I've finally moved to Zorin OS for good but I have a few questions if someone can help

General Help
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Hi guys,

I am now officially using Zorin 16 as a main OS.

The photoshop need was the main reason why I couldn't leave windows sooner.

Then, I found photopea.com which is a free to use online photo editing software similar to PS and it also supports AI, pdf and even XD.

As most of you here are Linux supporters, you should know about photopea in case someone tells you that they can't leave Windows because of Adobe apps. That was me for example and as soon as I found it it was a done deal.

Anyways, Zorin is amazing. Almost everything runs smoothly. I am yet to figure out the Dropbox use but I see that it's possible.

I have the following needs and if you know if this is possible please share how or anything that can help me.

  1. I need a VM linux app to install Windows 10 as a VM just in case. I am a freelancer so you never know.
    Preferably, I'd love to have an option to link to a windows application within that VM, on my Linux desktop.

For example, a PS windows app shortcut on linux desktop. When clicked it firsts boots up the windows VM and then immediately opens a PS program. I hope you get the picture. I don't know if this is possible or not.

So my question is.. what is a good VM linux app and which one could do what i suggested?

  1. Zorin OS keeps asking me for these weird passwords for skype, google chromium and etc. Whenever I login to the system and start these apps, I am asked for some password. If I don't provide it, I am logged out of these apps.
    How can I fix this?

  2. I installed Flameshot as a screenshot solution. However, on Windows I used to map a keyboard shortcut to my mouse button so that I can take a snip and shortcut faster. Flameshot doesn't appear to have a shortcut for their function. Can I manually make a key combination shortcut to run a program like that and configure my mouse for it?

  3. Is there a way to increase my swap file size after the installation? Its just 2gb and after my first workday in ZorinOS I can tell that I will need more. In Windows I kept my paging file on 20gb.

That's all for now. Thank you in advance to whoever has any of these answers.

Zorin is amazing and this community is a very good place.

As soon as I get accostumed to the system, I will upgrade to Pro to support it!

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Great recommendation.

@FrenchPress may have some good pointers on using VMWare.
@kedric recommended Gnome-boxes and I have been testing it out with much better results than VirtualBox.

The best way to fix this is to not use Snap or Flatpak to install Skype, Chromium, etc. They are causing the keyserver prompt.
You can install those software using APT or as an independent .deb package you download.

You may be able to by navigating to Settings > Keyboard and mouse and creating a new keyboard shortcut using the shortcut creator tool.

Yes, though I recommend you don't get carried away making too much space. :wink: No more than double your Current RAM is best. You may want to increase your swappiness value, too.
Here is a full guide that can help - You can see once you do it that it is very easy with just a few commands:

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Welcome Toshi to Zorin OS, you've just taken your first step, towards improving you life, and you didn't even know it hehe. Why Linux is so great? Cause it provides you many choices. Why is Zorin OS so great? Cause its made very well, by two guys, who put a lot of love in it. And its just beautiful!

When you find the time, could you update your profile to reflect which version of Zorin you are running, helps greatly in support requests.

The only VM I would have recommended was Virtual Box, but thats only cause I don't use VM's, and so I only know of that one. Appears you have been given better recommendations already on that front.

I am glad you found a awesome photo editor, I never heard of that one yet, and I been using Linux for years. The super popular photo editor that I use, is Gimp. Its not a complete replacement for Photoshop, but it does do most functionality that Photoshop has.

As far as video editors, I love Kdenlive, there really isn't a better FREE video editor for Linux then Kdenlive. And the new version that got released, well, its the best, and it just works.

I really hope you enjoy your stay, not just with the forum mind you, but with Zorin OS, and Linux in general. Glad to have you hear. :slight_smile:

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Hi guys and thanks for your replies!

I am trying to install the gnome boxes atm. Hopefully it will work out.

What is "snap and flatback" ? I installed skype using the "application shop" and chromium from Google's website. I downloaded it as a package and installed it.

Thanks!

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Think of a Flatpak using a notebook computer analogy.

A notebook is popular, because its a self contained machine, that has everything you need, to use it. Just as a Flatpak, is a piece of software, that contains all the dependencies it needs, in order to work right out of the box. And thats one of the reasons why they are popular.

A flatpack runs in a sandbox sort of speak, and as such, its isolated itself from most of the system, which makes them quite secure, as they inherently, do not have any ROOT access, to any of the system files. This is another one of the reasons why they are popular.

Now think of a standard PPA install of software like a desktop computer. A desktop computer will not work out of the box, what do you need? The computer, the monitor, the keyboard, the mouse, the power cable, a lot of stuff right, just to use a machine!

Well, standard PPA install software, requires a lot of dependencies. What happens if I took the keyboard from your computer, would you be able to operate it with just a mouse? Or what if I took away the mouse too, now your really screwed right?

So, with standard PPA software, if your machine is missing any dependencies, the software may just outright not install at all and throw an error in terminal, or the software will install, but you won't be able to use it, as the APP itself will throw an error upon launch or use of said software.

Thats the best way that I could find to describe the differences. Hope it made sense, and if not, I really need to drink more coffee then, so I get totally wired, and start firing off jokes left and right. lol

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Often, using the -y command in the installation will install any needed dependencies and many systems contain the dependencies needed anyway.
Where people run into trouble is when they try to install an outdated or unmaintained package... then they run into dependency trouble.
Flatpak and Snap contain all possible dependencies - in each and every package- creating unnecessary bloat.

The "sandboxing" nature is superfluous, as the Linux system is already sandboxed. It double sandboxes, isolating the snap or flatpak from necessary interaction with the system.

Most interestingly, many snap and flatpak developers forget dependencies, sometimes, causing them to not work. But unlike apt, they don't tell you what is missing or what is wrong... and it leads the user back to where they were in the first place - trying to solve a problem using snap and flatpak only to have the same exact problem.

Lastly, there are ethical and security concerns with Snap.

Snap and Flatpak are best avoided except as a last resort.

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Or- Synaptic Package Manager may be used.

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Can ZorinOs ship Chromium as apt package instead of using flatpak and snap unlike ubuntu?

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Currently, Zorin OS comes with Firefox. But as the end user, you have every means to replace the browser with any browser you wish.
As a Distro, Zorin OS must come with some browser and everyone will have their own preferences as to which browser it should be. You cannot please everyone...

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The problem I have is not to make chromium default. I just don't want decoy apt packages that install snap, it is just dumb!

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100% Endorsed!

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Hi guys,

I am back to share my experience again.

I increased the swap file size to 12gb. I have 12gb ram. However, it is not as efficient as with the windows page file. I wish I could increase the swap file use by a bit so that less important stuff goes to the swap and my ram is more available.

I installed the Gnome box thingy but it didn't work very well and I couldn't install windows VM on an external drive with it.

Then, I installed the Virtual Box from oracle and it's amazing! I installed win10 on an external SSD. Almost everything is perfect.

I can literally run win10 alongside ZorinOS whenever needed. Even the clipboard can work bothways and drag and drop sometimes! Sometimes, the drag and drop doesn't work but I also managed to get the file sharing via network so all in all this is a BIG WIN.

This is all very good. I love zorin and now that it works well with win10 VM for special purposes this is more than I could ask for.

I gotta dissapoint you a bit though. You wrote all of that above about the snap and flatback.. But I still don't understand a word of it.

In a nutshell.. If I install using the default software store, it's not as good when compared to the sumo install via command line?

Can you guys recommend me any online depositories for high quality software? I stumbled upon one of them but I lost the link. It had slack, asana, skype, discord and etc. It looked very good and polished up.

Everything is running very well for now but I hope I can improve it even further. Linux is fantastic and Zorin makes it look so good while being very user friendly.

Is there a Zorin linux as a replacement for my android system on a phone? :smiley: :smiley:

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When you are familiar with something and how it works, everything seems easy. When you are unfamiliar with it- everything seems to be written in Greek. Unless you're Greek. Then it is written in Portuguese.

The Software store most closely resembles Windows Store, so it is included in Zorin OS.
The Software store is made by Canonical - the company that distributes Ubuntu.
Canonical developed Snap Packages; and took some liberties when they made the process. This caused users to reject Snap. Canonical responded promising that Snap would never replace APT (Debians Advanced Package Manager).
Then, they broke that promise and replaced APT with Snap. The Software store will sneakily install Snap Packages, instead of debian from APT packages.

ZorinGroup modified the Software Store to account for this, providing easy access to checking the source in Software. You can find this on the Headerbar of the Software Store on the right side; when you have any application selected in the store. This way, you can check and know right away if the source is the Ubuntu Main repository (debian packages through APT) or if it is a Snap Package.

When I first migrated from Windows to Linux (on Zorin OS), I struggled with installations a lot. It took some learning. But things really came together when I stopped resisting the terminal and began using it for installations.
It makes installing so much easier. You do one line:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install (Package-Name)

Done.

Coming Soon.
ZorinGroup is working on an ARM version of Zorin OS.

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I asked the phone question as a joke but I am glad the Zorin devs are serious about it :smiley:

Thanks for all the help!

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It's come up before and I have installed Zorin OS Lite on my old Samsung Galaxy S6 phone. :stuck_out_tongue: There are pictures around the forum somewhere of that...

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Thats a great idea. I am doing a DIY secuirity cams system for my building and I am thinking of using an old tablet as a screen for the cameras. I think that it might be interesting to use Zorin light for it :smiley:

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Interesting point...
For my shop security, I use an old XBox with Linux installed on it... :expressionless:

I wanted something that could handle the graphical end of all those cameras and... the XBOX was free.

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I love how things can get repurposed with Linux. I wish I knew more about how all of this works instead of just trying things until they work lol :smiley:

I figured out how to use flameshot with my shortcut

But using the full path they said there didn't work. I had to use a "flameshot gui" as a command only and then it worked. I guess because I installed it from the shop.

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So, installing apps from https://snapcraft.io/ is a no go? I guess those apps are snap?

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All apps on SnapCraft are Snap Packages.

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