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Zorin OS


Corrine

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According to this ZDNet article I ran across, Zorin OS is exactly what a desktop operating system should be.  Seeing as how the real Linux experts are here at SNF not ZDNet, I am curious about how much you agree with the article.   

 

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Throughout those years, I've used desktop operating systems that focused on ease of use, efficiency, security, and so many more ideas. I've also landed on one or two OSes that I deemed to be the "best of" for many categories. But there is one operating system that never fails to show off exactly what a desktop should be. That platform is Zorin OS.

 

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Hi Corrine. I looked at Zorin quite a few years ago due to it's claim to be able to use Windows programs otb. However in the early days they wanted a small fee to download which I balked at at the time and had too much other interesting stuff to peruse.

Now they offer two free versions I am downloading the CORE one and will give the Live Core version a spin.

Their vision of producing a Linux os that was capable of running Windows programs with no tweaking on the part of the user has always appealed to me. Looking forward to trying it out. Had a poke around on their site and their PRO paid (£40) for version sounds super with some very neat and useful tweaks.

I recon if the os runs as advertised then the article writer has it pretty much spot on. 😎

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V.T. Eric Layton

Yes, I also played with Zorin a bit a few years back. It's an offshoot of Ubuntu. I was impressed with it. I actually installed in on a couple friends' laptops to convert them to Linux. Back then, Zorin's desktop environment was very easy to set up to make it look A LOT like a typical MS Windows XP, 7 or 8. That helped with the "converting" thing for my long-time Windows using friends.

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V.T. Eric Layton

Oh, and...

 

...exactly what a desktop operating system should be...

 

... is MOST DEFINITELY a matter of opinion. Whatever a user likes and enjoys using is what turns out to be the one. It is, and always was, a very subjective choice. Me, for instance... I run Slackware Linux. It's NOT the choice of most Linux users. Josh has settled on Arch Linux, which also isn't the most popular Linux out there. Others here and there are running OpenSuse, Debian (and derivatives), PCLinuxOS, Mandriva, etc.

 

Choice, when it comes to GNU/Linux, has always been one of the greatest "selling points", as far as I'm concerned. For many, many years we didn't have much choice other that MS or Apple operating systems. Choice is a good thing! :)

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Blimey what a too to do.

 

Could not find my usb stash so that was a bad start. Eventually found a 8 GB usb that had MX Live with persistence. So as the other little usb bleeders were hiding I decided to sacrifice MX and thought I could put Ventoy on it.

 

What a palaver trying to get Ventoy up and running on me Arch set up. Did not see why you would need a AUR package for Ventoy as you only need to install it to a usb once. So I tried to do it manually. It would not do its thing at all an it took me ages to realise that was because I was trying to do it as a user rather than root. Finally got Ventoy on the usb and with click and paste had Zorin added to the usb.

 

So lets give this super os a run.

 

I use rEFInd on Arch and it found my Arch and three Ventoy images so I chose what I hoped was the main Ventoy one,this gave a screen with Zorin OS.

This gave a screen with four options. Chose the third one as it offered the latest Nvidia drivers, seemed sensible to me as I use a Nvidia card. Clicking on this gave a new window where a md5sum check started running. There was an option to skip this but I thought I might as well let it run. Took a minute or two and told me there were 92 errors and I might come across some gremlins then it changed to a new screen and told me I had Nvidia driver errors and hung the screen. Fans on the pc were running so it looked like something was happening but after five minutes I had to do a hard shutdown from the mains as I could get no response from the pc.

So that was a fail.

Undaunted I tried again. This time when offered a choice in the grub menu I took the first option and once again a new screen started and so did a md5sum check. As before there was an option to skip but I let it run. I got the same end result of 92 errors but then the main os started to load and pretty quickly I was at a Zorin desktop.

So that was a success.

 

Zorin looked like a Windows os. Great graphics, neat toolbar at the bottom of the screen. Small clock, calendar and stuff at the right of the toolbar. Application button on the left and a couple of pinned apps, browser,terminal etc. A windows user would have no problems with this aspect of the os.

 

Network auto connected as Fire Fox opened up with net connection with no fiddling. Running and opening all the apps for the fiddling around I did was pretty fast and smooth. I tried to use Zorin Connect and installed the app to my phone but could not get the phone or the pc to recognise any devices. My phone connects to my pc via wireless so was there something wrong with the wireless set up in Zorin or was it trying to do it via bluetooth. I do not have bluetooth set up on the pc so I gave up and class that as a fail.

Installed Lugaru via the flatpak facillity and it downloaded quickly and installed ok. Opened up nicely and then hung the pc. I could tty to another instance but did not have user/passwd details so could not log in. Had to hard shutdown the pc. Another fail.

 

Is Zorin the ideal replacement for Windows ?

 

Well it's graphics are very good and it looks great.

It runs smoothly and quickly, impressive as it was running from a usb.

It certainly looks very familiar for a Windows user.

If it ran in a stable condition I would say yes it would make an ideal Windows replacement.

 

However as I detailed there were some problems with my try out of the Live Zorin from usb. Would it run better and glitch free from a bare metal install I have no idea but my try out did not inspire me to give it a try.

 

Like I said earlier if Zorin runs in a stable fashion on a bare metal install then I think it would be a great replacement for Windows even without the claimed Windows integration and stuff which I never got to try out.If it is stable and😎 the Windows and phone stuff worked then it would be a great replacement. It is a very big IF though.

 

To have a fair opinion of Zorin you really would need to do a clean bare metal install, no usb no VM etc. If I was not so jaded I would give it a try but am too busy and too happy with Arch.

Edited by abarbarian
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Update on my previous post

 

I had a further read on the Zorin site. One of the boot options is, “Try or Install Zorin OS (modern NVIDIA drivers)

 

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On computers with modern NVIDIA graphics cards

Please select the “Try or Install Zorin OS (modern NVIDIA drivers)” option using the keys and press Enter to boot and install with the official NVIDIA proprietary graphics drivers.

This uses the NVIDIA version 525 proprietary drivers, which only work with newer NVIDIA graphics cards (produced after 2013).

 

On my first try out the above did not work and the md5sum check threw up 92 errors. Reading through the Zorin site it mentioned that the download may be corupted which may explain the errors.

Whilst I had checked the download via their suggested  “Quickhash-GUI” and found it to be ok it made me think it was possible that my usb was slightly faulty. So I did some tests as detailed in this post,

 

https://forums.scotsnewsletter.com/index.php?/topic/97695-usb-tips/

 

My testing showed that my usb was in good condition.

 

Wanting to give Zorin a fair trial I installed Ventoy to the usb and loaded up Zorin. On booting up I once again tried the “Try or Install Zorin OS (modern NVIDIA drivers)” . The pc booted just fine. Zorin did some Nvidia stuff but I could not catch what it did as I had to answer the front door to accept a parcel.  I did catch the result of the md5sum check and the it gave no errors and booted up to the Zorin desktop.

So it seems that Zorins boot options do work as advertised. Those pesky gremlins must have taken a hand in my first try out. Bearing all this in mind I have upgraded my valuation of Zorin and would be happy to suggest it as a replacement os for Windows folk wanting to try out linux. 😎

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Just popped in and noticed this thread.  I've been using Zorin for eight months now, in a virtual machine of course, Vmware Workstation Pro.  I even paid the $45 or whatever it was for the Zorin Pro.  What can I say?  I like it very much, easy for this idiot to use.  It just works!

Acadia

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On 4/17/2023 at 8:43 AM, Acadia said:

Just popped in and noticed this thread.  I've been using Zorin for eight months now, in a virtual machine of course, Vmware Workstation Pro.  I even paid the $45 or whatever it was for the Zorin Pro.  What can I say?  I like it very much, easy for this idiot to use.  It just works!

Acadia

 

Hi nice to see another penguin posting.

 

Been using Zorin running from a Ventoy usb set up and I have to agree it is easy to use and runs sweet even from a usb. Going to install a 32 bit version of it to an old Dell tower to see how it runs on old tech.

😎

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securitybreach
On 4/18/2023 at 8:17 PM, crp said:

10 years is modern in GPU driver sector?

 

Not even close if you play any games in the last 5 years or so.

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