Howdy. My name is Franky. I live in Toronto, ON. I'm 71 years old. I've been using computers since the early 1980's. At one time I had my own computer business, building systems for my customers.
I've been using various distros. The last one I had installed was Q4OS. I 've had several other distros over the past 15 years. Today I'm using Zorin OS 17 Pro. It's working fine on an older Dell Optiplex. I tried my hand at Arch Linux, but I didn't like the way it behaves. I had Free BSD for a while till everything crashed like a 737 MAX.
Right now I'm trying to find a way to install a different DTE on my machine. I have the Gnome DTE, but I think it's a bit clunky. Yeah yeah, I'm picky ain't I.
My other 2 computers are an Acer Nitro and a Dell Laptop Inspirion 15. They both run Windows 11. If I like Zorin enough, I might put it on separate partitions. All my drives are SSDs. In 1987. I had an XT with 640K ram, a 20 MB hard drive, a 12 inch monochrome monitor. 2 floppy drives, and an epson 550 dot matrix printer. Primitive to be sure. I like to look back at those old systems, and compare what I have now. From an IBM XT with 640 K to my Acer Nitro with 32 GB, it's like comparing a snail to a supersonic jet. I actually ran Windows 3. on that old XT.
Thanks for your time folks. I hope I'll be able to contribute some advice and help to ya'all (Franky is from Georgia, but lives in Canada.)
Welcome aboard. I used Q4OS in the past and liked it very much. It's a good alternative to MX Linux and surprisingly lean/fast. Just FYI that Q4OS has a menu to select different desktops including Cinnamon, MATE, Xfce, LXQT, and GNOME. It is Debian afterall. But Q4OS does make it a little bit easier with their GUI to install different desktops. My prefered desktop is Cinnamon which is based somewhat on GNOME. I like GNOME generally but enjoy what Zorin has done with it more so. Even regular Ubuntu to me is a better version of the GNOME desktop environment. I don't like the base GNOME in Fedora.
I like the way Zorin handles packages of all types in one software center and the various looks they provide using GNOME. Zorin is really good despite some naysayers regarding an older base of Ubuntu 22.04 which is true but it also means a more stable operating system. Since I use LMDE 6 and Zorin 17, I see the differences and the similarities and despite the older base of Zorin 17, it is a solid distribution that works exceptionally well. (Zorin has their own repositories so you get some popular packages like LibreOffice that are backported so you get the latest version of their software.)
If you are trying out different desktop environments, my recommendation is Cinnamon. It is an elegant and robust DE that is very easy to customize. Since your hardware might be a limitation, Xfce is always a good choice too and it does well with GTK applications just like Cinnamon. Zorin Lite which is based on the Xfce DE is still on version 16.3 but they will soon release Zorin 17 Lite which might be a better experience for your hardware.
Welcome to Zorin and good luck on your Linux journey.
You might want to give Cinnamon DE a try ..... been using it on Zorin 16 for over 2 years and love it because it is fairly simple and you can customize the heck out of it ..... just my thoughts ....
I'll be 79 this year so I have a few on you .... we have at least 1 member who is in his 80's ..... just goes to show we ain't never to old to learn .....
Welcome from another oldie here in the UK, I learn something new every day on this great forum, still duel booting but find I'm on Zorin more than Windows now!
I can tell already, your my kind of guy, your into computers, you appreciate what we used to have in tech, which has allowed you to have a greater understanding and appreciation, of the tech we have now. Its what separates us from the kids today, who only know their cell phone, and have no appreciation for what a full computer can do.
I was just learning computer's in the 80's. I built my first 486 computer in the 90's, and maxed out the hardware capabilities. I stayed with that computer until the PIII machines came out, I am not somebody who buys a computer every generation, I stay with the same machine for 10-years before I build or buy a new one.
Computer's have changed so much, unless you get re-certified, and then bring in a whole new line of computer's and parts for them, people lose interest. Linus Tech Tips recently did a video where he bought out an old mom and pop shop that was dying. You should have seen the guy's shop, it mostly had really old parts, that were only relevant to 20-year old computer's.
Now for clarification, he didn't buy the business itself, he just bought all the stuff that was left in it, saved the guy a lot of money doing that, and made the guy thousands of dollars in the process. It was literally the best outcome for him, since most computer sales is done online anyways, and the shop owner needed a new truck too, so now he has the money to buy a new vehicle, or fix his old one.
I was a distro hopper for awhile too, I've to date tried 3 Linux OS's. And the Linux OS that is my favorite, is Zorin OS! I have it installed on my old Acer computer from 15-years ago, and my new MSI computer from 2-years ago. The OS itself works flawless! You can't ask much better then that. Yeah, the Zorin connect app didn't work for me in OS 16.3, but it might work great in OS 17 for all I know.
Gnome is a tough nut to crack. In some ways, Gnome is great, in other ways, Gnome is a pain in the rear. The problem is the implementation of it these days, in how they continue to remove features that many of us rely on. Which is why the Zorin team are using a customized version of Gnome, a version in which they have customized, to work best for its users.
The computer I am on now, is a gaming and production machine. Its an MSI GE76-231 Raider notebook computer. It is a 10th generation machine, it has the Intel 10870H Core I-7 8-core 16-thread CPU. It has 32GB of DDR4 RAM onboard, and has an Nvidia 3080 16GB GPU. Its a PCIE gen 3 system, and I have 2TB of total internal SSD storage, from 2-Western Digital Black NVME drives. I also have 1 more terabyte from an external SSD drive plugged into a USB 3.0 20GB port.
I look at people raving in the CES video's about 14th gen this and 14th gen that, and I am like, dude, my machine is plenty fast enough. But they are in business to sell new gear, whether you need it or not so, thats something that is never going to change, and all those influensors, will continue to influence the public, so they can make the thousands of dollars in sponsorships.
I got my machine plugged into a 55" 4K TV, yeah, my setup is plenty good for what it is. The only issue I still have with Linux today, is that Linux is far behind the times, when it comes to proper screen scaling, when using 4K displays. I can't believe its still an issue, when 4K resolution has been around for almost a decade now. But Linux is slow to adopt new technologies, thats about all I can say about that.
So, I force a rescale of 200%, which allows me to use Zorin OS. I only wish custom mouse cursors would scale up to 4K, but alas, best they do on the largest size, is a good cursor size for 1080P screens. Stick around, there is so much to learn on the forum. I am happy to meet a cool dude like you!
I do read a lot of the problems people have with their Zorin OS installations. I seldom actually reply, as others have provided possible solutions. Then I come across discussions like this one, that perhaps worry me a bit. I have played with computers since the 1970s, but never took them seriously until Windows 3. I tried retiring in 1971, but my new hobby became a successful nightclub. In the 1980s I retired to a 40acre property off the grid, using cylinders of gas and home produced electricity (solar panels were still primitive, but my home built wind generator was pretty good). Lead acid batteries were primitive, but worked). By the 1990s I had moved back to suburbia. I like my main Dell Micro 9020 desktop, my HP Elitebook 820 notebook and my old Optiplex 790 used for comparing things like Linux Lite (XFCE) and Makulu Shift (Gnome). Comparing all this with my phone, I wonder if it is really just an exercise in nostalgia. Recently have started looking at QR codes, which are becoming more and more used. I am not a gamer, as I don't have time to spare. Already late for my gym session today (Is my e-scooter battery charged?) In February I am taking a cruise from Australia to New Zealand for some sightseeing. Always try to look forward rather than back. And I am annoyed with myself for spending so much time on a vanity project like this.
In April I will be 89 (another year passed - can't science make them go backwards?).
Many thanks for your friendly welcome. I sure'nuff appreciate it. I used Cinnamon with Linux Mint. I liked it, but the adventurer in me wanted something more challenging. I should have stuck with Mint. My adventure took me to Gentoo Linux. I about fell off the planet looking at all the instructions, just to install that beast. No thanks. Then I tried Oracle Solaris. The install was okay, but finding hardware and software was ummm...challenging. Howsumever, that was in 2010.
I liked Cinnamon in Mint. I also tried Mate, and Xfce. Q4OS let me customize so much I about lost where I was. From the folks I've heard from Cinnamon seems like a good idea for Zorin 17.
I have liked mostly Debian distros. I've grown accustomed to how to use the CLI. I write some of my own aliases. I use one on the CLI to shut down or re-boot. init 0 shuts the system down. init 6 will re-boot. I have others that take me to layers of directories. ie. music = "cd /home/franky/music" so I don't have to type in 20 lines of commands.
This version of Zorin came with Libreoffice. I've been using that for a long time now. Windows 365 is all very nice, but it cost more than I want to pay. I donated to the Libreoffice folks everytime I make a new install of their software. I mostly work with Write and Calc. I tried the database program. I got lost. I cut my database teeth with Ashton Tate Dbase 3.
My Dell Optiplex handles Zorin 17 quite well. Like most distros, it will let me use older hardware. Whereas Windows 11 is just to dawg-gone pesrnickety (southern for 'picky').
Thanks again for the friendly welcome. Have ya a good'n.
Thank Ya. In Atlanta, one of the main streets is Ponce-De-Leon. It's pronouced Ponce d'leon around there. I sure miss that town. I moved to Canada because I married a Canadian. Not just any Canadian, but one from Quebec, who translates English into French. Every now and then I learn a new French word.
Howdy Ian. One time I got a NCR mainframe as a payment for giving lessons in Lotus 123. They didn't have an official work order, so they gave me a retired mainframe. If I had known then what I know now, I would have had that badboy up and running like a champ. That was long before I discovered Linux.
As far as I can tell, science is working on making the years go backwards. I don't know if I want to take advantage of that. I found that the trouble with getting old is that you remember your past. In looking at it from the distance of time, I came to realize what a fool I was in my mis-spent youth.
That is sure'nuff was. Thinking along those lines, I wouldn't trade it for anything else, than what memories I have.