The Road to Zorin 16

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This thread assumes the purpose of discussing active developments of Zorin 16 along with updates to it. It is not for the purpose of "when" or expressing concerns- that thread already exists.

As several of us have been sent a preliminary copy of an unstable Zorin 16 "alpha", not ready for production; (Please do not share or try to distribute); we can discuss our findings here and compare notes. Later on, perhaps this thread can be used to cover changes and upcoming improvements or features.

For now: I will start with flaws.

Scroll wheel direction is reversed. Scroll up for down and down for up. This is terrible. Utterly the opposite of normal.

To fix this:

Open System tools > Settings > Mouse and Touchpad: Click the toggle switch for "Natural Scrolling" to "Off".
Mouse Natural Scrolling should not default to On, IMO.

prtscn key does not take a screenshot.
Zorin Appearance > Themes is a bit odd. It does not show the themes, but rather, individual color settings. This could be an improvement. But it also may confuse.

The copy I have is not lite- it is Gnome. I hate Gnome. I really hate Gnome.
When Zorin 15 was released, I was not impressed.
So, I am a hard audience to please. I am critical and I am starting this out with a Bias against the very desktop environment.

Yet, this copy of Z16 actually makes Gnome more tolerable. Major improvements have been made to the Panel (Taskbar) making it much more user friendly, available on multiple monitors and configurable with an easy to access Settings window. This is not in Ubuntu 20.04; I know this because I already tried it.
Software Channel provides a Clear Source right in the toolbar of the package being installed. This is a drop down menu. Scroll down (Or Up?!) to view all sources. On mine, for several packages I looked at, "Zorin OS" is listed as a source.
There's a Lot of Snap - and this worries me. A Lot. What oh, What is canonical up to.
But I consider this to be a stark and huge improvement to the Software Store.

The Zorin App menu > System Tools > is improved and also has Boot Repair.

There is supposed to be a Photo Editor included that allows fast editing without running Gimp. And... I cannot find it. Anywhere. All photos open in default Photo Viewer (a build of Eye of Gnome). No editing.
Gimp is the latest version- and I do mean the latest. For me, this is a huge bonus. OK... Well, I usually just install it from source, not the repo, in order to have... But it is great to not have to.

Prior to this, I have been running Ubuntu 21.04 Interim OS. This is not entirely stable and is an interim, so only supported for 9mos. Not LTS. However, it has allowed me to run and test a lot of the newest stuff.
I had lost any anticipation for Z16, as many of you know. I figured, I would just stick to Ubuntu 21.04 or my own home built OS (that only a few of you know existed til I blurted it out here).
But running Zorin 16 Alpha unstable through a USB bottleneck (through a HUB, at that) should be snail-slow. It isn't. I will probably install this build for further testing... And since KDE connect is a viable and working alternative to ZorinConnect am actually feeling enthusiasm for Zorin 16 Lite. I still hate Gnome. Even improved Gnome.

EDIT: Cannot find "Software & Updates" app in app menu.

EDIT 2: Conky-manager repo for Z16:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:tomtomtom/conky-manager

EDIT 3: I have installed the Unstable Zorin OS 16 alpha to a 60gig partition on HDD (a bit risky). I have now tested zsh, cinnamon and various other features on it successfully, with the latest packages available.

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This is known and Azorin had warned us of the known bugs they are fixing. I think the only reason we are seeing this alpha build is the recent thread - otherwise, they would not have let us see this in this early state.

Both were always available. Z16 adds Flatpack as default supported.

What strikes me the most is that this and other changes such as Software Channel showing the Source clearly and unavoidably in the toolbar; The lack of user friendliness in gnome-panel being addressed with an array of settings; These show that many of the issues we have discussed on the forum have been heard. That ZorinGroup was working on it.
Perhaps they did not say anything because they wanted certainty they Could address these with extensions. But, I believe they should have put that on a Roadmap. We all know that not everything planned can be implemented. Learning after the fact left everyone frazzled.
But it is great that these were heard and addressed and I think these are exceptionally great additions to Zorin OS, especially for new-comers that find the Taskbar / Panel baffling.

This is an interesting point: Those of us on the forum are kind of stuck with having to learn all this new stuff in order to help others. This is not unusual, but it is a bit sudden or a lot all at once. Hopefully, newcomers with patience will arrive.
I could swear I saw that availability, but would need to log into the Z16 tester to check.

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I started this thread so we do not have to PM the ZorinGroup and they can read all collected observations in one place easily. So all observations help and if they already know of something, they can gloss over it.
I was trying to be reassuring to you, not tell you to not to.
txt spk, u kno. Can be hard to really convey full meaning.

Yes, I noticed Prtsc was not tied into it, too. Kinda annoying, though it can be added to the keyboard shortcuts in the usual way.
Otherwise, type "screenshot" into the app menu and the gnome-screenshot application will be offered.

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Man, you guys have been hitting the Alpha testing like crazy! I'm really hoping that the Zorin Dev's appreciate, cause you guys are going full force on it lol.

I really hope that Zorin OS 16 does not default to putting the panel on the left side of the screen, cause I hate that. The panel needs to be at the bottom of the screen.

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Same. It is quick.
I just did a simple test by highlighting all the images in my Pictures directory and then "open in Gimp". This is an evil act.
On the old, this would take a while. On this alpha, they just blipped into existence at about 1/15th of a second between each. I've never seen Gimp load that many images in one go so fast.
For making Icon sets, etc... this is a real boon.

EDIT: i should point out, I already did this test in Ubuntu 20.04 and in Ubuntu 21.04 and it is much slower. I should probably video this. Whatever ZorinGroup knows that we do not know is definitely their advantage.

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Interesting! I have literally caused GIMP to error out on loading too many high resolutions photo's, on older distro. But this is cause I ran out of RAM, and thats with 16GB of RAM believe it or not.

See, thats why I say, when it comes to serious production work, you really do need at least 32GB of RAM, otherwise your work will be really bottlenecked by your hardware.

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For testing, you could just install the needed codecs.

sudo apt install ubuntu-restricted-extras

Zorin has always incl. Evolution, I think. Well... always as far back as 12 lol...

I am using 16gigs RAM, now. Prior to this new machine, I was on 8gigs. All those icon sets and Themes you saw before- made on that.

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Yes, having plenty of RAM most certainly helps. I can't wait to experience it with my new machine lol.

I have a feeling I might know the magic that Zorin OS 16 is doing in the background as far as speed. Since OS 16 is newer, it being based on Ubuntu 20.04, means it should be working with newer hardware.

The point being, new CPU's have newer instruction sets, are more effecciently in their offhandling to memory and fourth. Also, you have more cores and threads.

If OS 16 was designed to make fuller use out of newer CPU's, well there's your answer fellas, on why OS 16 is faster. I wouldn't put it past the Zorin team to enhance Ubuntu further, cause thats what they do.

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I know they backported a higher gnome-shell. But... As I already said, Ubuntu 20.04 (direct) and 21.04 are slower.

Compare it against Pop_OS!, then?

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Yes, 32GB of RAM on POP OS is gonna be so fast, it be like when Marty got the Delorean to 88MPH, we saw some serious BEEP.

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Mr. Harvey

This site has severely limited file size limits to photo attachments, no doubt set by the Admins. The best way around this, is to create an IMGBB account, upload all your photos there, and then grab the HTML thumbnail based embed links, and post them here.

I have already done this successfully, the thumbnails are small to keep things from being cluttered, but allow you to click on them, and open them up to full size at your album.

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I saw you had an issue, and as usual, I try to be of help. I was in the same situation, until SWARF recommended IMGBB to me.

I find IMGBB to be better then all the bigger photo hosting sites, cause big sites are slow with ads, or make you pay to remove them. IMGBB is simple, easy to use, and no ads to slow it down.

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Interesting reading this so far. I have ordered some new USB sticks for the occassion.

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Zaba, did your old USB sticks fail from over use? Or is it that your old USB sticks are too low in capacity? If you buy an external 128GB SSD drive, they make perfect ISO burners for software installations, or running in LIVE mode. Super fast, super awesome, super everything lol.

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All my decent USB's are currently occupied, others are too small capacity.

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Ahhh yes, too true, too true, life as a distro hopper hehe. You look at your available USB sticks, and thats when you realize they are all..........

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Testing Sound and Audio with Avantree Aria Bluetooth Headset on Z16 worked perfectly and smoothly, much to my surprise. There was no troubleshooting or set up. I thought I needed to install pavucontrol... but apparently not.
I opened Bluetooth manager - hit search. Avantree came up. I right clicked it and selected connect. Boom. Sound.

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:boom: :hear_no_evil: Beginners luck?

I was going to say something here about sound along the lines that I hope Z16 behaves better than Z15 when it comes to sound through internal speakers. I do not want to have to go through all that voodoo stuff again on alsamixer and/or pulse :angry:

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POP OS is made for gamers, and the full multi-media experience. Thats somewhat of a tall order to ask of Zorin, as Zorin never really was fully setup for gamers out of the box.

As far as speed is concerned, remember that POP OS is full release, Zorin OS 16 is Alpha state. So it might slow down a bit, stay the same, or get even faster, by the time its in full release.

So we will see how it goes I guess. But Zorin in the past, has always made me have to install a lot of things to get it gamer ready, including video drivers.

POP OS already has the latest version of video drivers installed ready to go.

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See, I thought I was crazy.
Web pages pop into existence. Like... Open pageit'sthere.
I even booted up into Zorin 15 and opened the Zorin Forum on FF and compared. I don't get it.
On Zorin 15, the page loads, neatly and swiftly.
On Zorin 16, the page quantum tunnels into existence.
I was watching my conky with the computer at idle and it would drop to 2% sometimes, usually around 3%. Rarely, it dropped to 1% which... You know... Ok, 2% is a stretch but it was brief. It still follows the laws of physics. But 1%?
That's when it hit me. I have been thinking of this from a logical and technical standpoint.
Once I changed my viewpoint to witchcraft, it made more sense.

-sigh-

When Zorin 15 was released and we were all on 12... I did not think much of 15. It had some neat features and was a step up in certain regards and granted, back then I was in the newer stages of learning instead of being in the current stage of learning. But I just was not that impressed. So, this time, given all things, I figured I probably would not be impressed.
I had direct upgraded (Through a sneaky maneuver) Zorin 15 to Ubuntu 20.04 and did not experience much change other than that I had access to some newer packages that I needed.
For kicks, I installed and tested out some features of Ubuntu 21.04 a few days after it was released and that was interesting, but the differences between Zorin 15, Ubuntu 20.04 and Ubuntu 21.04 = Not a whole lot.
Not on the surface, anyway. Performance wise, it was pretty nil.
Zorin 16, based on Ubuntu 20.04 - is much faster than either of them.
Notably, I am seeing this same performance across Desktop Environments. Including some odd ones.
And... As Always... Cinnamon is running like batman got bit on the butt by a bat in the batcave.

So, I really had it figured I would not be using Zorin 16. It did not seem worth (yet another) wipe and reload.
...
Absolutely I will be using Zorin 16.
And anyone that sidles up next to my USB port with some bootable media is gettin' their hand bit.

Nautilus does a funny thing and it took me a long moment to notice it.
Instead of the usual Progress Bar on a Popup window - Nautilus plants a small Pie-type timer icon on the HeaderBar of the transferring File Manager Window.
This shows the progress of the F.T. Can you check if your FM is displaying in that manner?