I've just come across this recent review of ZorinOS:
I have to say I agree with their criticism of the minimum requirements provided in the official website, like 2 Gb RAM (here) and the claims that it will "make your computer faster" and "revive your old PC" (here).
I've now installed Zorin OS 18 Core on a few computers including one with 4Gb RAM, which was running Windows 10 fine. With Zorin OS on, it was annoyingly slow (see my post here), much slower than on Windows. It is also impossible to install Zorin OS on 32-bit systems.
I also agree that the marketing tricks used on the official website are annoying: the pro version at $47.99, the mention of "alternatives to over $5,000 of professional software", the apparent rebranding of KDE connect as Zorin Connect...
It is also a bit disappointing that Zorin OS officials do not seem to contribute or check out our forum...
My feedback to Zorin OS: be honest with claims of reviving old PCs (Zorin OS can't do this), provide a realistic 'recommended configuration' hardware description, and acknowledge contributions from the rest of the open source community when using their software. This will avoid disappointment and make everyone happier
It may not be able to "revive" an old PC, but runs fine on hardware that the original manufacturer has abandoned and will no longer get updates, like an old MacBook Pro (Intel). That machine has enough horse power to run Zorin or other Linux-based desktop operating systems, while updates for MacOS have been stopped several years ago.
I've also installed it on an even older MacBook White (10+ years), but yes, agreed, that's not the best experience.
[slightly off-topic]
Hi @menno.pieters, actually that's great to know, I have a (newbie) friend wanting to install Linux on an old MacBook. Did you not have any problems with the touchpad or the camera? Any chance you would share the instructions that you followed to install it, was it Zorin 18?
Using Zorin OS Lite, I have had much more success on older hardware.
But ZorinGroup decided to kind of "hide" the Lite Download instead of still including it in the main download page in order to push Core Only.
And they are discontinuing Lite completely with 18 being the last to have it.
So... They used to offer Pro Lite or Pro as separate downloads, where you chose which you wanted and paid only for that. By Zorin OS 15 or 16, I think, they changed it to where the two are bundled and you had to pay the Doubled Prive and get both.
Now, they are discontinuing Lite - so the Price for Pro should drop to half, right?
But you can believe it won't.
It may stay the same or may go up.
But it will not reduce.
This is bolstered by repeating Gnome Foundations claim of Gnome being equal to XFCE in performance that has been repeatedly debunked by independent benchmarking.
Gnome has completely failed to meet the expectations that they set for themselves. I think that they thought merely making the claim was all that was needed and people would simply believe and accept it without question.
Over the Holidays, I got the email offering a "Gift" from the Zoringroup of some wallpapers - which closed with a Sales Pitch to buy Pro.
I was disgusted and deleted the email and commented on the heavy handed marketing ploy in the moderator forum - this is the first I have commented on it publicly.
I feel like the marketing is taking priority over development.
In other threads, we cover how it is like pulling teeth to find a list of the packages Pro includes.
Transparency is a major issue.
The Marketing styles confuse a lot of different things that we must address here - for free in our own time. Because they won't address them.
[Tangential Response]
I agree the system requirements need updating.
I would recommend you take a look at Q4OS 5.8 which uses Plasma 5.27.5 .
I installed it on a rig I built in 2006, Single Athlon 64-bit processor (2.0 GHz) on an MSI Board, 2 Gb RAM (maxwd out), 512 Mb EVGA silent 8x AGP card. Runs a bit slow and can't cope with Multi-tasking, currently themed like Windows 10. It is a rolling release with end-of-life mid 2028.
They also do Trinity DE (what KDE looked like pre Plasma) and also a 32-bit version of Trinity. I recycled an old PC which had 64-bit processor (i-686) but only 32-bit Trinity would run on it with 512 Mb RAM.
Other 32-bit distros to consider are Devuan and is systemd free as is Antix and MX-Linux also do systemd-free option. Devuan default DE is xfce. MX-Linux do xfce and Plasma.
But beyond my preferences, what really bugs me about Zorin OS is the way everyone’s talking about it. Because once again, media outlets that know nothing about Linux are parroting Zorin’s marketing materials without verifying anything. And then it gets picked up by a swarm of clickbait sites all repeating the same thing.
Finally someone else outside of this forum sees it, too.
Honestly a lot of that repetition is a lot of sites that just rely on AI tools now to regurgitate the same talking points in MAYBE a slightly different way. So while maybe some authors try to move around those points and try to make it SEEM different, the AI can't help but use specifically the exact verbiage that Zorin uses on their site and others that continually do the same thing.
It's to the point that quite frankly I hardly look anything up for anything (not just Linux) and go try them myself, because virtually no one (with few exceptions) goes out of their way to run things themselves and test. It's just easier and faster to not care and give a typical ai-listicle that performs just as well for most things (and I hate it).
Everything works out of the box, except the camera. I found some instructions somewhere to install a firmware, but never completed that... I kind of think of it as a security feature (nobody can spy on my) . Worst case, if I need it, I still have an old USB webcam that I can connect...
You can find it under the FAQs section of the Zorin Pro page, where it says "Which apps and packages are pre-installed?". I found it quite easily.
The answer links to a page where you can get the full lists of the apps and packages (see "Pre-installed packages" there) in all editions of Zorin, including Pro.
It does not, actually. If you scroll all the way to the very bottom of the Small Print, you can find a link that has the basics of each edition.
But it does not contain a full list of the extra packages that come preinstalled on Pro.
It has the technical details of what formats are supported.
Another user posted a different page:
This one has annotations that cover what is pre-installed; which a person can use to compile a list, sorting out the ones labeled as pre-installed from the others that are not.
Ah, thanks. That helps a lot.
I do not consider that "easy to find." Perceptions can vary.
What that link does is download a zipped package that contains the FULL list of apt installed packages, including the base components, not just user end software. Lot to sift through...
And the Flatpaks that come installed with Zorin OS Pro.
They are driving away a lot of users just from bad word-of-mouth experiences, while being transparent would give them traction with users with machines where the OS would actually work.
Be careful, depending on how old the MacBook is, there could be a lot of issues. I just installed ZorinOS 17.3 on my mid-2013 MacBook Air and the SSD needed a lot of modifications in the command prompt pre-install to even be recognized. I also needed to install 17.3, because 18 is using a kernel that doesn't support these old SSDs.
I agree, I am not a fan of the ridiculous marketing. I would have preferred that OS 18 got released without a whole host of bugs. There have been so many problems, I chose to never install it.
Yesterday I was cleaning out my email box, and I accidentally permanently deleted my PRO registration email with the key, that now insures I won't install it, cause I sure as heck am not going to pay 56 dollars, to get it. Might as well delete the download off my external drive to save space on something I can't use.
At this point, I've given up waiting on the Zorin team, to fix all the bugs with the latest release. They also released the OS, without the upgrader tool, which wasn't ready, for literally 5-months later since release. I don't have the time, nor the patience, to deal with modern OS's not ready for prime time. I literally have more important things to do.
I'll just wait when the Zorin team learns how to make a OS again. OS 16 and OS 12, were the last really awesome OS's, that the Zorin team produced, IMO. Thats a fact Jack.
i cant comment on past releases of Zorin as Zorin 18 is my first time using this OS
but it has been stable for me no real problems once i had adjusted it to my liking
by completely disabling any and all snap packages from installing.
but its based on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS which had major problems on release as they had to rewrite the whole kernel because of a major security flaw in SSH which played havoc when trying to upgrade.
i still have Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS on my old laptop a 2017 13" Dell Latitude
and its running as solid as a rock and that wont be updated to Zorin until they release Zorin 19.
. Worst case, if I need it, I still have an old USB webcam that I can connect...
