Ubuntu does not just take directly from Debian Testing and call it a day. They do a lot of their own work on top of it.
But I personally use a couple of softwares that only officially makes a Ubuntu version. They can be installed on Debian and do mostly work but they get issues that do not exist in Ubuntu.
The problem is there is virtually nothing that exists in Debian but not Ubuntu but there is some (especially on the more professional level) that exists on Ubuntu but not Debian.
I am a HUGE believer in using something as developers intend to get the best experience. Even if I can make something work it will never be as seamless as it would be if I did what the developers intended in the first place
Well, in that case I'm even more interested now to see how the Linux Mint Debian Edition plays out in the long run. Maybe there is a lesson or two to learn form their experience.
I definitely wouldn’t have an issue with a Zorin Debian edition of the developers could handle working on both and it would expand the footprint of Zorin.
Honestly if Zorin did switch I would probably try to use the softwares in Distrobox. I REALLY don’t want to switch lol.
That's one of the concerns people had with LMDE, that the project would be duplicating efforts for no good reason. And I hope they manage to deliver the same experience using Debian and have it become the main and only Linux Mint there is, but only if it works. And the same is true for Zorin, there really is no need or reason to change so this is just wishful thinking on my part.
Out of curiosity why would you want them to change it?
This is also just my opinion so don’t take offense but personally I don’t think it is possible to make Zorin as good from Debian as it is being based on Ubuntu. Canonical does quite a bit of work and is significantly more polished as a result.
Anybody else reading this I would be curious to what you would think about this as well. Don’t worry so much about the “is feasible aspect” but more so “in a perfect world” what would you like to see?
At the end of the day I prefer a fully working system than a half-baked solution just to stand on principle, but I find the philosophy and direction of the Debian project to be much more interesting for the Linux and open sources communities.
We had a nice discussion about this topic with some very good points made:
It actually was an interesting read. But I feel most people for Debian are worried more about their "ethics" than what will make a better product. ZorinGroups goal is to put out the best product possible not necessarily to support the open source community as much as possible and I am totally fine with that. I understand people do not like the rigidness of Canonical sometimes but their contribution to open source software and Linux in general can not be overlooked either.
There's nothing wrong with thinking about what else could be done differently, once a good product is delivered. This is very subjective, but I think projects like Mint are mature and ready enough to commit to Debian. I hope ZorinOS can do the same in the near future.
Mint probably could pull it off because it has a larger set of developers.
The fact they have a Debian edition and openly recommend the Ubuntu version speaks volumes though.
Each project just has to decide what is the best for it. If ZorinGroup decided to move to Debian it more than likely would be the correct move. If they don’t that is the correct move.
For instance I know Vanilla recently decided to switch from Ubuntu to Debian and for their goals and agenda that makes total sense. The rigidity of Canonical is getting in their way.
In general I trust the developers of each Linux distro to make the best decisions for what they are trying to accomplish.
I have nothing against Debian, I just feel from my experience the "user experience" of Debian based distros is not as good as Ubuntu based ones. But if Zorin did switch it may not be the best decision for me personally but I trust they would not do it if it would not accomplish whatever their goal is at the moment.
Ubuntu is everywhere.
Debian it is old but it working mostly without problems.
I saw some people start doing from ubuntu to arch example some Rhino distribution.
The people doing many things and many distributions, where i can taken a headeach pain.
Debian I remember mx linux and jessie 8 version. On Debian somethings to install is a one command.
I remember script to server on github.
On debian are amazing programmers people.
I also wondering a people are tired thousands ubuntu distributions. They want something amazing and simple.
Zorin is like Windows without the bloat, nagging or spying. I'd say it's ideal for most normies, especially if they stay with Chrome.
Most people can sit down at one of my computers and use it. They wouldn't know they weren't on Windows except that it is so clean. Had to use Win10 today and was slightly appalled at the immense amount of crud.
Yes, definitely, I doubt the Zorin developers could do the same even if they wanted to. Not without affecting other areas anyway.
And even Linux Mint I think will have to decide at some point which direction to continue. My understanding is this is a "just in case" experiment to see if they could pull it off should Canonical take a direction that's too uncomfortable for their team to follow.
This is exactly correct. The Debian version is "just in case" Canonical does something that is not compatible with Mint's vision. So they would be more prepared to switch over to Debian as their main platform. But as of now Ubuntu is their "recommended" base
Debian have a huge wikibooks. If using a packages from Zorin, what are compatible and using a Kernel from lfs - then only one thing is desktop, propably xfce. Wondering only if it run with systemd or systeminit?
: 
