I recently gave ZorinOS a try to see how good it would work for my friends who have been using Windows, and I found it to be amazing but I think a beginner would have some issues without someone helping to maintain their system:
The ZorinOS appstore installs flatpaks over native applications. This caused me to run into the issue of Lutris not being able to recognize steam, and not being able to upload skins to Minecraft. These are easy issues for someone knowledgeable about Linux to fix by either going to the app store and manually selecting the option for a native app, or using Flatseal to fix permissions. But for a normal person these issues are very hard to fix (searching "Lutris not showing steam" and "Minecraft on linux not letting me upload skins" on google does not give results that fix the issue on the front page.)
I find the current options and defaults for updating not aggressive enough. Most normal people, do not go out of their way to update the system, even when receiving polite prompts asking them to do so. Harder to ignore prompts when turning the computer off / restarting, as well as automatically downloading updates and restarting the computer if the user is not active and has no applications open that object to being closed would be nice.
When sleep is enabled, the system will fall asleep even while being used.
No way (that I can find) to set a custom accent color.
I think that beginners when first using Windows had many issues as well, but over time learned what was needed. The same is for Linux, BSD, or any system...time to become accustom
I agree on the preference in the appstore. Snap and Flatpak shouldn't be the default choice.
My wife is using Zorin now (since her Windows was bogging down the 6 year old dual core laptop) and is terrible at updating the software. Not a bad idea at all to at least have a default option to be more forceful about updates. But we would need the option to revert back as well for "power users" not getting annoyed.
Check the app "Zorin Appearance" for choosing a different accent colour.
In Software & Updates > Updates tab, you can set it to download and install all updates - run daily, even.
It can be automated and set pretty aggressive already.
The Zorin Appearance accent colors are actually just different gtk themes.
You can choose whether the theme is Light or Dark, then the accent color.
What this means is you are choosing one of the pre-made Zorin OS themes included in the OS.
An "accent color" cannot be added without creating a new gtk theme.
The list of included colored Zorin OS themes:
