Zorin 18 Beta feedback/discussion thread

[Dexxa]

I'm also amazed at how much people get hung up on discussions about paying for PRO. I was happy to pay for 17 Pro and was super satisfied with it.
But I also realized that I don't need many of the advantages of the Pro version.

So I currently have 18 Core installed as my daily driver. And I'm very happy with the system, it works, I like the way it looks and feels, and I'm Microsoft-free.

And yet, I made a donation to Zorin the day before yesterday.
Why am I doing this? First, the team needs financial support, either through donations (as I did) or through the purchase of the Pro version.

Please consider the purchase as a donation to support the Zorin brothers.

[0Picass0]

My personal reticence about paying for the Pro version, or making a donation, is that the Zorin brothers ignore a lot of critical feedback, even when it comes from very experienced user's opinions and observations. That the general user experience could be made so much better by taking on board suggestions that have been made, over and over again, is troubling.

I've been struggling financially for some time, so what I was doing to support Zorin was bringing it to people's attention. My posts on LinkedIn were well received and even got some shares, but I had to stop promoting Zorin_OS because of basic errors that "normal users", like me, can't fix without help. When someone relies on their computer heavily, it can't just freeze up, or fail to run a pre-installed program.

I'm lucky to be in the EU, where I'm still getting updates for Windows 10 because I dare not rely on Zorin_OS to run Zoom. I know Zoom isn't a pre-installed program but it is one that has over 300 million daily active users worldwide (demandusage.com zoom user statistics 2025), and I need to use it for my job. To ask for help getting it to run and getting advice telling me to use another program is not at all helpful.

This is just an example, there have been many other issues that mean Zorin_OS doesn't "just work", and I don't know how to fix them. When I've had serious issues with Windows (including the "blue screen of death"), I've been able to find tutorials to, not only fix it myself, but to tinker and tame it to my liking, i.e., no Edge, no telemetry, no adverts, no running anything in the background unless I specifically set it to, and no updates past the version that I have set, using Reg Edit.

So, for now at any rate, I have 3 machines that are running Zorin_OS (2 on 17.3 and 1 on 18), and my reliable work-horse on Windows 10. Until the Zorin brothers listen to experienced user's feedback and iron out basic bugs, use reliable alternatives that are tried and tested already, I can't support them either by paying for Pro, or making a donation, and I won't be writing any more articles promoting Zorin_OS as a viable alternative for Windows refugees, until "it just works" and really is "lightning fast".

[merinos]

A very nice bug... the impossibility of using GIMP in French.

[Omnimaxus]

@0Picass0

My personal reticence about paying for the Pro version, or making a donation, is that the Zorin brothers ignore a lot of critical feedback, even when it comes from very experienced user's opinions and observations. That the general user experience could be made so much better by taking on board suggestions that have been made, over and over again, is troubling.

I've been struggling financially for some time, so what I was doing to support Zorin was bringing it to people's attention. My posts on LinkedIn were well received and even got some shares, but I had to stop promoting Zorin_OS because of basic errors that "normal users", like me, can't fix without help. When someone relies on their computer heavily, it can't just freeze up, or fail to run a pre-installed program.

Two things:

1. Exactly right. (What you said in your first paragraph.)

2. I hope things improve for you, financially. Good luck.

I don't understand how Zorin 18 has gotten rave reviews online when there are so many bugs and a catastrophic failure on the part of the Zorin Group to adjust against Snaps (which many people are against) and help users avoid installing .DEB files that actually end up installing Snaps when they don't want Snaps. People need to stop recommending this iteration of Zorin OS until the Zorin Group becomes serious about delivering a bug-free OS (and expects to get money).

EDIT: Where the heck is Zorin Grid, anyway? Been years and years ...

[merinos]

In the case that version 3.0 is like version 2.10, it seems that the language package is missing at Zorin.

Or Debian designed packages totally different than SUSE for GIMP.

[Forpli]

I wonder why Zorin has the 3.0.4 gimp package at all. In ubuntu 24.04 the latest version for gimp is 2.10.36 - and then the language help package for french in Zorin which is 2.10.34 would probably work.
I didn't get the gimp french language pack 2.10.36 to work on gimp 3.0.4.

Noble (24.04) : gimp package : Ubuntu

[merinos]

Once installed, the French-language help does not work either!

[zenzen]

What happened here seems to be simply that the Zorin OS developers have decided to include GIMP at its latest version, the much awaited 3.x, but have not yet handled all of the language packs.

This is where the complexity of maintaining software repositories is hidden away from users. Even a single piece of software may have multitude of additional packages to go along with it that also need to be kept in sync. Things like extensions, plugins or as in this case, language packs.
In that sense, rolling-release distributions make it easier by simply making the software available "as is". As always, it's all about the different pros & cons.

@merinos

Once installed, the French-language help does not work either!

I would suggest re-installing GIMP, but using the Flatpak version as it will most likely contain the language packs. There may be some other issues given the sandboxed nature of Flatpak packages, but we can deal with those later.

Alternatively, you can downgrade GIMP to version 2.x, which will likely be fully compatible with language packs. To downgrade, first launch a terminal window and run the following command:

apt show gimp | grep -i version

This should return at least one entry showing the versions that are available. As I'm not on Zorin OS at the moment I don't know exactly what that would look like to you, but should look something like this:

Version: 2.10.34-1+deb12u5
Version: 2.10.34-1+deb12u3

In my case, I have two possible versions to choose from, and as it just so happens both are on version 2. Yours will probably have one in version 3 (the one you have installed) and the other on version 2. If you do not have any at version 2, then you're out of luck and should use the Flatpak version instead.

Otherwise, you can first remove the current version of Gimp:

sudo apt remove gimp

And install the other package by specifying the version like so:

sudo apt install gimp=2.10.34-1+deb12u5

Again, copy/paste the exact version that applies to you. You'll have to repeat the steps to install the French language pack, and see if this works.

[Forpli]

On the live stick of Zorin 18 only the gimp 3.0.4 is shown, no other ones. I tried to install 2.10 versions with terminal, but didn't work.

[Ponce-De-Leon]

@zenzen

What happened here seems to be simply that the Zorin OS developers have decided to include GIMP at its latest version,

The Version Attachment shows that:

I mean the +zorin1 at the End.

@Forpli

On the live stick of Zorin 18 only the gimp 3.0.4 is shown

I have Zorin 18 installed and get to see 3 Version:

[Forpli]

I had made something wrong. I only entered
apt show gimp | grep -i version
and there was shown the 3.04. And when I entered -a because it was said from terminal that there were two other packages, the command was not known.

But I was not able to install those older packages due to dependency problems and it was said that 3.0.4 will be installed.

Edit: Has the sort order of packages in gnome software store been changed from Zorin 17 to 18? When you search for gimp, there are at first position flatpak, then two packages snaps and the last one is the Zorin package. In Zorin 17 the Zorin packages were at second position and snaps at the last position.

In the gsettings snaps are shown at last position, but this setting seems not to be applied and useless.

[Forpli]

@merinos I tested the gimp appimage and there the french translation worked. The flatpak and snap versions were too big to install on my Zorin live session.

On the Zorin live stick I also tested a workaround/hack from ubunuusers.de and adapted it to french:

GIMP3 nur englisch (1) – Ist der Workaround quick'n'dirty? › Lokalisierung ›...

I added a french translation to the gimp version of Zorin, but I don't know if this approach is risky, because I don't know what I actually did there. So I wouldn´t recommend to follow the steps and better install the appimage or flatpak/snap if you need a french translation. These were the steps I did:

1  sudo apt update
2  sudo apt install gimp
3  wget https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gimp/-/raw/master/po/fr.po
4  sudo apt install gettext
5  msgfmt fr.po -o gimp30.mo
6  sudo cp 'gimp30.mo' '/usr/share/locale/fr/LC_MESSAGES/'

[merinos]

After some searching, I found a solution for the graphical interface.

Download this RPM file:
download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/lalala123/standard/noarch/gimp-lang-3.0.4-3.23.noarch.rpm

Convert it to DEB (not necessary, but nicer to send to friends) with the alien program (which must be installed first).

Finally, install the new Debian package and the interface changes language.

But, for the user manual packages, it still doesn’t work.

[merinos]

It’s in French, but quite visual: youtu.be/y0H3PimwewY?t=354

And I just found one more reason to prefer: snapcraft.io

[merinos]

Snap icons on the desktop after an update.

This problem is in principle being resolved:

Icons on the desktop after an update

[merinos]

Another small translation in the menu:

[merinos]

A small (very minor) translation issue... The translation to French lengthens the phrase and the dialog box does not display the end.

[merinos]

It is a feature and not a bug.
And this feature can be very useful in some conditions. However, on a personal computer with a not very large storage capacity, it can create a problem.

By default, snap-packaged software exists in 3 generations: the used version and its two previous ones (after 2 or more updates).

So, I propose the Zorin OS development team to include in the installation script this command:

sudo snap set system refresh.retain=2

Limiting it to only 2 generations.
To only one, it is not possible.

The verification can be done with:

sudo snap get system refresh.retain

[merinos]

A new funny thing with this little tower.

Installing Zorin 18 Core is going very well, but when I reboot, the screen loses the video signal and reacts as if it had been physically disconnected from the computer.
The PC has two video outputs: 1 x HDMI and 1 x DisplayPort.
And the screen is connected via VGA through an adapter (from the manufacturer) DisplayPort to VGA.

Got an idea?

[Ponce-De-Leon]

@merinos

And the screen is connected via VGA through an adapter (from the manufacturer) DisplayPort to VGA.

Maybe this is the Problem. When You can connect directly with HDMI to HDMI or DP to DP, try this and see how it behaves.