I would like to make a few comments about what happened to me in the last few weeks. I had a lot of trouble with Zorin and some apps. I used a tool called "Stacer". In "Stacer" you can delete apps among other things. I wanted to delete "Evolution" because I only use Thunderbird. After deleting it, I could no longer boot Zorin. I tried everything and could no longer get Zorin to work. In my rage I installed Linux Mint. Everything worked fine until I installed Proton VPN. Unfortunately, with VPN I could no longer use some local things properly (e.g. Magenta WebTV). So what is easier than deleting VPN. After deleting it, I could no longer start my network. I didn't find it funny anymore and redid everything and installed Zorin again. I thought Zorin was a bit outdated and switched to Linux Mint. And now I'm back and will never install ProtonVPN or Stacer again. I'm too old for that things. Hopefully a new version of Zorin will come soon.
While Stacer allows you full access to modify your system, it doesn't have the warnings in place that the terminal does to alert you to dependency removal and what other applications depend on those libraries.
If you had done this in terminal, it would show all that would be removed and ask if you really want to.
A user would typically not understand or know what these packages are or what else uses them, but may cause caution as some of them have the Zorin name in them "Zorin-overlay" would be one of those packages.
If you are unsure, you can do a web search of the packages being removed and what they do, possibly what depends on them.
Knowing this, you could have done something similar to sudo apt remove -y evolution && sudo apt install -y zorin-ovelay python3 .... This would return the dependencies required for other system functionality.
Why the devs include all of the dependencies on removal of the software is beyond me. Since some do, caution should be taken and backups made prior to any system change, including software removal.
BTW, Proton VPN automatically enables the network lock for all applications unless the VPN is connected. If this firewall setting was shared to your router, it would definitely cause issues. This must be deactivated prior to uninstall, as the firewall settings may not be removed completely.
I have this complaint about the Software Store, as well.
This is a common complaint about ProtonVPN. ProtonVPN creates a new configuration file in Root that sets up your network to respond through the VPN. Well... if you remove the ProtonVPN, that configuration file gets left behind, without the VPN to route through and so the network stops working.
This is a Major Annoyance for the user. The remedy is to deal with that configuration file. It is simple to solve - as long as you magically know about it.
This forum is here and you can check ahead if you have any doubts and use it as a resource as often as you need.
Thank you very much for the helpful answers. I think I just need to be a bit more careful with software. In the past (the last 2 years) I haven't had any stress with Zorin. I will definitely stay with Zorin again. The forum is very good and the individual questions and answers are always very helpful.
I recenty posted a Warning about Removing all traces of Evolution can be fatal:
I am still pretty new to Linux. Yet even I remember a time when packages were more modular.
The heavy integration in desktops seems counter-productive, to me.
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