I love Zorin, but I'm throwing in the towel and switching to something else.
Money was no issue for me and I spent a lot of money trying to get Zorin to work.
Im running a brand new rig with AMD processor, 32GB of RAM, AMD Graphics (I purposely bought an older one to ensure compatibility with Zorin), and 2TB Hard Drive. This should be the ideal machine for Zorin or pretty much any linux setup.
Zorin still just doesn't work 100% on my system. When I restart my computer I'm greeted with a blank screen and must reboot multiple times to get it to work. Weird. It works just fine when I shut down and turn back on and works fine when resuming from suspend.
Additionally, it does this weird audio feedback thing from time to time. I have to shut down and turn back on (since I can't just restart) to get the feedback thing to go away.
As a user switching from Apple little things like this drive me nuts.
I tried POPOS, but it would randomly freeze often. I also tried Mint and it seems to work really well on my system, but does not support the extensions I want to use since they use Cinnamon instead of GNOME.
I've decided to give Ubuntu a try next.
Good bye for now Zorin. I may give Zorin OS 18 a try when it's released.
I suspect the problems (except the black screen at restart) might be gnome's fault (maybe because of using wayland?). At least on Zorin and PopOS, since they use an older version of gnome and therefore a more unstable wayland. You might have more luck with Ubuntu, since 24.04 is still pretty recent (or you could even try 25.04 if being LTS isn't a requirement)
Since you say Mint works well but doesn't support some gnome extensions, you could take a look and see if there's any cinnamon extension or program that can do that same thing as the gnome extensions you want. Chances are that there are good replacements for those available.
Unfortunately, Linux often does not work so well on brand-new hardware because the required drivers are not yet included in the kernel. Installing a newer kernel or using a distribution with a rolling release can then be useful.
Sorry to hear that. What Zorin and Pop OS have in common, and really just these two distros at this point, is that they are still based on Ubuntu 22.04. Basically, what Sorro said. But I'm still surprised that a conservative AMD build would not be fully compatible.
I would give two other distros a spin. Personally I prefer Plasma (KDE) over Gnome. My two favourites are PCLOS Debian (which has numerous DE .iso's - budgie, Cinnamon, MATE, Plasma, xfce), and Q4OS (rolling release) which comes in either Plasma or Trinity Desktop Environment.
You should consult the Mint's forums to see if there are equivalent options for your Gnome extensions. But I also agree with @Storm in that using something a different base might help. Endeavour OS is one good choice as it's very friendly to beginners, and they also have really good community forums to ask for assistance.
Sadly I can empathise and recognise the frustrations of the OP. I'm persevering for now on an outdated lappy, however now looking to purchase a new(ish) lappy I'm finding multiple driver issues causing me further headaches.
I'm enjoying the Zorin learning experience as I'm techie based, but this isn't a productive experience, also it leaves a slightly soured taste and I couldn't recommend Zorin (or Linux ecosystem) to the majority of users wishing to move from Win10 - it's just not ready yet.
Whilst Opensource has many benefits, it also has many disadvantages.
I remain impressed and excited about this dev and do hope Zorin 18 makes its debut soon, resolving missing core features.
I wouldn't be too hasty to criticise GNU/Linux. I managed to get my youngest's PC to dual-boot Q4OS and Windows 11 (24H2). But now it won't so need to inject TPM 2.0 control in Q4OS.
The vast majority of users do not experience these odd driver issues, much less multiples of them.
On top of this, the number that do is roughly equal to the number of Windows OS users that run into driver issues, software conflicts, unknown errors, etc.
It never fails to amaze me how often migrating users forget how often something on Windows failed, drove them crazy trying to figure out how to solve or even paid money to have it solved, then come over to GnuLinux and declare, "I never had any of these issues on Windows!"
Zorin 18 will follow the Seventeenth iteration of Zorin OS.
If it ain't ready by now, it never will be.
Folks, I went through this scenario back in 2021, and I was even prepared for it. I bought a brand new MSI computer in 2021, a 10th generation machine, which pre-dated all of Intel's recent issues.
At that time, the latest Zorin OS was version 15, which used the 4.18 kernel and Ubunto 18.04. That was an issue, as it would not support the modern hardware in the notebook.
I decided to switch to POP OS, which in 2021, used Ubuntu 21.04, and kernel 5.13, which was new enough, to support my hardware just fine. Its a gamer's eccentric OS, but while it worked, was not perfect, not as lovely as Zorin OS.
A year later, Zorin OS 16 came out with Ubuntu 20.04, and kernel 5.15. After a disaster with POP OS, I switched to Zorin OS 16, and I've been using it ever since! I love it so much, I never upgraded to OS 17, 16 has served me well.
Having said that, OS 16 will lose support and updates in a couple months from now, as such, I will be upgrading to OS 18 when it releases. This will always be the same ole song, if you buy brand new just released computers though.
I have only used windows xp and 10, and while xp, from what I remember, was fine, I had many problems on 10, like:
File explorer freezing and crashing
Entire OS crashing and force-rebooting by itself under high CPU usage (even if the RAM wasn't filled)
Error when trying to log in that could only be solved with a forced shutdown
Wi-Fi suddenly stopping working randomly quite a few times until I let windows updates finish with an ethernet cable
Microsoft Edge multiplying itself in the start menu (microsoft, we wanted to get rid of it, not have two of them!!!)
Impassable blue screen that tries to get you to sign in with a microsoft account or "remind me in 3 days" which just is completely empty when there is no internet connection and all the typical keyboard shortcuts that are useful to troubleshoot windows problems are disabled in that screen, so you either reboot with an internet connection or you can't use your laptop (it was awkward explaining the teacher the situation when she kept asking why im not continuing the project that she gave us time to work on...)
The performance of modern windows 10 on a 2'5'' HDD ((veeeery slow))
The windows license that came with my dad's laptop (as in pre-activated, like all modern windows laptops) stopping working after a reinstall because windows "detected a change in hardware" so now he can't change the wallpaper (the "change" is that the partition table of the drive now uses MBR and legacy boot because the installation media couldn't read the drive with GPT and UEFI and the manufacturer's website had no drivers for this problem)
And more that I can't remember right now (nor do I have to, as I think this made my point clear enough)
As you can see, a lot of problems on devices that aren't just "fully supported", but also came with the operating system preinstalled. Did I have problems on Linux? Yes. Were they as many, as critical or as hard (or impossible) to troubleshoot as Windows? No, and by a lot. From copy-pasting a command into the terminal, to logging out and logging back in with xorg or booting with an older kernel in "advanced options" in grub, they were problems with quite easy solutions. And while you may argue that they aren't easy to someone who isn't very comfortable with technology... I say that solving problems on windows is far harder, so if linux isn't ready, windows isn't neither.
Your story reminded me of issues at work prior to lockdown. I can't remember if it was during the use of HP Towers or Dells running Windows 10. As a Vision Support Technician I was responsible for turning text into Braille and sometimes creating audio files of books with me as the narrator. With regards the Audio production my noise cancelling headphone and microphone never worked on the front jack ports, only the back ones (IT Support at the school said that they had faced similar issues in the Music Department which had the same machines!) In respect of Braille production our 2 embossers were connected via USB and worked fine until obviously a network update to Windows 10 failed to utilise USB Ports which led the service having to go backwards in terms of connectivity being carried out by the purchase of Parallel Port PCI cards. (A good job that the embossers had this backward compatibility.) Additionally, the Peri Team purchased a couple of Canon Scanners. They did not work with Windows 10, the excellent IT support that the school had managed to get them working using drivers intended for Windows 8.1 Pro. I'm also reminded that in searching for solutions to audio problems from forum posters with certain sound issues, my search results often came back with the very same issues in Windows!
It seems like some people might be overlooking Zorin’s "Win 10 sales pitch." If Zorin aims to pull Windows 10 users away from the Microsoft ecosystem, especially at a time when Windows 11's hardware requirements are pushing people to upgrade, it needs to ensure that key features work seamlessly out of the box.
Windows 10 runs smoothly on older laptops without issue - while there may be exceptions, its software and hardware support is unmatched.
Posting about Zorin vs. Win 10 on a Linux forum naturally invites strong opinions. It’s not surprising to hear sentiments like "I love Linux, Windows 10 is terrible," alongside lists of supposed Windows 10 issue - many of which simply don’t exist. Sure, Windows 95, XP, and the shocking Win 8 were flawed, but Windows 10 is a solid, stable OS That’s why it remains the preferred choice for businesses focused on productivity and minimising IT overhead.
That said, I’m eager to explore new perspectives - it’s a learning experience, and the helpful, knowledgeable members of this forum make the journey worthwhile.
What you will find is that IT Departments in a business or Education setting disembowel security issues that come with Windows and that have elements for the Home User removed. I've recently been enjoying watching Dave's Garage on YouTube, a retired employee of Microsoft who worked on MS-DOS and Windows 95 and wrote the Shell for Windows ME. He clearly explains that in the past users bought the OS, the OS was the product. This all changed with Windows 10 when the user became the product. If you want a close facsimile to the look and feel of Windows 10 then I would suggest you use a Plasma based Distro and install Tiled Menu which mimics the Windows 10 menu perfectly. Additionally, the System Tray has lots of useful extras like a clipboard manager. I can highly recommend PCLOS Debian, systemd free (so no bloatware) and Pipewire instead of the problematical Pulse Audio authored by the same person who brought systemd to the GNU/Linux table. The beauty of GNU/Linux is that you own the software, with Windows you just have a licence for one machine. With GNU/Linux you can install it on multiple devices and share it with others. And with GNU/Linux, you control the OS, not the other way around.
I also follow Dave, great channel! We are all products of every tech appliance from PCs to body monitoring devices, there's sadly no real way to avoid and it will become increasingly intrusive - we can only minimise it and accept, or simply live in the woods alone.
It's not right, it's not wrong, it's just a matter of levels of acceptance and we can all individually choose.
In this world we own nothing, everything can be confiscated or denied apart from Bitcoin - however I digress. Even with GNU we are at the mercy of many third parties.
