In the last few days I converted my partner's 7 year old Win10 Lenovo notebook to 100% Zorin OS 17.
She had been increasingly annoyed at all the Microsoft nonsense, and liked the look of my system.
Installation was smooth, and very happy with the result.
Email -> Thunderbird (I copied the profile folder from Windows, so she picked up just where she left off)
Ditto the Firefox profile folder.
Office (old 2007 version from CD under windows) -> Softmaker Office
Whatsapp and Telegram apps, same as before but now its Linux-y.
Bingwall (a small snap package that autosets the desktop picture to Bing's image of the day - a feature that she very much liked having under Windows.
That covers 100% of her uses. Faster to boot, faster to login, a smoother experience altogether so far.
The only issue so far is that closing the lid doesn't seem to put it to sleep, the screen switches off but it still seems to be running. To be fair, I think it did the same under Windows as the battery seemed perpetually drained.
I'm suggesting to use the power button before closing the lid, which initiates 'suspend' correctly.
I am so glad that the Zorin community, is building with many wonderful people. I was done with Windows nonsense, when Windows 10 came out, and they deprecated Windows7, making it impossible to fix my old computer, forcing me to switch to Linux.
Regarding the issue you face, check your computer's bio's, to see if it lists any power management features. Its odd to hear on 2 operating systems, that power management didn't eventually put the notebook to sleep, and thats what made me think of the bio's in the first place.
Additionally, you can gain more power management features in the OS, if you use XScreenSaver. Here are the steps to set it up...
Then after you do all that, go to the advanced tab, and you will find the settings that you can enable and adjust, your display power management.
