More bits are coming up as Windows 10 end of life approaches. This article specifically looks at CachyOS, Mint, and Zorin.
It's in a running blog-like format, with the writer ending with the ranks: 1 - Zorin, 2 - Linux, 3 - CachyOS.
It'll be interesting to see where things lay in a few months. I've never tried CachyOS, but I feel I'm hearing more of it. Nice to see Zorin getting a look in as well.
I'll be honest, I don't really know where Cachy came from, or how its gotten so much popularity so fast, but I did test it a while ago when it seemingly first came out, and wasn't that impressed by it? Maybe I missed something about it that everyone else sees, but to my eye it seemed fairly unspectacular.
Its just in the name, Cachy sounds like the name of someones dog. Just like all those obscure Linux OS's, like Puppy Linux, Hanna Montanna Linux, etc. Some people have a weird idea on what a Linux OS is supposed to be. lol
I don't mind the idea of weird-sounding distros popping up every now and then. After all, more or less all of us have distrohopping fever
That said, I'd love it more if I had 10 mini PCs to always run those distros. I scratched my plans for booting 10+ distros from a single SSD because I'm lazy and my research suggests upkeeping that will be too much work.
Whatever the distro is, someone's dog or not, I love seeing more and more people learning that there's life outside of the MS world. These distros may seem alien to them, but if they step into the right one (like Zorin), many of them will know they don't have to abide by MS' rules.
Trouble is, most people hear Linux and the first two things they land on are Ubuntu and Mint. Ubuntu continues to be..weird (or maybe I should blame Gnome for that one). I was running the latest version of Ubuntu on a laptop with an external monitor connected and I was surprised that the top bar (with the WiFi icon and stuff) couldn't be accessed from both monitors.
And Mint isn't bad by any means, it just still feels so old and outdated. I'd bet many people, especially younger ones, might take one look at Mint and go "nope, ain't touching that" while completely unaware that Linux can be beautiful.
All my rant in the earlier comment was meant to appreciate this author's work. That site has a good audience (and lots of SEO traffic), so putting Zorin OS front and center as the winner is really helpful for newbies looking to try out Linux.
I'll put my hand up and admit re. mint, I saw it and thought "nope, aint touching that" . An environment has to appeal to me, and Mint (visually) did the opposite.
The value of a customizable system is that it empowers each person to shape it according to their own tastes and needs, rather than relying on developers to anticipate every possibility.
If we glance at screenshots and then demand developers anticipate our wants- We Lose The Ability To Customize.
I think how much people want to customise can vary a fair bit. I want to be able to if I want, but I don't want to have to.
Coming into Linux in the past few months, as well, I looked at it from a... almost philosophical perspective. My thinking was that if I found a distro that looked and was laid out how I wanted it to from the outset, then it's more likely to be built in a way that is tailored to my needs and wants now (more broadly speaking), and hopefully is developed in that direction moving forward as well.
Also, credit to Zorin in how they made changing the layout effortless, part of their marketing, and tied into the Pro version. Well played.
Yesterday ZD NET published an article on the most Windows-look-a-like-Linux-distros and Zorin was on position #3.
Thus I wonder if (at all) the numbers of Linux users will raise before and after the 14th of October 2025 (by coincidence also the International E-Waste Day, the World Standards Day, and the National Face Your Fears Day ... LOL)
I wouldn't expect too much on this. I think the most People will simply use Windows 11. Or got/try Mac. I could imagine a temporary growing of Linux Users because of Trying it. But I don't think that this will have a big permanent Growth.
I was bemused by the article stating KDE neon looked closely like Windows 7! Since when did Seven have a centralised Panel? Additionally with all the hiccups I have had with neonuser, I am surprised they made it a first choice. RefreshOS and blendOS look interesting, and the wallpaper of blendOS reminded me of Windows 7.
I was also surprised at the recomnendation of AnduinOS as I don't think it is mature enough compared to Zorin.
RefreshOS does look nice, but why oh why does their website look like it's still the 90s? I hate it when good software (OS or not) has a terrible website. For most, if not all, it's the first impression. And it matters.
After you download the .iso the installer is banjaxed. You can run it in live mode but you can never install it and it appears to have been abandoned. Like the old adage about books:
"Never judge a book by its cover"!
big big fan of zorin but not want to see firmware update problem again, nor that gnome store problem where it just hung and hung on opening, even after reboots. had to use ai to clear it and the screenshot in dark mode leaves a white frame around a window snapshot. apart from these things everything gels this end
I think we're already seeing it. The market share of Linux on desktops is at 5% already. It doesn't sound like much but it's a record high on a very short period of time. However, I don't expect this number to grow much more than that. At least, not until there's an active interest from other big companies in developing for Linux.
Once you get big companies involved you can say goodbye to the Freedom that GNU/Linux brings. It is still being overlooked even in this thread. We don't say that the majority of people use the Microsoft kernel, the majority of people use MS Windows. It doesn't matter what the distribution name is, the majority of people are running and using GNU OS with the Linux kernel making it possible to use. Linux is the enabler, it is not the OS. You could always try Hurd as an alternative to the Linux kernel (but not with an existing system you use!)
I scratched my plans for booting 10+ distros from a single SSD because I'm lazy and my research suggests upkeeping that will be too much work.
. An environment has to appeal to me, and Mint (visually) did the opposite.
LOL)
no matter how true the old saying is.