That post is from last year and still we have no upgrade method in sight. I installed Zorin 15 on my parents-in-law PC some years ago believing an upgrade solution would arrive before EOL (it was promised!) but still... no solution is being provided by the Zorin team, so I guess a new installation will be inevitable. At this point I'm wondering if I should invest again in Zorin (now an upgrade solution is promised for the upgrade from 16 to 17) or if I should switch to something like Linux Mint instead. I personally really like Zorin, it's beautiful and and I think it's perfect for not technical users and windows switchers. However an upgrade solution should be part of this kind of experience.
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I'm sure this upgrade between versions will come at some point. In the meantime if you want to play it safe and continue to enjoy ZorinOS with updates, version 16 is probably the best way to go. This ensures at least 3 more years of updates, even if the upgrade to the next major release is not possible yet.
However ZorinOS 17 is just around the corner, the scheduled release date is in June I think. If you can wait for that you'll have the latest ZorinOS version available, and probably the upgrade option will be ready for the next major release after that.
Has there been any word on when an alpha/beta will be released? And I know it was released in August, but does can remember when the first beta to Zorin 16 was available for people to test it? I am curious when we can expect the same for Zorin 17.
Yes, Zorin is indeed very well polished. I was asking when the Z16 beta came out so that I could have an idea of how long it took between the release of the Z16 beta and the Z16 final release.
Hello:
I love Zorin Os, both Core and Lite, in its pro version, are installed on my main computers and are the only ones I use on a daily basis.
Having said that, I have been asking the developers to improve the communication with the community for a long time now. I know that comparisons are odious but, in this sense, Linux Mint has it much better implemented. Every month they publish a newsletter with information about the project, and they even take the time to answer some questions from the community. Now, I imagine that the number of people working on Zorin Os must be small but, they could make the effort to follow a similar policy, the community would be very grateful for it.
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Every company has a crucial moment when it must grow, otherwise it runs the risk of disappearing (there are many examples in the software world), it seems to me, from what I have seen, that Zorin is in this dilemma. Hopefully they will make the right decision.
The fact that so few people are working on the project is evidenced by how long it takes them to release a new version.
It would be very interesting if they left Ubuntu for Debian, which would give them many advantages, autonomy, among others (several distros have made this migration).
Thank you very much for taking care of my concern.
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What Kernel will be in Zorin 17?
Thank you for the answer. It is reasonable. However with version 17 expected in June, the idea of upgrading to version 16 annoys me tremendously. Nevertheless, this weekend I read a bit of documentation to find out what is possible to do without completely deleting the contents of the partition where my copy of Zorin 15 is currently installed. This is something I have never done, but it seems that by installing a copy of Zorin 16 on a partition with Zorin 15 in it without formatting it, it is possible to keep the home settings, even without having created a separate /home partition. Does anyone confirm that this method works? Is there any way to export all installed applications (including snaps and flatpaks) to a list?
Try to think of it this way: updating to a freshly released version may come with some unexpected bugs, so delaying that decision may actually turn out to be a good idea. Even with Ubuntu itself there's often a hot fix released shortly after every major version.
But yeah I know what you mean, if you are looking forward to use things like Gnome 40+ and such.
I'm not sure if you can directly install a new OS directly on top of an existing partition, is that documented in ZorinOS's website? I would still make a backup copy of those files either way, just to be on the safe side.
Zorin will be on Debian based new version Debian is Gnome 43 then new version Zorin 17 will be on gnome 43?
I guess Gnome 43 sounds about right. It'd be nice if they had time to integrate their own custom UI on top of Gnome 44 but it's the latest release which is fairly recent, so unlikely.
I hope will be pipewire.
I can't wait until Zorin 17 comes out. I am tired of Windows. I haven't gotten Zorin yet, but am planning on very soon.
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Gday @Leslie , Welcome to the community!
Yes we are all patiently awaiting the updated release, "Zorin OS 17".
As you have not used Zorin before, may i suggest you "TRY" Zorin first.
As to install Zorin OS, you will need to go through this process anyway, This has both "TRY" & "Install".
In the "TRY" Mode, Zorin OS will only run from the usb/cd device, & not leave a trace when you remove then device from your machine.
It's a great way to have a look,
Zorin OS is based on a user friendly interface, just like windows, ( If you didn't know you had Zorin OS or Windows, you wouldn't know the difference)
Hope you like it as i did.
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That is the cool thing about Linux. I have used Ubuntu, Fedora, and others. I just think Zorin is more of a complete package for me. It will be a couple of months before I can get another laptop, so I will wait patiently. I work from home on the computer and use Windows 11. I just don't like it at all. Looking forward in migrating to Linux.
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If you are planning on installing on a new laptop, make sure you test ZorinOS first before installing it.
Different hardware may have different requirements so it's possible that something may not work exactly right. This is especially true for newer hardware, or components that are purposefully made for a particular model.
For example some Asus trackpads have a the number rows of a physical keyboard integrated in the trackpad, and that may not work properly (I haven't tried it, it's just an example of something "unique" to some models).
Wait what? Zorin was based on ubuntu previously. Is this going to be changed with Zorin 17?
I tried upgrading zorin 15 to 16 by installing it in the same partition without formatting (tested in a VM). It mostly worked but with some quirks. Snap and flatpak apps were missing in the menu after the upgrade, and apps excluded from the default installation had to be reinstalled too with apt after the upgrade. Everything else was happily working. I wonder how this procedure compares with the alternative (standard) method: backup of the home folder (maybe with deja dup), fresh install (by nuking everything) and restore the home folder and all the apps.
Nope.
What you are describing seems about right: installing an OS overwrites the contents of the partition, so losing installed programs is expected. Unless there was some direct upgrade option available but I don't think there was one for ZorinOS 15, was there?
I guess there's not much of a difference since programs are not normally installed in the user's home directory so those would have to be re-installed separately.
My only concern, when using something like DejaDup, would be that if it can still read files made from previous versions. I'm not saying this is the case to DejaDup at all, but I've been there with another program called Cryptomator where I had to downgrade to an older version in order to decrypt files made with it.