Well it's been about 30 days into full use of Zorin OS 18. I am quite impressed. I have completely switched from WinBlows over to Zorin. Everything has gone very smoothly as I've settled back into the Linux arena. Unlike a lot of users coming from Windows I have had to learn quite a bit of Linux due to my Software QA Automation experience. Zorin has has done what I've always complained about, USER experience. For completely NEW users to linux, they have made the UI very easy to navigate and loaded the most complementary apps for use available from the get go. WELL DONE.
There are still more advanced things that I need to do such as connect and mount the synology drives for auto mounting. No big deal since there are a couple of YT vids on that. And between the General Help and HOW TO forums, new users are getting a great amount of help that is friendly. Big change since I started into Linux. Back then it was an 'elite' club that if you didn't already know, why are you here kinda thing. Glad to see the community moving towards more accepting of new users.
My overall experience with ZORIN IS FANTASTIC! You have a dedicated user! Keep up the great work!
I remember when i first started using Linux (only a few years ago) and drive mounts - whether local or network - was among the most convoluted and complicated things i had to work out. I still have my fstab from those days and i haven't used a GUI to configure things since. I believe it's way way easier via the GUI than it used to be - but it's still not "automatic" like Windows, right?
My job for the past 19 years has been supporting people on Windows, and so of course I myself have always been a windows user. But Zorin 18 core is such an elegant desktop - really tempting - especially since Windows has really sold out the personal user.... I "zorinized" a 2 core pentium Dell Inspiron [All-In-] One 2330. It runs better than it has a right to. Perhaps soon I can switch my workstation from Windows 11 to Zorin, and continue to support my windows clients without difficulty. Heck, I'm tempted to do so now, if it wasn't for sanity. First goal though is to replicate or replace all workstation software tools on the 2330 without resorting to Play-on-Linux, etc. Without snap either (from what I've read), if possible. Want to stick to Zorin apps, or apt installs from friendly repositories. Flatpacks for when there is no other choice. Anyway, that's my experience so far.
I made a post in HOW To linking a video of how to auto mount an SMB NAS server. I use Synology myself. Only issue I am having atm is a permissions issue of being about to read/write to mounted folders. So i am digging into that. This kind of thing is not something a 'normal' everyday windows user will run into.
I setup a promox lab so I could run a vm for my mom to get into linux via Zorin. I bought her a Linux for Beginners book so she could play with the vm and not worry about crashing her work system while she learns.
I heartily agree with the path you have chosen setting up an old computer for you to figure things out on before making the leap on your work horse. Heck even I have a secondary vm I am running Zorin on just so I can try different things before applying them to my main system. Better to crash a vm with ability to rollback to snapshots than your main system.
Snap isn't the bogeyman people make it out to be, they have pros and cons. But for something like Firefox there have been pretty bad startup performance implications in the past, i understand it is slowly improving though. That said, i too prefer package manager or Flatpak. What i like least about Flatpak is the unverified apps. Personally, i think every app store should by default only show verified apps (published by the software creator). I don't know how that can be achieved though. It's pretty ridiculous when a security-focussed app like Signal doesn't package their own Flatpak, some random dudes do. Signal even puts it on their website - "hey, get the Flatpak from here, but we didn't do it, dunno who they are...".
Regarding switching to Linux - here's my experience (for what it's worth):
Have a reason to switch. Whether it's the tooling, the performance or the ethics. I switched due to ethical considerations. And despite the difficulties (i was a Windows "power user") i stuck to it because i just couldn't abide by Microsoft's business approach any longer. I made it a moral issue. I am not a monk, but there's limits to my tolerance. I accept the 'shortcomings' of Linux because i have chosen to reject convenience on ethical grounds. That was my motivation, and now i just like Linux better (though i quite like the Windows 11 UI).
Before moving to Linux, i switched all of my apps to options that were cross-platform. I could have picked Linux-exclusives, but i was still using Windows at the time. So i figured if i just accept these new apps (after a decade+ of using something else) then switching to Linux should be easier. Interestingly, the only apps i can remember switching to were Clementine (music player, i think now abandoned), LibreOffice and NotepadQQ (at the time, qq wasn't very good, but i had basic needs). I don't use these now, i prefer DeadBeef, OnlyOffice and VSCodium these days.
Games. When i switched, few games worked on Linux. This kept me dual-booting. But i hadn't been a heavy gamer since Battlefield 3, so this was not a big deal. On the occasion i wanted to play a game, i tried it on Linux and if it didn't work, i went to Windows and played. This didn't happen all that often. I just didn't want to boot into Windows. Soon enough, i was hardly playing games. Nowadays, it just isn't an issue. Most games i have work in Linux, and i seldom play games that don't. I haven't booted into Windows for at least 3 months.
VM. Gnome Boxes is so good to fire up that Windows VM. I only have to do this when i want to create a Windows XP usb installer, or run some very obscure software from eons ago, or connect a usb device that needs an update and they only offer WinMac software (like GPS device). The VM means with very few exceptions, the only reason to boot Windows proper is to play a multi-player game that doesn't support Linux - rare!
If you have a professional reason to keep using Windows, switching to Linux might not be ideal for you. My wife probably can't switch to Linux due to the set up at her workplace. She's not technical and wouldn't be able to easily work around things like those electroboard things that interact quite elegantly with Windows' new ecosystem (SharePoint and whatnot). I hate to say it, but Microsoft has done well 'forcing' an ecosystem approach to Windows over the last 3-4 years
Even if you don't switch, find projects that use Linux to keep you experimenting. Pi is awesome for this, as are servers and routers.
I switched both my parents to Zorin about a year ago. At first it was because their hardware wouldn't support Windows 11, but then i realised numerous other benefits for them and for me:
Automation. I have automated healthchecks i run on the PCs now (i just finished it). It does things like check hard drive health, space, check results of AV scans (yes, i scan their PC daily in the background - just their user data), os backup (rsync, like Timeshift), user data backups, auto-updates. It checks daily and the cool thing is - if it all is ok, it just pings healthchecks.io. If anything fails/errors/warns - it emails me. For example, if they haven't installed any updates for more than a month (i think i set it to a month), the healthcheck will email me. It's all just bash scripts One day i'll upload to codeberg
Security. They don't have access to install software the updates happen in the background. So if they want to install something (scam helpdesk wants to install TeamViewer) - well, they can't and they have to call me.
Supportability. I now know Linux better than Windows. And for a basic home user - Linux is actually simpler to use!
I switched my parents to cross-platform apps years ago. So they hardly even noticed. And no sh!te, for my mother at least, she finds it easier because there is less junk she doesn't want or use cluttering up her app menu, right-click menu, etc.
The only issue i haven't been able to overcome so far is the occasional PDF document somehow requires Adobe Acrobat to fill it in. LibreOffice Draw can do it, but it's not pretty and my parents can't figure it out. They just email me the form and i fill it in for them.
I hope you're right about Snap. I also hope Canonical isn't trying to force everyone to go that direction?
As for Flatpak, I take your point. When necessary to use flatpack, I'll stick with Flathub rather than taking a chance on lesser known sources.
The things that make me want to switch to Zorin are FOSS, performance, and like you, ethics. MS's creativity and invention is increasingly suffocated by the corporate prime directive to serve the stockholder over the customer.
Thanks to Zorin, it's becoming possible to make the jump from Windows and this time (hopefully) stick the landing. The more of us who do so succesfully, the more encouraged others will be to follow suit.
Re: your second point, I have been thinking along the same lines. Instead of Microsoft Office, I'm planning to use Free Office, and make it the default in Windows so I become used to it before I make the switch to Zorin.
Not a computer gamer, but I've never enjoyed board games or card games, etc. either. What gets my attention is productivity - how my computer(s) make things easier, do things better, faster, etc.
I refurb Windows boxes and give to friends that need an upgrade.* I'll keep one of them to serve any remaining needs I have for Windows. But I'll make a note of Gnome Boxes as the VM to pursue should I ever decide to give one a try. Thank you!
*(Though recently I set up an elderly friend on Zorin. She loves it.)
Flathub also displays unverified flatpaks. I would very much like Zorin to follow the example of Linux Mint and hide unverified flatpaks by default in its software store, offering a manually adjustable search filter setting for them so that they can be enabled if you want.
The thing about FOSS is that is very difficult to do. It does happen, sort of. "SystemD" is now the norm, but if you REALLY don't want to use it - there are still maintained options! Snap is far behind Flatpak in terms of adoption. If i'm not mistaken, Flatpak's origins are from Redhat - so it's a corporate creation too.
You're in the right place You're going to overcome obstacles because you care about more than convenience.
Come for the feelz, stay for the goodz
Regarding Win11 in a VM, i followed this procedure about 6 months ago - it may not work anymore with the latest ISO, but if you grab an ISO from 6 months ago, or tweak the procedures to account for MSes latest shenanigans, then you should still meet success.
## Gnome Boxes
To install Windows 11 without the hardware checks and allow local login, follow these steps to bypass hardware checks:
1. Begin the installation process per normal GnomeBoxes approach.
2. Modify the registry: During the installation process, when you reach the "Windows Setup" screen, press Shift + F10 to open the Command Prompt. Type `regedit` and press Enter.
3. Navigate to the registry key: In the Registry Editor, navigate to `HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup`.
4. Create a new key: Right-click on Setup and select New > Key. Name it `LabConfig`.
5. Create DWORD values: Inside the LabConfig key, create two DWORD (32-bit) values:
- `BypassTPMCheck` (set to 1)
- `BypassSecureBootCheck` (set to 1)
- Optional:
- `BypassCPUCheck` (set to 1)
- `BypassRAMCheck` (set to 1)
- `BypassStorageCheck` (set to 1)
I've been using Zorin for about 10 years I think. For a lot of that time, it used to be my "extra, just for fun" system but has moved to being my main system now.
The stability and security has really improved in the last few years and its a fantastic Linux distro.
There are still a few pieces of software that just won't run on Linux, so unfortunately Windows is still running here but Zorin outnumbers Windows here!
