I have ZorinOS on my Mac Mini since September 14, and I had thought that installing Zorin would make it less slow, but I am hearing Linux doesn't magically speed old computers up. for instance web pages are slow to load. Starting up is about (yet under) 2 minutes. Opening brave is slow too.
I was thinking that maybe I should turn on a setting or turn off a setting to speed things up a bit, or I need to install some application, but again, this mac mini is 11 years old as of writing.
For More Info about my device:
Device: 2014 Mac Mini
Kernel: 6.8.0-83-generic
CPU: Intel i5-4278U, 3.100GHz
GPU: Intel Haswell-ULT
Memory: 8 GB
It's also x86_64 btw
Try to switch to Xorg. Logout and at login click on your profile, then a cog wheal appears at the bottom right. There select "Zorin Desktop on Xorg". Then login with your password.
Since your computer is already a bit older, it might be worth a try switching to Zorin Lite or installing Zorin Lite desktop to see if it makes a difference. You can install Zorin lite desktop with
sudo apt install zorin-os-lite-desktop
Then reboot and at login click on your username, then on the cog wheel and select "Zorin Lite desktop". You can go back to Core by selecting Zorin Desktop or Zorin Desktop on Xorg.
The appearance out of the box is not as pretty as in Core, but it requires fewer system resources due to the XFCE desktop.
Physical components degrade over time, and that can make a huge difference. Swapping the drive to an SSD is likely the most significant upgrade that you can make. If this isn't an option for you, consider disabling swapping to avoid throttling constant reads/writes to the disk.
It might also be worth cleaning the insides a bit, and applying some thermal paste to the processor.
By the way, I'm reading that this model shares the RAM with the GPU, so watch out not to run too many programs at once.
Not magically, no, it depends on the current state of the computer.
But how slow is it, really? A few seconds for an old computer with limited hardware is not unusual. For instance, I have a Chromebook from around that time with more modest components that can run Linux. It is a little slow, as one might expect, but it works fine.
On the other hand, I found a few results online about similar complains from this model:
You need to figure out, whether you're comparing the system with a 2025-Macbook Air M4, or with other comparable, old hardware. Compare with videos
Zorin 17.3 Core on an old Dell Latitude D630...*, (May 30, 2025). Accessed: Aug. 09, 2025. [Online Video]. Available: https://youtu.be/watch?v=bjPW0kjUrS4
Zorin Linux saves an Intel Celeron N2840 laptop - Acer Aspire E14, 2GB Teardown and upgrade [to 4GB RAM] #chill*, (Feb. 21, 2025). Accessed: Aug. 09, 2025. [Online Video]. Available: https://youtu.be/watch?v=WF_flOmYsgA
What's slow anyway?
Zorin Lite
Less pre-installed stuff, less bloated.
Zorin Core
Deactivate fancy window decorations and animated movements.
Use lightweight browsers.
Avoid Firefox forks.
Delete the many, many pre-installed fonts, like Arabic, Egyptian.
Don't LibreOffice, use something older (Open Office), smaller, or just components.
I am thinking of installing MX Linux on this mac Mini, but if I am able to get a new main computer, ill install zorin on the main computer I already have
Just realized the 2014 Mac Mini rpm is 5400 (which is slow in today's standards i hear) btw
A number of us don't even use Zorin daily anymore, and all of us would rather see someone find a distribution they can happily use than bang their head on a problem that might turn them off of Linux all together.
