Original post is by maccabbeo on the old ZorinGroup Forum, quoted here by
@TronGold
Hi to all.
Yes, I'm leaving Zorin and I wish I could share my feelings with you in order to get the project better. In short:
WHY I INSTALLED ZORIN?
1) It has been announced to be easy to use for people that are new to the Linux world, alternative to Windows.
2) I was tired of Ubuntu (too many commercials and mostly I hate Unity) and I have been disappointed by Kubuntu and Linux Mint as well
WHY I AM LEAVING ZORIN?
1) Since it is not stable (talking about AWN, talking about the FILE fork of Nautilus, talking about the window manager, ...)
2) Since there's not enough support, mostly relying on just a couple of always-the-same holy and helpful users
3) Since it is not 100% customizable (for example: cannot add new themes to the theme changer. Maybe there's a way to do it, but I did not find it despite I'm Gnu/Linux user since 2006)
4) I've been unable to install a Brother and a Canon printer
More in detail, we cannot say Zorin is an alternative to Windows as long as it only has just some look-and-feel reminding Windows. It cannot be an alternative to Windows as long as you experience troubles and solutions which has nothing to do with the Windows world. Of course you may tell "Windows is Windows, Zorin is Zorin (or Linux is Linux)": one reason more not to tell Zorin is "similar" to Windows. What can a Windows user do when experiencing typical distribution upgrade troubles with Ubuntu based distros? And what when experiencing continous AWN crashes? And what when the window manager fails? How can a Windows user feel at home with such new troubles? No way. Of course, changing OS implies the above, but again we cannot tell Zorin is a good place to start compared to Linux Mint and maybe others.
As for support, this is the worst pity in my opinion. The fact that I spent several posts and several google searches in order to understand the differences among the several Zorin releases explains the situation very well. The situation is confirmed when you get into real troubles: if the 2 holy guys of above have no solution/suggestion then you are definitively lost and stuck with your troubles.
i also know that many of the above problems are not strictly related to Zorin, such as Awn crashes. But it is do related to Zorin the choice of having AWN installed by default! I mean: do you want to build a "stable" system? Then do not rely on buggy applications just because they are shiny.
So, I wrote this post just to share my own experience and hope it helps making Zorin better and better.
I want to say thank you for you work and for your support during my stay here while experiencing Zorin. I've been installing it on pc others than mine spreading Zorin to other people. I will suspend this Zorin-spreading activity as I did it with Ubuntu but I will be surely be spreading it back as soon as I feel Zorin will become more stable.
Well, I think it is time for me to move from Ubuntu based distros to some different ones. Any suggestion, please?