I wanted to bring to your attention some serious performance issues I’ve encountered after installing the new Zorin 18 Pro operating system on my laptop.
The system specifications are as follows:
Apple MacBook Pro 5.1
4GB Memory
Intel Core Duo (x2) Processor
250GB SSD
Before installing Zorin 18 Pro, the laptop performed relatively well under its native Apple OS. However, since the installation, performance has deteriorated significantly.
Boot time now exceeds 30 seconds.
Opening applications can take up to 30 seconds, and I frequently receive messages stating that an application is taking too long to start.
The system often feels as though it is going into a low-power or “sleep” state, with noticeable lag and stuttering even when moving the mouse pointer.
I’m hoping this is the result of a software glitch or a configuration issue rather than a fundamental compatibility problem. However, as it stands, the system is performing far below expectations, especially when compared to its performance under macOS.
For your specs I'd recommend Zorin lite or a distribution which is more lightweight than Zorin core and maybe offers an older kernel.
Perhaps it helps to add
tsc=unstable
to /etc/default/grub so that
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
is changed to
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash tsc=unstable"
Then run sudo update-grub
That coding means nothing to me - I'm a ludite who likes to switch things on and they work, which they have done until I was taken in by the Zorin 18 marketing hype
I can follow instructions but only if they are fully explanatory
Your Specs are relatively low. So, I would suggest to switch to Zorin Lite or another Distro with xfce Desktop like @Forpli already suggested.
Another Thing, You could try is switching to Xorg if not already tried. To do that, go to the Login Screen, not the Lock Screen. Simply reboot for that. On the Login Screen, click on Your Profile so that the Password Field appears. When it is appeared, You should see a Gear Icon in the bottom right Corner. Click on it and choose the Option ''Zorin Desktop on Xorg'' and then log in.
You can elevate to root, first. Launch terminal with keyboard shortcut ctl+alt+t
Enter in
nautilus admin:/
In the left pane, select Another location. In the right pane, select Computer
This will land you in Root. From here, double click etc, then double click default
This will land you in that directory - right click on the file named grub and select to Open With Text Editor.
On this line: GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
add the tsc=unstable parameter so it looks like: GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash tsc=unstable"
There is One Space between each parameter.
Did you reboot to test if it helps?
If it doesn't help, undo it by removing the added parameter tsc=unstable, save the file and run sudo update-grub.
Do you have an nvidia card? The proprietary nvidia drivers for this MBP are not supported on Zorin 18/ubuntu 24.04. If you want to use them you should switch to Zorin 17 (lite) and install kernel 5.15 or add kelebek333 ppa.
Thank you - Is Zorin Light available for Zorin 18 ? - if so give me a link - As said before I was taken in by the promise that Zorin 18 was the answer to everything - All I have achieved is an under performing MacBook which was faster with it's native OS - Zorin's marketing has effectively bricked what was a half good machine !!
On an Athlon II X4 with 8GB RAM and SSD, Zorin 18 performs noticeably slower than Nobara 42, for example, which is a bit of a surprise for me.
So, since there is already a thread opened, I'll just ask here instead of opening another one.
Does anyone have experience with replacing defaul kernel in Zorin with something oriented to gaming and low latency? Something like https://liquorix.net/ ?
Or perhaps knows of some optimization daemons such as this? GitHub - FeralInteractive/gamemode: Optimise Linux system performance on demand
Perhaps using a gaming-oriented kernel, instead of a general-purpose one, will yield some performance boost
@GW4DVB as for you case, 4GB is on the low end. How are you faring with swap? I mean, how often is used and how much?
I'm using a swap partition, but a swap file will be a bit faster
Also, have a look and adjust vm.swappiness. The default value is 60, but perhaps it'll suit you setting a lower value, at the risk of some OOM errors. Although, with you RAM speed, I'm pretty sure you won't see any real difference. But who knows, maybe SSD is worn out and swap is slower that normal.
If I were to think of the best way to speed up, I'm guessing is another kernel coupled with disabling non-essential services and eyecandy
Sorry to hear about your perf issues with 18 on your Macbook. Just letting you know, I replaced my MacOS on my iMac 2012 which was obviously out of support, to ZorinOS 17.3 Core whenever 17.3 first became available. It is fast and I prefer it over the MacOS. My specs are a bit better so there must be a threshold that you are not quite meeting. I plan to wait for 18 to be available as an in-place upgrade. I'm hoping your performance issues are not some new perf issue exclusive to 18 that I also will encounter. I plan on trying it out Live first before I commit to in-place upgrade. I am wondering if you would consider downloading 17.3 Core and trying that out on your Macbook to see if that runs better. Curious if you tried 18 before you installed?
If 18 works as good or better than 17.3, I plan on upgrading to Pro. I've been using Zorin 17.3. Core for about 6 months and have tried many other distros that always seem to come up short or something I don't quite like. ElementaryOS was nice looking, but I felt like it was not as "Open" and was limited to what I could install/tweak. Mint and Ubuntu are good, but i feel like Zorin is more polished and less need to drop to a shell to jump thru hoops to get something installed/working. I was quite impressed how well it works on my iMac. I will probably replace Windows on my other PC within next year. My third computer is a laptop that uses Windows 11 and I'd prefer to use ZorinOS. However, I feel like I need to keep one Windows machine for the time being and then maybe in a year or two 'll make the plunge. I help family out with their PC's and feel i probably should have at least one Windows 11 so I can better support them.
I’ve decided to give up on Zorin 18 on this MAC machine after continued difficulties. Although I received several suggestions from support, a few of them didn’t work, and following a recent update, I lost WiFi connectivity entirely — a common issue, apparently.
To restore the system, I attempted to revert to the Apple Recovery OS using Bluetooth tethering, which I managed to get working. Unfortunately, it turns out there’s no longer a recovery image available for my model unless I take it to an Apple Store and pay for “expert” assistance.
Overall, this has been a very disappointing experience. It’s hard to understand how Zorin can position itself as a viable alternative to Windows or other major operating systems when so much manual coding and troubleshooting is required just to get basic functionality working.
Hi there. I'm also having trouble making Zorin 18 Lite run faster. (8GB RAM Acer Aspire E5-575 Series). I'm a Terminal beginner.
I changed GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash tsc=unstable" in the /etc/default/grub file and ran sudo update-grub in Terminal, and noticed an immediate improvement in how fast Firefox was launching! So thank you for this tip.
I also found this video, so preload might be working for me, too (sudo apt install preload in Terminal).
@clew I wouldn't recommend to add this kernel parameter to your notebook, better try preload. "tsc=unstable" should only be used on very old computers (older than ~2011).
@GW4DVB Hi and welcome. I've just done sone searching and think I have found your answer why you are experiencing problems:
"The MacBook Pro 5,1, released in 2010, features an integrated NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics processor with 256 MB of shared memory (up to 512 MB available in Windows via Boot Camp). It does not have a dedicated graphics card."
This means your graphics memory is shared out of your RAM like early Windows notebooks so instead of having 4 Gb RAM available you will only have access to 3.75 or 3.5 Gb RAM.
I've stated on another thread that Team Zorin should put the 'Try Core first before purchasing Pro' further up the page. Personally I would give Q4OS a try. I installed it on a rig I built in 2006 with a single Athlon Processor, 2 Gb RAM, and 512 Mb 8x AGP graphics card from EVGA, It just about runs. It uses a much lower kernel, 6.1.x and it is free to download. I would use the Plasma version which has a Look Switcher that gives a MacOS theme at no cost with 2 variants, Dark and Light.
