Horribly disappointed with 17.1 Pro: Lag and fit-and-finish

[Aravisian]

@guinness1

if I compare this transaction to my expectations while eating at a restaurant and receiving a poor quality product, I would complain to the owner and ask for a refund. I don't have a lot of extra money to spend and it's getting worse as prices rise. This is the first time I've ever felt buyer's remorse with Zorin OS.

I think that this is honestly very well said. It is notable that your expectations have been set by your experiences with Zorin OS.

Zorin OS 17 shipping with Flatpak Firefox:
Mozilla internally made their own decision to only support specific packaging formats. In order to be on top of security updates, the installed Firefox needs to be linked to a repository. Mozilla eventually did decide to create and host a Debian APT repository, but long after Zorin OS 17 was well on the road to release.
Fortunately, the repository is now set up and users can use it:

Firefox Back to .deb on Ubuntu Based Distros

Notice on today's Firefox update release notes that .deb packages are back. Firefox now ships with a new .deb package for Linux users on Ubuntu, Debian, and Linux Mint.

The Gnome-Software store:
I have long voiced my opinions about the Gnome Software Store. I understand that it is easier to use for a new user than Synpatic. It is, at times and being non-verbose, a bit too easy to use and this causes problems. Such as not informing the user of what it is about to remove.
The bugs with Gnomes Software Store are long standing. Fortunately, a person does not need to be technical or a GnuLInux guru to sidestep the software store entirely and install packages with ease using other means. I personally have always considered the Gnome Software store to be a sort of stepping stone. A means of introducing the topic easily, but allowing the user to move on to better options without overwhelming them.

Lag on the Gnome Desktop:
This really is the big ticket item.
I do not know the cause. A large number of users have reported the same experience.
I must point out that in reality, the difference between using X11 desktop and Wayland is measurable in milliseconds - well below human perception. The vast majority of the time, the user cannot perceive the difference. It is miniscule.
Some users may report seeing a difference though and this is due to two factors:

• Using heavy intensive graphical applications will be enough to show a perceivable difference in responsiveness and speed.
• Many applications themselves have been streamlined, partly due to patching them to work with Wayland when Wayland lacks support for many of the older features. This means that the applications have been slimmed down, using less resources.
  For example the gnome-screenshot tool does not work in Wayland. So Gnome integrated it into the Gnome Shell doing away with the modular app and it is greatly reduced in its functionality.

The way Gnome and Wayland would have us believe, the desktops using Wayland and Gnome should be blazing fast and zooming.
Yet, users are reporting heavy lag on both X11 and Wayland. The issue clearly must lie in Gnome.

I notice too that Gnome releases are appearing at a much faster rate than ever before.
You just get the latest version installed when Gnome releases a new one. "Now, Gnome 48 available!" "Coming next week, the release of Gnome 500 (Not 50, get it right)."

The upwards development is a lot of pressure on the ZorinGroup. Within GnuLinux, there is all this internecine squabbling about which package manager or which desktop environment to dominate the landscape with and rise up on top of the pile.

Feedback like yours is what the end user must contend with and us all being caught in the middle of Gnomes ambitions and Canonicals ambitions pale in comparison to that Reality:

The End User Experience Is All That Matters.

To quote Linus Torvalds:

The biggest thing any program can do is not the technical details of the program itself; it’s how useful the program is to users.

So any time any program (like the kernel or any other project), breaks the user experience, to me, that’s the absolute worst failure that a software project can make.

The onus is on us to provide push-back pressure on the developers who want to assert their controls and dominance not only on us, but on the developers that we rely on like the ZorinGroup.

If I am a baker and the supplier available for flour changes how the grain is processed and changes the flour such that it changes my recipes and flavor, I will be on the front line of customer feedback, not the flour supplier.
Let's turn our heads to the elitists at the top and focus our attention on those who are pulling the strings.

Until then, i remain stably and happily on Zorin OS 16.3 Lite.
I do not have lag, Wayland, Snaps, Flatpaks or any other forced pains of ambition. Just a usable reliable desktop.