My Zorin OS Core 16.2 is laggy and slow, what's the problem?

But you have very low root space. I would advise running Zorin Lite in live mode first and then look to see if you can reduce any space your Windows install doesn't need

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Once you have installed the Zorin Lite desktop, be sure to set up your LightDM or GDM (if you prefer it)

Light what? Sorry my friend, I might look like I got the hang of things, but I actually have some knowledge about a few things through quite googling, please consider me a noob.

The Display Manager is the application that manages various portions of your Display, including what is important to you here: Logging in once you boot up or wake the computer from Suspend.

On Windows OS, this is integrated with a Standardized Desktop. On Windows, you have one option.
On Linux, you have many options. There is, as you experienced, the Gnome Desktop. This works with Gnome Display Manager.
XFCE Desktop (Which is used in Zorin OS Lite), which uses the LightDM or Light Display Manager.
There are others, including SDDM... These are not integrated. You can use LightDM on Gnome or GDM on XFCE, if you want to.

Personally, I prefer LightDM. LightDM is easier to work with, manage, configure and use. It is intuitive and its settings are easy to find. GDM, Gnomes display manager, hides the settings and even, the Log In Cog... You shouldn't have to argue with the Display Manager in order to log into your computer.
Zorin Core comes with GDM.
Zorin Lite comes with LightDM.

If you install Zorin Lite Desktop, then it will carry LightDM with it. During the installation, a notification will appear in your terminal asking to Configure LightDM. You can choose not to and stick with GDM. Or, you can say yes and configure LightDm to manage your Display.

The reason that this is important to you:

You will end up with Two Desktop Environments installed and you want to be certain you are logging in on the correct one and you want no hassle in doing so.
After installing Zorin OS Lite, it will default to log you in on Zorin Core, so you will need to change to the desktop you are going to try out - Lite - prior to entering your password and logging in.

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You need an SSD. They have gotten very cheap. Night and day difference.

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My wife's computer was super slow... she usually has so many browser tabs open that it's not even funny. Her spinning-rust hard drive failed, so I bought a SSD and reinstalled Windows (she's a Windows Luddite, she refuses to use Zorin OS... hers is the only computer in the house that doesn't have Zorin OS except for my kid's ChromeBook), and it was literally like it was a new machine... boot is in mere seconds, windows open quickly, there's no lag.

So yeah, if you don't have a process that writes constantly to the hard drive (stock trading is a big SSD killer with the constant price updates if they're saved to price history files), then a SSD will make your old computer seem like new again.

In the same vein, more memory will make it snappier.

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This always kills me, too... I see so many people do this. I have to physically restrain myself from grabbing their mouse and clearing out the bogs.

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I tried that with my wife's computer... it didn't end well... unless you consider being nagged for hours on end "you can fix my computer, but don't touch my computer!" to be 'ending well'. :smile:

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@Aravisian
Sorry, could you tell me a detailed guide from A to Z, I tried doing it myself, it had been done without problems, but I still had GNOME apps installed, I didn't know what to do; so I reverted back to GNOME by Timeshift.

What I want is a complete xfce desktop environment with zero GNOME, like no single trace left, as if it is fresh Lite version.

Preferably I'd like to have Zorin lite environment, instead of general xfce (ubuntu xfce? I don't know), I it is this

sudo apt install zorin-os-lite-desktop

Rather than this

sudo apt install xfce

Are you really shure that is the path to follow ?
Of course you can install light next to Gnome, and after that purge the Gnome D-E.

But that won't change the reality that the Kernel will be 'light ' as well ..... And for the smooth running of the kernel, as is today offered in the standards of the ISO-releases, you really need a Core 2 Duo processor as real minimal processor (CPU). Your Celeron N3060 with integrated graphics (!!!!) will just not run well on any Kernel out there in the wild.
Needless to say you have sufficient RAM (4Gb as I read in your screenshots above) to run just plain ANY desktop available. Yes, Zorin-light will consume less RAM-static , NO your processor will not really have an easy task for running a Live Kernel with any D-E hooked on it.
The Celeron N3060 has, of course, no upgrades available as only a Quad-Core version at a very low clock speed. Your latent processor-speed is 1,6 GHz !!!!, and the Turbo Speed is more within range for running a Linux, Zorin, fine.
It will run ...... but I doubt you really will be happy with the results after all this D-E change you're about to make.


Screenshot is an extract from a very nice CPU-compare site.

What I would really like to advise is : buy on the second hand market a decent good top notch laptop from a certified brand for Ubuntu and run Zorin on that machine via an SSD of your chosing.
Price can range from 100$ --- 180 $ for a state of the art laptop, running maybe 10 years to come, all Linux perfectly. On Alibaba they sell even total refurbished laptops at a price-range of 120 $ delivered at your door.
If you have doubts on what to buy really, ask a question first.

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Of course you can install light next to Gnome, and after that purge the Gnome D-E.

How to do this purge thing? I typed many commands but none of them worked.

Your Celeron N3060 with integrated graphics (!!!!) will just not run well on any Kernel out there in the wild.

I know my limitations, but it is not a complete garbage, I use Libreoffice, I play videos; it is not very speedy and it takes time to open apps after startup but after that it's doing the job.

And may be Lite can make it a lot better; and I am plannig to get a decent laptop in the future anyway, but thanks for the advice, I appreciate it.

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sudo apt remove --purge zorin-os-desktop

Would do it.... You would want to follow this with

sudo apt install --reinstall zorin-os-lite-desktop

I would not do this, though. Yes, the Core Desktop will take up space nearly uselessly. But not fully uselessly. And it won't take up very much space.
And removing a desktop can be risky.

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