Fast boot locks the drive, as does hibernation, for windows only write operations. This needs to be disabled or you will have a difficult time both installing, and if you manage that, booting zorin.
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Thanks for that!
There isn't Fastboot on this old netbook! Legacy only!
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These old Netbooks did not have fast or secure boot, just legacy!
The problem of not be installing Zorin 16 Lite in Dual Mode with Windows 11 Pro is only if Windows 11 Pro is installed first. If Windows 10 Pro is installed, Zorin 16 Lite could be installed alongside it without problem, but run slow!
I used only clean Low-Level formatted HDD for that jobs! Again, with Windows 10 Pro installed, no problem! If Windows 11 Pro is installed upfront, Zorin 16 Lite could not see any OS installed on that HDD.
I tested that on a few Acer Aspire One 722 with AMD C60 CPU 2 Core and 8GB Memory, as well as on an Acer Aspire 4752G with Intel i5 2450M 2 Core CPU also 8GB Memory. On both machines the exact same problem: Zorin 16 Core works and Zorin 16 Lite didn't work in Dual OS Mode! Both are the same age: 10 years!
Checked with another Linux: WindowsFX11 and that works on both machines, just even slower than Zorin! WindowsFX also is Ubuntu-based, like Zorin.
Unfortunately, both distros are running very slow on those old netbooks and Laptops and I'm sure, my customers will not change from the faster MS Windows versions to slower Linux versions. And for myself, I'm on giving up for now, after 'playing' around for that more than 2 weeks already!
Thanks for all answers.
As I already wrote, in those old machines (Computers/Laptops/Netbooks) there isn't UEFI/Fastboot/Secure boot, etc, Legacy only and maybe AHCI too!
The use of SSD's is also limited because many of them, special Netbooks and Laptops are just have SATA 2 and not SATA 3! And there are even some SSDs that are even not working really on SATA 2!
Curious in mind is the problem with Zorin 16 Lite not being able to use the Install Alongside Windows function on Windows 11! With Windows 10 there isn't any problem. I tried that installation on different Netbooks and Laptops with Windows 11 Pro installed as Main OS, and on none that were working! With Windows 10 Pro, not any problem at all. And that applies to the Zorin 16 Lite only, the Core is no problem!
Using Windows 10 Pro Main installed first, install Zorin 16 Lite secondly, and after that Update Windows 10 Pro to Windows 11 Pro, Zorin 16 Lite will work with no problem!
The problem for me is that many of my customers already updated from Windows 10 to Windows 11 and could not go back anymore!
There must be something in the boot area of the Main OS, here Windows 11 Pro, which prevents the installation of Zorin 16 Lite alongside Windows 11 Pro! Or, what is different in the Zorin 16 Lite OS compared to the Zorin 16 Core OS and prevent the installation of Zotin 16 Lite on Windows 11 Pro?
That is maybe something the Developer of Zorin would be able to clear and solve?!
Besides all that, on those older (8-10+ years) machines, all those newer Linux Distros are quite slow, slower than Windows 10/11!
Thanks for reading and have a good coming Weekend.
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My wife has a 8 years old laptop and i installed a Samsung 870 EVO 500GB SSD in it and it works very fast. This claim you make is false.
Windows 10 was slower for my wifes laptop then her linux installation. This claim you make is false too
Maybe because Microsoft does not want you to use anything else besides Windows ?
Maybe in the future who knows.
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Why the heck my claims are false? I've got that outcome on several Netbooks and Laptops and they're simply TRUE!
And I do not like to retype facts, again and again, just here you go:
- I talked about machines with SATA2 controllers, almost 8years old laptops already using SATA3 controllers;
- SSDs are made to use with SATA3 and I haven't found one which is really made for SATA2! I used Samsung 750EVO SSDs for some of the tests, 90% of the test were used to make with 7200rpm 2.5" HDDs, and on those drives, Windows 10/11 still has run faster than Zorin 16 Lite in all of my tests!
- The problems are ONLY related to Zorin 16 Lite, while Zorin 16 Core is working well, but slow! Therefore I do believe is related to the development of the Zorin 16 Lite and not to MS Windows 11 because on Windows 10 Pro Zorin Lite could be installed in Alongside Mode without any problem!
More than three weeks of testing with Linux Distros on Netbooks and Laptops from Acer, Asus, Lenovo, and Dell using mainly HDDs (not SSDs) from WD (Black Scorpio 7200rpm 2.5") have shown to have problems with:
1.: Zorin 16 LITE to run alongside Windows 11 Pro, and
2.: the speed of the used Linux Distros, mainly Zorin 16 OS (Core and LITE) and WindowsFX 11 are quite a bit slower as Windows 10/11 Pro.
And you're NOT in a position to say that my claims, resulting from done tests are FALSE!
Regards!
And Last but Least: if you don't like to read about negative results of tests done with this distro by admitting results of done tests are false, something impossible for YOU to do, you could simply delete my account on this forum, you'll have to do so to keep my mouth shut!
To take a scientific approach...
Test Results require independent verification for accuracy. This does not mean that your results are invalid or false... But I have a great deal of experience in testing Linux Distros, including Zorin OS against Windows 10 for the past Two Years.
I have not published these results. However, what you are describing goes against these last couple years of experience. It also conflicts with what a lot of other users on here report. One of the greatest statements in Science is: "Huh... That's unexpected..."
Truthfully, anecdote does not equal evidence.
However, without your verifiable testing procedures and results, your posts are as much anecdote as anyones at this time.
I have not, at this time, tested against Windows11.
Only Windows 7 and 10.
In Science... It is not about the test results we like or do not like. We cannot reject the results if they do not conform to our views. In science, any result is a good result. Results in any direction improve our understanding. Results give us indicators of things we can learn more about or improve upon.
Results are Progress.
Let's keep to Scientific claims and analysis when discussing Benchmarking; Provide verifiable results, evidence and statistics. Details.
Please remember to confront these things, not each other.
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Echoing Aravisian, I did find this: MSN (I do get the irony of me citing MSN)
It seems that Win 11 may be quite fast. Given that the speeds are close, for some applications it may be possible that Win is faster.
For example, I used to feel that GNOME is faster for some of my games compared to XFCE. I didn’t (a) actually measure the speed and (b) even if I had measured I would need to have a reasonable sample size of measurements, say 30.
Anyway, not to belabor the point that Aravisian already made but I hope we can be more accepting of each others’ experiences.
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I'm curious where you get your information on drives? Sata 3 drives are backwards compatible to sata 2. You lose the benefit of the speed and some drive features that are 3 only, but otherwise they aren't that much different.
The fast boot and hibernation i spoke of are in the windows operating system. I realize you mentioned bios, but these features were added in win 8 and have persisted since. Research it a little, it's there, on by default.
I'm wondering how you are running win 11 on these old machines? I'm also wondering what kind of business is willing to bypass tpm and upgrade all of their machines with a hack? I don't know any enterprise that is willing to use win 11 yet. Most are still in testing. Then of course there is the scheduling of rollouts and such.
On those machines 15 would probably work better. Yes, 16 has better routines for cpu, but you run into the ram bottleneck after some use. Gnome occupies 2 to 3gb ram. Open a browser and that takes some (depending on the number of extensions and tabs), word processor, email and something a little more intensive (i normally have all that and vscode with a web server running) and I'm at about 7gb of memory used or more (i am also running stacer and tlp). 15 is less ram hungry, but doesn't have the cpu improvements. 15 would be less of an issue on the older hardware also.
16 lite has many improvements in graphics, so will need more ram. It has the same cpu improvements, but runs a different DE, DM and WM than core. Not everything that is solved in gnome is solved in other DE's. They all use the same kernel, even the same graphics library, but the differences in window manager, desktop manager and desktop environment have details and interactions that are different. What is solved on one may still be a headache on the other. The fine tuning available in xfce may not help that.
Being just released i would not place it in production environment... just like win11. Everyone doesn't need the latest and greatest when the machine won't use half the features.
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They are false and yes i am in that position because you posted it in a public forum and i replied on that.
@Aravisian and @337harvey already said enough about it. I don't have to explain how sata works (harvey did that already).
I just give answers to things you are wrong with, if you can't handle that then that is your problem.
If i where you, i would stick with windows.
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When you formatted the SSDs for either version of Zorin did you format to Ext4 file system? Ext4 and Ext3 are journalling systems like NTFS. that's why Windows on netbooks were always FAT32 systems. You should format to Ext2, a non-journaling file system and should boot quicker. You will also be extending the life of the SSDs as continual rewrites will shorten the life of the drive. You have to remember that both Desktop environments that Zorin provide are governed by individuals who think they no better than developers and users and they are ending up being 5th Columnists to the GNU/Linux community. If you are still looking for alternatives I successfully installed Devuan 3.0 xdce (4.14) on a Dell Latitude E6500 that only has 2 GB RAM and Intel dual processor on 180 Gb hard drive and it booted really quickly. You can download the live version which uses xfce by default. The latest Devuan 4.0 (not checked the live version) uses LXQt. I have run as VM in Virtual Manager. The only issue I've had with 4.0 is password login that needs me to use Shift+ 3 to get # as even though I told it to be English UK which it is once logged in, It is expecting US keyboard. I've noticed a poster on the Devuan forums who has dropped Linux Mint for Devuan like a hot potato. I used Devuan 3.0 then 3.1.1 from last December until I retired working from home, using KDE Plasma desktop making it look like Windows 10 with Tiled Menu.
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Finally, I got Zorin 16 Lite installed alongside Windows 11 Pro!
But, everything nothing the normal way, unusual at least to tell!
OK, what was done? Firstly I installed Windows 10 Pro 21H2 on a fresh Low-Level formatted HDD (WD 500GB 7200rpm). I used the partitioning from the Windows 10 Pro Setup and created a 150GB Partition for Windows 10 Pro. The setup created 2 more small Partitions by itself.
After that installation of Windows 10 was finished, including downloading all available updates for Windows 10 Pro 21H2 and installing those too, Windows 10 Pro 21H2 started/booted within 1min 40sec. I installed a few small Utilities and started the procedure to install Zorin 16 Lite.
I used an external bootable Vetoy USB HDD, which contains all my ISOs for Windows and Linux, to start the installation of Zorin 16 Lite. After that was done I updated Zorin to its latest stage.
Now I upgraded Windows 10 Pro 21H2 to Windows 11 Pro 21H2, which also worked just fine.
Finally Zorin 16 Lite worked alongside Windows 11 Pro as it should!
Anyway, that is just the beginning of a new upcoming problem: While doing updating Windows 11 Pro 21H2 to its final end-stage, after Zorin 16 Lite worked fine, I ended up with an error while updating Windows 11 Pro 21H2 and ended up with a serious error of the Pin-Code! I was not able to solve this problem, MS was not going further until the damaged Pin -Code!
What to do now? I finally formatted the 150GB Partition with Windows 11 Pro on it, just only that single partition! All other partitions I was leaving as they are. Now I installed Windows 11 Pro 21H2 again on its former (now free) partition again, which worked just fine, and upgraded Windows 11 Pro to the latest available. That also worked fine!
But, now I wasn't able to start Zorin 16 Lite anymore because the Dual Startmenue (Grub me think) was gone totally!
Gone to reboot Windows 10 Pro again, opened Disk Management, and delete the "old" Zorin 16 Lite Partition. While installing Zorin 16 Lite before, Zorin created 2 Partitions while in the Install Proces: one as 512 MB 32bit Partition and the other an as 176GB ext4 Partition for the Zorin 16 Lite OS! Therefore I ended up with a total of 6 Partitions: 1: 50MB Healthy System; 2: 150GB for Windows; 3: 499MB Healthy Recovery; 4: 150GB Data Partition; 5: 512MB FAST32 Healthy (logical Drive); 6: 176GB Healthy (Primary Partition0 for Zorin Linux.
Now as I didn't touch the first 5 Partitions, deleted only Partition 6 Zorin 16 Lite now created a 2. 512MB FAT32 Partition besides the newly created ext4 176GB Partition for Zorin itself! Now I have 7 running Partitions on the HDD of the Netbook!
Booting Zorin 16 Lite now needs 2min 40sec on the Acer Aspire One 722 with AMD Dual Core CPU C60 1 GHz and 8GB Memory! The Zorin Logo alone stays for 1min 40sec, which seems to be very long!
I'm now on installing the available Updates for Zorin OS 16 using the Software Updater of Zorin. Everything seems to work fine now, just quite slow!
And just to mention: In the (Grub-) Boot manager, Windows entry is shown as Windows 10 and NOT Windows 11!
That's all for now, this post is simply long enough! I wrote it with all details because it may help others to overcome similar problems.
I do not SSDs at all, just 2.5" HDD's, mainly WD Black Scorpio 500GB 7200rpm.
Ok thanks for the information. Have you tried my preferred unconventional method of dual-booting? I used to use NeoSmart EasyBCD - that way it does not interfere with the Windows Boot loader and just alters the Boot menu of Windows to include Linux.
I used the non-commercial (free) one in my tutorial video on dual booting Windows 7 with Zorin 9:
Vimeo is annoying - as the video is not rated you now have to login to watch!
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Sorry, and no I haven't!
ATM, I'm really not having fun doing more testings, after Getting Zorin 16 Lite running alongside Windows 11!
In a few days, I maybe start to test Zorin Lite with the relevant software which needs to run on it. I will have time till March next year for a test run with the needed software. The goal is that there more than four hundred machines will need some updates/upgrades in the second quarter of 2022, and for that, I've to get ready.
The main point is, if there would be a chance of change to Linux, all must be work at least as good, and same as Windows!
Not very easy, to tell!
Thanks anyway for your infos and help.
No problem. If successful, you might want to contact the Zorin team about using Zorin grid to manage the entire 400 machines. 
I was a bit curious as to how Win 11 was running with no problems on such old and outdated equipment, considering every one and their mother are having issues with Win 11 even on brand new equipment.
I happened to come across this:
It seems Win11 isn't the grand solution with zero problems as been described IMO. It also seems that Win11 is going in an changing things in the BIOS if I'm reading correctly.
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Mydigitallife forum, been a member there since 2009 
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Did you read the thread?
Someone is going back to Zorin 16 as they installed it with zero issues on their Acer.. Another is using Endeavor. Win 11 was nothing but problems for them.
Not yet.