I have installed zorin os 18 core and it works fine at first, but the os freeze completely (screen frozen, mouse and keyboard not responding) at random time and I have to force shutdown it with the power button. Usually when it has to play a video in vlc or in brave browser I have the problem.
I have tested the memory and hard drive as mentioned in the help article about freezing, and there was no error.
laptop is an old hp pavillon dv7 with 4G ram
software updater shows nothing in additionnal drivers
I tried to add nvidia-legacy ppa ppa:kelebek333/+archive/ubuntu/nvidia-legacy but it apparently doesn't have a package for the current zorin/ubuntu version since sudo apt install nvidia-340-updates says that it can't find the package
Note that I had to install zorin in safe graphics (nvidia drivers install didn't boot, normal install has artefact in menus, like dropdowns switching from normal, invisible and extra small state)
any help would be much appreciated, or I will downgrade (reinstall) to zorin 17.3
In Zorin 18 this ppa does not work. It is not supported in ubuntu noble, at least not the legacy drivers. If you want to use the proprietary nvidia drivers you should stay at Zorin 17 or another ubuntu 22 based distribution.
For your computer I would recommend to install Zorin lite not core. It needs less ressources as 4 GiB RAM are not much.
You could also consider Linux Mint XFCE 21.3 because it still supports kernel 5.15 which may be better for your system and you don't need a ppa for the nvidia drivers.
It's not that I want to use the proprietary nvidia drivers, just the default 'nouveau' driver is not stable enough; otherwise I would not have looked into that subject.
I will try some solutions I found online tonight or tomorrow and update this post if any success.
Are you on XOrg or Wayland? Please switch to Xorg. Logout and at login click on your username, then a cog wheal appears at the bottom right corner. There select "Zorin Desktop on XOrg". Then login with your password. This setting will be kept until you change it.
I've looked in the Repos for the Driver because I thought, You could downgrade the Kernel and then install the Driver but it seems that the 340 Driver isn't in the Zorin 18 Repos anymore. The oldest what I saw was 460.
So, my Idea would be to look directly by Nvidia and see if You can download the Driver there, donwload it, then install an older Kernel and then the downloaded Driver.
But I don't think that it is possible to install the 5.15 kernel on the normal ubuntu 24.04, there is no package offered to install it if I remember right (I tried it on my LinuxMint 22.1 system which is based on ubuntu 24.04, and in synaptic there was no kernel 5.15 shown). I'm not sure about mainline kernel, I haven't tried that.
I had problems with Zorin core on my old notebook with Nvidia 5200m and 8 GiB RAM due to overload/overheating and couldn't use it. Nouveau or 390 drivers made no difference. I think this may also be the case for you.
Had no success with installing the nvidia drivers from kelebek333's ppa (nvidia-legacy or build) but I found something which solved my freezing problem for now. I haven't tried the installer from nvidia mentioned above.
This below solved the freezing issue:
I have set the environment variable GSK_RENDERER=gl in my /etc/environment file and had no freeze since then. (I tested with 'cairo' renderer first and it was also working good)
So that's a good try if anyone else has freeze and can't or wan't use the nvidia driver. It could be put in the help article when the nvidia drivers can't be installed ( Freezing Issues - Zorin Help)
I didn't try the download from nvidia and install it
For reference to others, here is the list of next points if someone also want to continue the journey with nvidia drivers (I will not try it since my system is running fine for the moment):
debian sid has untested version of the driver for kernel up to 6.16:
One thing I've learned about having an older machine, it gets harder and harder to get drivers working for them, because Nvidia throws out all drivers, that date back to 8 years or more.
Its the viscous computer upgrade cycle, keep you buying, spending money most don't have.
In 2021, I was forced to buy a new computer, I was already left far behind, on my old mid-range Acer computer, made in 2011, sold in 2012.
I couldn't update it, Windows 10 left it far behind, Windows 7 was badly corrupted. I only had 1 choice, switch to Linux. But in 2021 however, the computer wasn't useful at all, for modern gaming, and I couldn't edit 4K footage, cause the CPU was too slow, and the Nvidia GPU was no help there.
My 2021 MSI notebook, is a high performance machine, I purchased to get a 10-year life computer, and so far I'm winning. People talk about the high requirements of Doom The Dark Ages.
With an Intel 8-core 16-thread CPU, Nvidia 3080 16GB GPU, 32GB RAM, I can run the game at highest graphics, provided I turn on DLSS at Ultra Performance, and my notebook is 4-years old.
I have tested also ngl as renderer there, but it had same problem as the default (vulkan if i'm correct) with menu and dropdowns beeing too small or invisible until you mouse over. So 'gl' or 'cairo' works the best with my hardware and I will use 'gl' from now on.
Thanks for the help and support here.
