenb• 1 year ago

I assume it's due to marketing, but it really irks me that I have to scroll down to the bottom and click "View technical details about Zorin OS" to find out that this is a Linux distro build on top of Ubuntu...

marci• 1 year ago

It's in the homepage, in the blue and green parts near the middle (Reliable | Secure). But still, they have the place for windows and macos in the tagline, they could add linux.

timeinput• 1 year ago

I think I'm mostly agreeing with you.

In old newsprint there was a term "below the fold" with a literal meaning. If it's below the fold it's less important than what is "above the fold" since no one reads below the fold.

Is it burying the lede to point out that it's Linux (or GNU/Linux+Ubuntu extra packages how ever we want to pronounce it)? I would guess probably not.

On a 32" monitor in portrait mode I did have to scroll quite a bit to see those bits. It was worse on my phone, and was even worse on a landscape monitor. "It's Linux" is far less important than what Forbes has to say about it, and it being Linux is more important than it being privacy respecting (which probably means Firefox as the default browser) to the page authors, but who am I to question them. Maybe this is the year of the Linux desktop.

qn9n14• 1 year ago

I believe, given their target audience, it doesn’t matter. The information is available for those who care, but for the non-technical user who is fed up with their current OS, the message is: “Feel at home on ZorinOS and experience a performance and security boost.”

They understand that technically-oriented people will research the OS and its underlying components, but their target audience isn’t technical. Therefore, bombarding them with overly technical details on the home page is counterproductive.

In my opinion, ZorinOS has effectively marketed itself.

flr03• 1 year ago

If you are technical enough to care you'll find the info in 1 min. If you are not technical enough you won't even know what to do with the info.

woodrowbarlow• 1 year ago

is Zorin Connect something that can be installed and used independently of Zorin OS? and does Zorin Connect depend on Gnome?

incanus77• 1 year ago

I have been using and administering macOS since 2002 and Linux since 1998. Zorin is my favorite distro when I need to put an OS on a machine and want a cohesive, well-designed, low hassle, free system for myself or others. It’s really well done and truly feels like a unit instead of the many, many disparate parts that it is made of.

Sure, you can do all of the things that it does in more custom ways assembling and using those disparate pieces yourself. Sure, it is probably less efficient on disk space and resources as it uses a variety of software installation approaches including Flatpak. Sure, its Windows compatibility is just Wine. Sure, it’s hard to find info on the main product page about what it’s actually running. None of those things matter when you want a computing system that is polished, free, and lets you start being productive instead of managing your system. If that’s not for you, don’t use it! You’ll be fine.

FirmwareBurner• 1 year ago

How does Zorin compare to the likes of Mint?

pedro_caetano• 1 year ago

Not GP but Zorin is still Ubuntu under the hood, the main difference is that they really made a lot of Design decisions that are biased towards usability, specially for non-technical people (at arguably the expense of some Free Software principles).

The other more aesthetical aspect is that at least with Zorin 17 they really mimic Windows in a positive way, in that they leverage the 'muscle memory' of non-technical users.

My experience putting it on other people's laptops is that they just intuitively know where to find things because of how the DE is analogue to what they are already familiar with.

44za12• 1 year ago

I’ve been looking for a better ecosystem than Apple. This looks like it.

pmkary• 1 year ago

Basically every linux marketing ever: a polished desktop theme that is familiar to windows users and works on old machines, also never mentioning this is a linux.

pshirshov• 1 year ago

Look ma, an imperative linux distro, you can even pay for it.

44520297• 1 year ago

Around once a year I look for a distro that works on a laptop w/fractional scaling and hibernate. I’ve already done that once this year, if Zorin can handle that then maybe 2026 will my personal year of the linux desktop

jzemeocala• 1 year ago

about a decade ago Zorin OS got me into Linux.....Highly recommend it to any windows users that are tired of the nonsense.

nowadays I am a happy and competent debian user

turmagangtech• 1 year ago

Bought their paid license to support the team. Got ChatGPT support. Sub-par, TBH, doesn't worth it at all.

Zorin OS

Related Stories