I always approach getting a new laptop with a mixture of excitement and dread at the faff of getting everything set up just how I like it.
I got a new laptop this week - Lenovo T16 AMD with no OS, specifically chosen for lenovo's excellent linux support - the joys of a reliable fingerprint reader and no nvidia drivers!
Had Zorin installed in no time and the whole setup process was so fast and such a breeze compared to windows. Installing stuff from package managers is so much faster than endless installer downloads and then running the installers always took ages and then you were never sure where the user settings for the app were installed.
I copied over an edited version of my home directory, just removing stuff I knew was no longer required. And when I installed my apps on the new machine it just picked up the settings I'd moved over right away and so much of the software just worked instantly.
Whilst the process wasn't entirely smooth or consistent, with PPAs, flatpaks, snaps, AppImages, .debs, adding PPA keys etc etc it was far, far better than windows.
With Windows new machine setup could take literally months before I was finally ready to re-commission the old machine. Would always be seldom used apps, needing to go through the setup process for them, or dig around for the settings file you missed.
I got this machine all sorted in about 24 hours. I'm self employed and rely on my computer for work so minimising what is effectively downtime is important to me.
Also the Zorin on-boarding experience at first login was great. I found each step genuinely useful and without any promotions etc. Just purely focussed on what would best help the user.
I also reminded myself quite how awful the windows install/on-boarding is now when I had to reinstall it on an old laptop. So slow, so many updates & reboots, and the on-boarding, OMG! Buy office365, subscribe to onedrive, create a microsoft account, sell, sell, sell! It was hideous.
Also Zorin 18 feels so well rounded and smooth. I see a lot of rough edges from 17 rounded off and the whole user experience feels properly ready for a more mass-market audience, not something I could have said before.
No question it's linux all the way for me now. Can't believe I put up with Windows for so long really.
And a big well done to the whole linux community for getting it to where it is today.
