Wiping windows boot manager and install existing Zorin OS

Installing Zorin OS
#1

Hey there guys!

I'm very happy to be part of this community and this is my very first Linux distro on any machine. I'm 32 years old, but I was always scared to install Linux as I never got in touch with it a lot.

After a few starting hurdles it's finally installing (on an HDD, which seems to take a very long time. Maybe because it automatically allocated 1.7TB space for Zorin to allocate, but I also didn't dare to fumble with partitions to get it on my nvme).

With that said, I'm installing it alongside of the Windows boot manager (win 11) and here comes the question:

If I really like Zorin and Linux in general, how would I go on wiping windows and move the existing Zorin OS to be the only OS on my machine?

Sorry if this is a newbie question but I really am a bloody newbie haha.

Cheers boys!

Hope the installation will finally finish! Can't wait!

#2

You may be able to image your hdd and restore it on the NVMe, but they would have to be the same size. Images used to take hardware into account, but since the NVMe driver would be installed I don't think that it will be an issue. Before customizing it installing software, I'd adjust your Zorin partition to the same maximum size as your Windows partition. Any extra space can be formatted as NTFS for shared data, great for backing up documents, pictures and videos.

After your Zorin transfer, I would reformat the 1.7TB as ext4, if you choose a Zorin only system.

@Aravisian would be the man to ask which imaging software to use, since I haven't done such things in a long while, and never in Linux.

#3

Hey there harvey!

Thank you for chiming in, appreciated. However, I ended up wiping an entire drive for it to make room for this beauty :smiley: Zorin is up and running, even though I'm trying to get my other 2 monitors and Radeon Software working with Zorin. It doesn't seem to be an easy match so far.

Should I open a separate thread for this? The 2 problems I currently have are:

  • Only 1 of my 3 monitors is recognized (Also, if I play videos on that 1 monitor it flickers and stutters very often and goes black, so I'd think there's an issue with the drivers?)
  • I cannot seem to install Radeon software (AMD's graphics card software on Zorin. I'm choosing the "Ubuntu 20.04.2" package for that and it says when installing that the Ubuntu OS is unsupported)

Not sure if it's even possible to install it here, but I'd think it could help mainly to get my monitors and videos fixed, but I'm a 100% noob when it comes to Linux hehe

So should I post this in a new thread?

Thank you for bearing with me!

EDIT: Also, may it have something to do with Zorin OS 16? That's what I installed after purchasing Ultimate 15.3 (smart :smiley: ). I'm gonna roll back to 15.3 and try my luck in the meanwhile :see_no_evil:

#4

I would recommend sticking with Zorin OS 16 and contacting the ZorinGroup about your choice of Zorin OS 15.3 Ultimate right before 16 was released. Choosing Ultimate this close to the Official Next Release usually means that the ZorinGroup is more than happy to help you out.

Zorin OS 16 comes with a newer kernel and drivers.
If you are still having graphics trouble, you may try:
(For Zorin OS 16)
In terminal run:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/updates

sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade

Reboot and test.

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#5

Thank you very much for your response and pardon my late response. I'd have another graphics questions, now that I got to know Zorin a bit better (I already purchased Zorin OS 16 already, it's just awesome :slight_smile: )

So the question would be if it's okay to switch graphics cards from one manufacturer to another. See, I ended up putting my RTX 3070 back into my machine, because it's usually much more comfortable with drivers and such, but I'd like to test the AMD card again.

Can I just replace the Nvidia card with the AMD card or will there be any problems? Please note that I have Zorin installed with (modern NVIDIA graphics), so I'm absolutely not sure if switching to AMD is a good idea at all.

Best wishes :slight_smile:

@Aravisian

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#6

AMD and Nvidia both can cause headaches on Linux. The best way to find out how yours performs is to Try It. The majority of users use AMD or Nvidia just fine.
If you swap out the cards, I recommend setting the grub parameter "nomodeset" first, just in case you need to fall back to the built in intel graphics during that first Boot Up.
Once you have booted and logged in, you will want to immediately check your graphics drivers.
Open Software & Updates and navigate to the Additional Drivers tab.

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#7

Thank you very much for the details about how to go about that! <3

I will try and come back if I face any issues :slight_smile: ZORIN OS 4EVA! :smiley:

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#8

For future reference, zorin 16 official release was updated to have the 5.11 kernel, making the equivalent to Ubuntu 21, not 20. This should be reflected in your searches. 20 fixes may work, but being that the kernel is 5.11 you may have better luck, for drivers anyway, with a 21 search.

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#9

Thank you two guys for all of your help! :heart: I'm up and running with my AMD card and did as Aravisian advised - all good so far, not a single issue! Pretty nice community here, keep it up!

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