Unhappy with Zorin18

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1

I have used zorin 15, 16, 17 and recently 18 all on the same hardware

in 17 there was a wierd stutter, about once per day the entire system would freeze up and even though its still registering input in the background (keyboard, mouse, window events, etc) there is no reaction to any of the input for 15-20s.

While irritating since it happened so seldomly and it would basically be impossible to replicate reliably, i didnt make a bug report, though i asked around it didnt seem like many ppl had the same issue.

Now moving to 18, the freeze up has a much longer duration and occurs anywhere from 1-3 times every 1/2hr now, so i am very unhappy.

On a multithreaded system, whatever event gnome is waiting for/processing shouldn't create a problem visible to the user.

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2

I softly edited your post:
"No" corrected to "Now" for clarity.

Yes, Zorin OS 18 initial release has seen a lot of Gnome Crashing or Freezing woes.
17 is at least still supported with 17.3 being the latest point release.

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Some Questions:

  • Are Secure Boot and Fast Boot in BIOS disabled?
  • What are Your Hardware Specs?
  • How are Resolution and Refresh Rate set up?
  • Is Fractional Scaling active?
  • Does Your System run in Wayland or X11? You can check that with the Terminal Command echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE
  • Did You upgraded to Zorin 18 or did You made a fresh Install?
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  • this machine has NEVER had windows on it, yes secure and fast are disabled, as stated zorin from 15 up has been installed here so we are talking MULTIPLE YEARS with longer in 15 and 16 than 17 and 18 since 17 and 18 were upgraded so quickly and problems ONLY in the later versions!!!!

  • ryzen 5 3600 x12, nvidia gtx 1660

  • 1920x1080 74.97Hz, 1440x900 60.02Hz, X11

  • no fractional scaling

  • Fresh install (twice)

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What Nvidia Driver do You use? Did You used the Install Method with Nvidia Drivers and Updates or did You installed it offline?

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software & updates -> additional software -> (open kernal) nvidia-580 (prop)

not offline, not sure what 'install method with nvidia drivers' (all caps) means

...
i do see that theres an update to 590 i need to do though, but honestly my gfx is so old it doesnt get improvements from driver updates anymore, it might even be losing it as they optimise for newer hardware

7

Can You make a Screenshot of this?

When You start the Bootstick, You get a black Screen with the Choices to try or install Zorin. And there You have 2 Options to do that with Drivers.

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Ah, then yes offline install ... starts with neauvou drivers i think? and needs to be swapped to nvidia later

Screenshot from 2026-01-28 15-55-02
Screenshot from 2026-01-28 15-55-02804×807 86.6 KB

the 'tested' tag is lost when its not the current latest, but it was the 'tested' driver when installed

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Yes, did You do it that Way?

You use the open Driver. I would suggest to try the non-open one to see if it runs better.

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Mhh i installed this on an HP Compaq presario cq57 from 2011 and on an Laptop with an Rtx 5070 and the new Laptop ist performing worse than an Laptop from 2011 im still waiting for zorin 19 tof fix this

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The Release of Zorin 19 will take a While. Zorin 18 is released a couple Weeks ago.