Voting: Change the Base of Zorin OS

For now that's true--it's primarily intended as an OS for handheld gaming devices. Valve's been fairly clear that it'd eventually return to desktops though. At that time, I'd probably evaluate it as a desktop OS, especially since it actually can have its immutability disabled with a single command.

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Immutability sounds dramatic, but macOS has moved the OS and core apps to a read-only (immutable) partition years ago and I don't think most people have even noticed.

The benefit in the Linux world (Bazzite, Vanilla OS etc.) ls that you can easily roll back the system to the last working version if some kernel or driver update doesn't work with your hardware. It's a bit like how Ubuntu offers previous kernel versions in the boot menu, just for the whole base system.

Edit1: I also think something with an a/b upgrade option, similar to Chrome OS, where a failed update just restores a completely different image/core OS install would be another great feature too include.

I'm not a developer, so I can't speak to how hard it is to alter Debian or Ubuntu; but as someone who was once a complete Linux newb, I wonder if an immutable Distro is a better base, as this Distro is meant to be the first Distro (and often final) distro for new users of Linux. Given some of the upset we've seen in other Corporate backed Distro's "recently", I can imagine why Zorin would want to move away from Canonical. To be clear, while I voted for Other, I think Debian is a good and similar enough choice that I would not blame the Dev team for rebasing to it. But if you're going to rebase, my first question would be "Whats best for the future new users". I think an immutable OS would be Linux on training wheels for the majority of new users.

Most of us remember the LTT debacle where Linus deleted his DE trying to install Steam. I did this loooong before Linus ever tried Linux, and I have a great deal of sympathy for new users who perform this blunder.

"They read and agreed" is not an excuse when we're trying to present a Distro as "newb" friendly. Especially with the opportunity to get a bunch of non technical users to switch as Win10 EoLs and standard, otherwise perfectly good hardware, faces either a new OS install or a landfill.

I don't want to drive the thread off topic, but... how? I'm not suggesting it didn't happen--I work in software and had someone on my team with good intentions make a batch file for build copying that included a del *.*, forgetting that batches run from the desktop use C:\Windows\System32 as their working directory. The result was disastrous for the one person who tried it before I caught the problem. But having installed Steam on Linux a few dozen times, I don't see how one kills their DE in the process, and I'm honestly curious.

Edit: Also, as an exception to what I said above about preferring software straight from the dev or publisher, when it comes to the newest of new users, myself included a year ago, "use what's in the repo" is good advice while they get their feet under them, and REALLY ought not to kill anyone's system.

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Honestly couldn't say "how" I did it. Was about a decade ago the last time I did it. I was a newb to Linux, installing and updating Steam. Steam or apt or my OS decided it wanted to remove something which would delete files required to run my DE. What were they?why did it happen?, no recollection of the reasons. Just remember the same warning he had and that I was upgrading/installing Steam.

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Fair enough; it's a lot easier to remember that something happened than the specifics.

It was an issue with how Pop!_OS integrated critical package as a dependency for Steam (and probably other packages). Trying to uninstall or re-install is what caused that issue. It was similar to trying to delete zorin-os-desktop in Zorin OS: you'd end up without the graphical component, and booting into an terminal prompt.

If you happen to know how to fix it, it's really easy... but of course I would also be scared that my PC borked itself for no reason.

For reference:


Back on topic: I would also like to try an immutable distribution. It's been in my to-do list for a while... but I think I would still vote for Debian anyway. Familiarity beats everything :slight_smile:

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I'd recommend Bazzite as a starting point there. It's based on atomic Fedora, and while it doesn't meet my needs (see above about Proton VPN), it felt polished and easy to use, with a possible exception in that I don't find its installer intuitive. It's not terrible, just weird to me. Nonetheless, It's my main recommendation for anyone I think is too likely to break a traditional distribution, or just wants a non-Windows gaming rig (and doesn't demand latest drivers).

Bad dependencies are frustrating. Zorin-os-desktop depending on Pulseaudio is how I ended up uninstalling zorin-os-desktop, but weirdly I didn't lose the GUI; I only lost the settings menus. There's a thread around here somewhere about it.

When You want combine Debian and Immutable there would be Vanilla OS. This is immutable and uses Debian as Base.

I had Vanilla OS in mind when it still used Ubuntu, so it's been a while... Micro from OpenSUSE was the other one that I was looking forward to try out.

There's also Guix OS & NixOS. These are more advanced but I'd like to give them a try at some point. Definitely out of the scope for something like Zorin OS, though.

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Yes, they changed that with Version 2.0 Orchid to Debian. From what I saw about this, I liked the (Post-)Installation Process because at some Point, You can individually set up what Applications You want install. I find that great. Oh, and I forgot: They use Gnome - but I'm not sure what Version at the Moment.

Voted for Debian. You should create another poll for desktop environments. :slightly_smiling_face:

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That was my Plan.

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And now it is done. Feel free to vote and say Your Opinion:

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