OK, this may initially appear to be a whining session regarding MS; I will eventually get to the Zorin OS 16.3 Pro subject.
(We all have our reasons to be with Zorin)
First, some history: my PC/computer experience dates back to a 1970's high school math resource room; with time-shared, Western Union teletype acoustic coupler (telephone), programs written in GW BASIC and loaded via punched paper tape.
Progressed through virtually every iteration of PC windows; recall the advent of 286/386/486 Vesa Local Bus, "plug-and-pray" vs. plug-and-play.
Why am I here(with a terrible resolve):
Over the years, I have tinkered with various iterations (aka "distros") of linux; ASD, Mint, etc.... always on a unique hard drive (SSD), should anything go awry.
Generally when faced to DOS Command Prompt (aka "terminal"/"console") style interfacing (i.e. Sudo, apt, mount/unmount, etc.) pretty much killed the deal.
Now, (whence cometh said terrible resolve);
"Something went wrong and we can't sign you in right now. Please try again later.
The Microsoft account server has detected too many repeated authentication attempts. Please wait a moment and try again" - when attempting to check my email.
McAffee had detected that my hotmail address has been added to some type of "list"; Evidently, these "hackers" (for lack of a better technical term) were engineered to make automated, repeated attempts with invalid passwords (until they found the correct one?)... essentially rendering said hotmail account useless (perhaps that was the intent... a kind-sorta version of DNS, denial of service attack)
The "workaround" was found with gmail having the capability to import my hotmail contacts list to gmail. Also, Thunderbird allowed my to import all of my previous message traffic, or delete all of it... so the bad guys don't. (dating back to 12/18/05)
All and every attempts to remedy the situation required logging into my "outlook" account; to paraphrase Homer Simpson... DOH! even tried calling customer "service" through a barely intelligible accent... she offered to email me some information; yet again, DOH!!
A backup email had long-since been created via gmail... also had avoided bing, IE and the like, due to ever-burgeoning disgust with MS.
When one considers my original MS e-mail account dates back to the time when address names were limited to 8 characters! (and e-mail was still hyphenated!)
Perhaps I had become too comfortable with relying on the aforementioned Hotmail/outlook/Skype/MS Account as the conerstone to my internet presence.
footnote: in my efforts to wean myself from hotmail dependence (hence "long and arduous journey"), Ebay has divined that, after well over 20 years, I am now a "hazard to their community" Amazon, my credit Union, the VA was relatively painless
HOWEVER! As with my heritage of exodus of Irish-Catholics to America, no more!!
Zorin: After downloading/BalenaEtcher/"burning" .iso to a USB pendrive (these days, "burning" was a CD/DVD colloquialism, and yet, survives among some of us) was generally painless.
However: bold-faced at the Zorin website should be:
Zorin is Ubutu...and uses debian ("deb") files (i.e. not, AFAIK, "fed" - fedora)
Also, it should be highly recommended that installation should be with all normally used hardware connected and turned on (for most recent/functional "drivers")... as well as CONNECTED TO A WIRED LAN; simply depending on your wireless, via wireless adapter will lead to (almost) unimaginable headaches; without the most recent, drivers for your WiFi, no internet connection and, therefore no driver downloads/installations... trust me, after multiple re-installations, as well as beating my head against the wall, I was somehow, dumb-luck able to get it to work.
I would also strongly recommend installing your Zorin on a new hard drive... saving the original hard drive for re-booting to your more familiar windows install.
to date, so far, so good; now just need to learn all those nifties available through the good folks at Linux world... and yes, I typically make donations when requested; considering that i can dispense with McAffee, Restoro, Priiform CCleaner subscriptions.(Yay!!)
It took me nearly 50 years to get here...
Good luck, and best wishes,
John
Footnote: Alas, as progress plods on, My Mercedes Diesel will soon be illegal; leaving no alternative but exploding-into-fireballs, self-crashing EVs
You can run Zorin OS without ever opening the terminal.
However, I would encourage you to regard the terminal interface a bit differently.
The very thing that makes it intimidating is the very thing that makes it enticing.
It is powerful.
Not by itself, of course. Rather, it is that power - under your control.
How long have you lamented lacking that power while struggling with Windows?
For practical reasons; in troubleshooting here on the forum, it is much more efficient to ask a user to open a terminal and run a command, than it is to run a full walk-through on jumping through all the GUI hoops and button locating.
The Terminal is the F-14 Tomcat of the Linux world. Piloting it may seem daunting, but it can tar and feather any competition when mastered.
As users on the forum suggest terminal commands; it can help the user familiarize themselves with the terminal. To get comfortable with it. To begin to believe in themselves and self-trust.
There are many in the world who try to shackle us. But the shackles we place on ourselves are fully under our own control.
"when mastered" being the keywords;
be that as it may, a motorcycle also uses clutch, brakes, shifter turn signals, etc.... just as a car... one quickly discovers it ain't just a bicycle with a motor.
As for "lamenting the power"... never knew, or particularly cared, about linux superpowers... was quite comfortable cruising in my big, fat, gas-pig Cadillac... until the wheels fell off... switching to Zorin is an act of rage against the machine.
Fully expect a mass exodus as, in their infinite wisdom, Windows11 decided to "brick' the vast majority of machines on the planet (i have a couple hundred bucks tied up in several machines: to wit Lenovo C30, dual xeon processors, 64GB of RAM (not a typo)... not (yet) a boat anchor... all of which don't meet Win11 spec... regardless if they serve my purposes well.
I prefer to drive my machines, as a tool, rather than tinker with them.
I respect your zeal... my motivations are, evidently, different.
footnote: a Ferrari may be pretty nifty, until you have to work on one. (why I stick to Mercedes Diesels... 680,000+ kilometers, and no ulcers... or busted knuckles)
Airhead Beemers vs. Hayabushas, notwithstanding.
Blast from the past: A scene in the film: "Pirates of Silicon Valley"; Steve jobs is blubbering about how "my machines are better...", to which Bill Gates (having recently sealed the deal with NEC) replied: "it doesn't matter"
Will also never forget, in Minneapolis, Control Data was still hammering on their machines with hammer and chisel... until I got my greasy fingers on a HP System 360 (yeah those that weighed in at 16 tons, and required 2 air conditioned floors and a small nuclear plant.)
You don't have to be a master at the command line to take advantage of it. It's just another tool at your disposal. On Linux, unlike on Windows, we don't pretend it doesn't exist "for your own benefit". It's also not a super power by any means: some tasks are done far easier and more comfortably with a point-and-click graphical interface.
One major benefit of the command line is that you can save your commands in a text file and instruct the machine to run those commands at any given point. You can even hook up those commands to appear on the right-click context menu and run them with a mouse.
Automation is a big reason computers were created in the first place, and not taking advantage of it is like never going up to 6th gear in your car.
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