I've been a Zorin user for about four or five years now, originally using Zorin Light on a VERY old laptop, but more recently on every laptop I own (I have several, a case of of LAP - Laptop Acquisition Disorder), and I have been lurking around the Forum on and off the whole time without ever signing up. I've been feeling rather guilty about that lately so thought it was about time I said hello. So Hi everyone!
Although I've been using Zorin all these years, I do have to say it is probably the worst GNU/Linux Distro out there. Why? Because whereas I learned a huge amount about how my system operates with all of the other GNU/Linux distros I ever used (I had to - and I have tried and used several dozen over the last thirty years), with Zorin I have learned next to nothing and, in fact, have forgotten the vast majority of what I learned before. Zorin is just too damn good!
Whether this is a good or bad thing will, of course, depend on our point of view. Anyway, although I am now embarrassed about my ever decreasing knowledge ( I'm getting on a bit too by the way), I am an ever more delighted Zorin user. I LOVE it!
I hope I have now explained the title of my post. In other words it is hard to learn about the OS when everything just works
And another by the way, I have to say that this forum is by far the best I have ever been on for friendliness, helpfulness (not that I've needed much) and the excellent moderation. Well done to everyone concerned.
Kind regards,
Mike.
PS I've been pretty broke the last few years (too many laptops) but I am shortly to come into a few quid and will be buying Pro when Zorin 18 comes out. OR is there a way of donating without actually buying Pro? I don't really need the extras and like to keep things simple. Sorry if this has been addressed before (I think it may have been).
Yes, members may donate however much they like.
On the Zorin About page:
Scrolling to Funding
will reveal the Donate button.
Here, you can buy the ZorinGroup developers a coffee, without paying for Mac Layouts.
As an aside; if you would like to revamp your GnuLinux learning growth, you can always use your forum member account to help research and troubleshoot other user issues on the forum.
I, too, have very few problems when using Zorin OS Lite; so few that without practice, I would forget too much. Maybe my name and address.
But other users can sure discover some doozies...
Hi and welcome. I see from your avatar you are running Core. If you haven't come across it already you may want to extend your knowledge by downloading the Unofficial Manual for Zorin 17 Core:
Welcome to the forum. I was ready to throw down the gauntlet when I saw the title of your post, but understood once I read the actual message. Ha. I have had several ups and downs with Zorin OS over the past year or so during my Linux distrohopping journey, but when all is said and done, it is a good OS. The Zorin Group could stand to improve its communication, yes, but they do listen. I have to give them credit for that. And they did do the right thing (and a good deed) by sponsoring the "Dash to Panel" extension, so that did soften my position on the criticisms I've laid out before regarding some aspects of their management and public strategy (e.g., no 6.11 kernel, communication, and so on). I'm curious to see what they will do with Zorin OS 18 Pro. I started off on Zorin with version 17, which, from what I understand, wasn't exactly their "best" version (bugs and all), but 18 should be better on my hardware (especially since it'll use a more recent version of GNOME and Wayland). IMHO, Linux Mint and Zorin OS are the best distros out there (with their own pros and cons). Can't go wrong with either. Again, welcome.
This is true. They apply much of feedback and user suggestions.
In this case, @AZorin : This user complains that the Zorin OS editions work too well causing him to have an easy time of it, missing out on mental anguish and practice.
If you could see to that, a bit.
Maybe break a package here and there... cause some conflicts to pad the might of our brains. Much obliged.
Hi Omnimaxus, many thanks for your warm welcome. Sorry to have spoiled your fun lol. I wasn't sure if I should use that title at all, but thought what the heck, we can always use a bit of humour.
My journey with GNU/Linux has been a long and very enjoyable one. I think the distro i stayed with the longest (apart from Zorin) was Crunchbang, which I very happily used for a couple of years before they packed it in. I have to say I loved Openbox, although I taught myself to use i3 during my time on Crunchbang and was even helping others to get their heads around it lol. As i said I'm getting on a bit now (just a little) so remembering all of those keyboard shortcuts, messing around with config files etc would be rather more than I would want to be bothered with these days.
Indeed, one thing I have noticed during my years using Zorin and lurking around the Forum is that the Zorin Group do seem to pay attention to what their users want. The result is an OS that looks beautiful and does what it says on the tin. What more could we ask for?
Ah, this post explains some of my frustration, too. Because I started with Zorin and remained with it since, I still don’t feel like I know much about Linux. I actually picked up quite a bit more than I probably realize thanks in large part to this forum, but still Zorin just doesn’t provide a lot of opportunities to get grease under one’s fingernails.
I love coming home to Zorin after spending the workday on Windows.
This is exactly why I love Zorin and dont use it anymore. I love how they managed to turn the gnome desktop into something I can feel very comfortable with and made xfce look so pretty. But I want to learn about the OS, and "switching from wayland to xorg once because wayland on gnome 43 isn't ready" being the only real thing to learn doesn't really teach me much.
I use Debian on desktop for the stability and not needing to update often and Fedora on laptop because the hardware is relatively new and it does benefit from newer drivers and mesa version (to be replaced with debian 13 when it comes out), but when I have enough time and energy, I like to try out Arch on virtual machines. Why? Simple: Because nothing has gone 100% right in every time I tried!
But installing and configuring it does teach me a bit about how GNU/Linux works in the inside, which I enjoy a lot ((even if I wouldn't want it as my main OS)).
Simmilarly, at first I rooted my android tablet to limit the CPU speed for longer battery and enable swap after it once completely froze because it filled the 2 gb entirely. But now, the main use of root i have for it is taking a look at how android works in the inside, and mess around with a linux proot with some small root utilities: did you know simlinks are supported in the system partition, but not in the user partition?
But as much as I like to learn, I want there to be options I can safely rely on my daily life without having them break or take me through 10 commands for something that can be done quite easily. Sure, I configured debian a bit to make that possible and easy, but when it comes to being ready for everyone ootb, I haven't found anything that beats Zorin and Mint, so they are still my 1st recommendation to any new linux user
I love to boot up Zorin and get on and do things, whilst my other machine is taken over by Microsoft, supposedly downloading and installing updates and stuff, rendering it unresponsive.
@MikeG247 Your OP was one to read through fully, before embarking on a premature reply
Have you never experienced any Sound issues on any members of your Zorin laptop collection? Admittedly, Sound has been the only problem I have encountered on my ancient Zorin laptop, but even that seems OK on Z17.
I agree with your evaluation, but was ready to blast you when I saw your post title, lol. I've been distro hopping since the early 90s when I first got my job in IT supporting Windows for Workgroups. I finally got around to trying Zorin a few months ago in my search to keep my computers that can't run Windows 11 (all of them, lol) running. Within the first couple hours it hit me how simple it was and how everything just worked. I've tried at least a dozen Linux distros and Zorin is the only one that I felt I could actually support in a corporate environment. It hits that balance of customisation for the power users and hiding the things the inexperienced user could mess up, perfectly. After a week of trying it, I had to go ahead and purchase Pro. Although I'm retired now, I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with Grid.
Great sentiment zGnOmaha, I know exactly how that feels.
Exactly. I always detested Gnome, favouring KDE Plasma based distros and then taking the plunge with Openbox, i3 etc. I tried Pepperment eventually which I quite enjoyed, my first experience with xfce which I loved. Then when I finally tried Zorin Lite with xfce it just blew me away. Now on Core (apart from one machine) I have to remind myself that I'm using Gnome. I never thought I'd ever see that day again.
Sound is important to me as I'm really into my music. The first and only time I have ever had an "issue" with Zorin was just a few weeks ago when I first installed Core 17.2 on my latest acquisition, a HP Pavilion x360 (about five years old but like new). When I booted for the first time I had no sound through my speakers, although the headphone and USB-C sockets were working fine. However a quick sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade and all was fine
This is such a biased review, I'm not sure it can be trusted
I'm also a big fan of i3, I even managed to get it running with Zorin OS Lite!
I still have to try other options like Openbox but this is quite comfortable for me now that I've gotten used to how it works. Another ones that I'd like to try some time is dwm or awesomewm to make it easier to configure. Not sure how well they'd work with XFCE though...
I wouldn't trust me as far as I could throw me lol. Except when it comes to my opinion of Zorin OS of course.
You should try Openbox just for the lark. I nearly cried (actually I may well have) when Chrunchbang bit the dust. I learned so much during my time with it, and the forum was so similar to this one in terms of friendliness etc I cannot help but think there is common ground, although in terms of the two distros they were very different.
So glad to hear I have an i3 compatriot on here (I know we aren't the only ones).
And if you would like to try Openbox I highly recommend throwing Bunsen Labs onto a stick and giving it a go. It (kind of ) carried on from Crunchbang, and I can guarantee you will get a very similar experience.
I've heard really good things about Bunsen Labs. I really like that it's based on Debian, and with a new stable version coming up soon I think it might be a good excuse to try it out, and Openbox.
