Would skipping 24.04 be a good idea? We are one year into it's life cycle and 26 is one year away. Would it make sense if the two guys skipped releasing Zorin 18 in favour of maintaining 17 until 2026? I feel like with GNOME becoming more and more hostile towards theming and outside devs it would make sense for them to focus on maintaining the current version and creating Zorin Grid without wasting resources on fighting against GNOME.
What do we all think?
PS: Sorry for posting so much qwq
I mean, would it make sense to waste resources in getting only two years of extra support?
There are already issues in play as a result of the age of some of Zorin's components. We see it in the trouble Zorin users have with Wayland (setting aside the entire matter of Wayland's general readiness, it is worse on Zorin than any other distribution I've tried because of Zorin's dated GNOME), we see it when people want to run KDE 6 (It needs glibc6, which Zorin isn't built on), it's on an older kernel (there have been significant processor improvements in newer kernels), and so on and so forth. A LOT of people have been asking when 18 will arrive, and won't likely wait another year. I'd likely pack up for Tuxedo OS or Debian now that 13 is out if 18 was punted a year--all the customization the Zorin brothers have done for GNOME is good work, but when I want to be using Plasma anyway, it's not going to retain me--and while I'm only one person and won't make or break anything, I am someone who pays for Pro.
Edit: The older kernel problem is easily fixed and I do. Not everyone is going to know that's even an option, some will balk at making a change of any kind to their OS, and some will balk at the idea that they ought to handle any OS adjustments (though many of those are the sort of people who refuse Linux instinctively, unwilling to learn anything new.)
I see, but I don't know about the plasma point, isn't Zorin GNOME and XFCE only? Why do people want to use plasma on Zorin?
Also Zorin runs kernel 6.8 which is pretty new I'd say, but I guess it makes sense, I've never seen any issues with wayland and the kernel, but that's just my experience.
Going to 24.04 would net support until 2029, as 22.04 ends support as of 2027. So it's a little more than a couple of years. While I don't necessarily disagree with pushing it off, I do think that it's less of a concern than it's made out to be. I prioritize stability over newest, so this method to me is perfectly fine and valid.
And as locklear said, you can update the kernel if you need a newer one, and that's probably one of the biggest things people would want to change out of anything else (in case of brand new hardware). But when it comes to new hardware, I'm always of the mind of give it a year or so before trying it with Linux, to let the support get set properly and not be stuck being a psuedo "beta tester" if you will.
And there are some cases where people jump versions (like 17) to go straight from 16 -> 18. It's all about what people prioritize more.
It is not always so easy.
A user can install a later kernel - as long as they are able to install Zorin OS on the kernel in the .iso.
If they cannot, then the option of installing a later kernel after install is a moot point.
If a user will balk at installing a later kernel; you can imagine how they will react to having to add a later kernel to an .iso, compile and rebuild SquashFS...
Because it's the desktop environment I prefer. No Linux distribution is for a given desktop environment only. A distribution may only ship with or offer support for a given desktop environment, but desktop environments that follow the freedesktop specification should work on any Linux distribution that shipped with a desktop environment that also supported the freedesktop specification. It's like a USB port: I can pull a device out and put another one in. With a desktop environment that can cause a bit of a mess with leftover dotfiles and things (I installed Plasma 5 on Zorin once and had files littering my desktop when I logged back in).
This is the same kind of flexibility that GNOME has been slowly killing on the desktop: the ability to turn off or remove what you don't want, and replace it with what you do.
When I use Wayland on Zorin, in many applications I have EXTREME typing latency. That's the biggest problem I have, and it's so severe that if I have to correct a typo, I get all tied up and have to wait seconds for what I've already typed to appear, then backspace it, then wait seconds for the backspacing, then retype. It's a nightmare. We've had lots of other users with various problems whom we've advised to try switching from Wayland to X11, and when they do, this or that problem just disappears. It's probably worse for Nvidia users. On top of Nvidia's issues of their own making in Linux, Wayland has had bad Nvidia support for a long time from what I understand.
As for the kernel, it depends on your hardware. Since 6.8 there have been improvements that directly affect processors with AMD's 3D Vcache technology, and both of my last two processors used that. Regarding absolute age, it came out in March 2024, which isn't that long chronologically at a year and a half, but in terms of versions we're up to 6.15. Sheer quantity is meaningless of course, but depending on use case that's a fair number of opportunities for improvements relevant to one's hardware. I believe two, maybe three updates have had something relevant or potentially relevant to my hardware. (I do run extremely new hardware. Applecheeks mentioned waiting a year to avoid being a beta tester. I run face first into new hardware all the time.)
The other half of wanting people to wait a year on new hardware is essentially a couple other things, but it's mostly that I would love people to get out of the FOMO that most advertising and companies use nowadays to get people to go out and buy something as soon as it's released. We've been coming into more and more diminishing returns, and companies aren't gonna just stop making X thing. They WANT you to buy them, so they're always going to be there at some point or another.
I'd also like people to actually ask themselves if they ACTUALLY need to buy the thing they're going to buy, or they just want to and won't benefit that much from it. The amount of people now that just buy the next thing because "well it's the next thing from X, I liked Blank from X, so clearly I should buy the next one" even though the current version they have would work great (for probably years to come) and essentially no difference for them day to day is... baffling.
...three versions of this post would've driven things massively off-topic, so to cut it to the bone: for me it's less FOMO and more being excited about the newer (post 2018) technologies in games. Some on these forums are less sanguine. Rather than delve into why I am, I'll present this link. Its final evaluation is that the new tech is pretty meh... unless it's used all over, in which case it can be transformative, but very little does it. While diminishing returns are definitely a thing, they're much less of a thing when gaming at 4k--which I do. https://youtu.be/DBNH0NyN8K8?si=lzjkyu7GtBEuhplP
Edited to move the link and get rid of that nightmarish thumbnail...
For CPUs it's more about futureproofing. I can certainly upgrade my video card or RAM later. I don't swap out CPUs unless I'm replacing a whole rig.
That isn't pretty new. On Ubuntu 24.04 came Kernel 6.14. But I have to say that Ubuntu makes the whole Kernel Thing a bit different because they support they Kernels by themself - that is the Reason why we have Kernel 6.8. The Updates come from Ubuntu.
I'd like to apologize for accidentally getting a little sidetracked on this post. I realize reading back now I got into my ranty mode rather than my helpful mode. I shall not derail this any further.
my understanding of zorin so far is that the development of zorin is tied to the ubuntu long term release cycle. once knowing that, if a user wants cutting edge, then should be on a more cutting edge distro. 17.3 is almost stable for most post 2024 pcs with 6.8 kernel. the new ubuntu release should get the kernel and mesa up to about 6.14 and 25. knowing these things is allowing users in the know choose direction. if 17.3 could be updated with newer kernel etc, that would be a good option too, hence be able to skip an ubuntu cycle
Zorin
Ubuntu
Yep, thats me! I'm on OS 16, waiting for Scotty to activate the transporter. Did you prepare the later kernel for me? Yes sir! Thats good cause I'm hungry. They say you can't deny the laws of physics, watch this. Beep boop boop beep. Welcome to Jurassic park, oops, not today John Hammond, wrong dimension. I got it now! Are you sure? I rather not get eaten by a T-Rex dino. I got it, welcome to Zorin OS 18. 
hahaha too funny
(you may find this amusing... made a cleaning app based on stacer and sent it over to pop... and then the pop shop wouldn't open... and wondered if it got blown up :).... worked out good anyway because tried cosmic shop and vastly superior offering - like instant over dinosaur. pop shop, no more!)
Hey nara.kitty! It would make more sense if Zorin 18.x is based on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS. If you look at your figure of the current Ubuntu versions, every two years a new LTS version of Ubuntu got released.
Kind regards,
Tom1
Assalamu Alaikum, hey there!
I've just searched the news about Zorin OS 18, and according to the official website, the OS is planned to launch this year, based on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS considering it's currently the latest LTS release. However, I think skipping 24.04 and waiting to launch Zorin OS 18 with 26.04 is a great idea!
Keep in mind though, The new LTS build is expected to have a few bugs upon release. Hence, Zorin will have to wait for a few months until 26.04 is stable enough to be based off of.
Moderator Note: Based on what Source You write that? As far as I know there was no official Statement about that. There is only this:
So, please verify from where You have this.
you'll never get to enjoy 17
