3 of my friends asked me to help them with linux installs this week XD
How is it with nVidia?
About as good as Nvidia allows.
Windows 10 support ends. Open the floodgates. Let the windows refugees come !!
Why zorin?
Zorin and Mint are frequently recommended foe Windows users. With Zorin having paid support for schools etcetera.
Zorin is a bit more commercial but it looks good and not much can go wrong.
Windows may be rich but if you chose to be an enemy, burn the source like Ledger. Anarchy doesn’t need Mani Mani, just Love.
I used zorin when I first switched like 5 years ago, ended up on fedora not too soon after and haven’t left. It was a good stepping stone for me though.
Because 100k people found it when they tried to find a Linux
Why not?
Someone asking why isn’t inherently saying no.
This is just wonderful news.
I’ve never used Zorin. It doesn’t seem to match my preferences and needs. Regardless, anyone switching from Windows [and Mac] to any Linux distro is fantastic for all of us, including remaining Windows users (probably not Mac users though).
Let’s hope more keep switching, leading to a surge in Linux, and open source in general, funding. More people becoming interested in Linux development, potentially turning into more and more open source devs. I think we can be quite optimistic about this.
It feels pretty fucking ironic when my old macbook/laptop supports new OS versions for a decade, but my few years old high-end gaming PC? Outdated for Win11.
Enshittification!
Hola!
Que tal cabron
Amazing. Makes me truly happy.
I honestly dont know what would drive a Windows refugee to choose such a niche and likely unable to support them distro.
Is ZorinOS niche? It’s Ubuntu with a Windows ricing.
Can we stop saying “ricing”? It’s racist af for literally no reason.
is it not an acronym or something?
Japanese people would trick out their cars to look cool.
We call this ricing because Japan/Rice.
I think the term today is completely unrelated to the original meaning and has no racial ties but some right leaning people always want to be offended.
No, it comes from people “souping up” (hopefully I don’t find out that’s also racist somehow lol) cheap Japanese cars that they called “rice burners”.
The origins of the term undeniably are racist, yes, and I was also surprised that those using it weren’t largely aware of the fact.
But it’s also true that meanings unavoidably change over time, and the intent of what you say is also important.
The person you responded to isn’t wrong - there’s now a popular acronym people are using which is Race Inspired Cosmetic Enhancement
And yes it’s a backronym. The pejorative term came first, and the acronym later, but it’s certainly part of redefining and reclaiming the term to free it from its origins.
Like it or not, I think the term is very much here to stay.
I mean one of the most important pieces of software we always mention when converting users from Windows is called GIMP, I think “ricing” isn’t nearly the most concerning term in the libre software world.
GIMP isn’t a bacronym, it is an acronym.
Also, my understanding of BDSM indicates that gimps consent to their position.
Words change meaning, sure, but it doesn’t mean we need to keep using it here.
Also, let’s not fool ourselves into thinking they made it into a bacroynm for any reason beyond wanting to continue using a racist term but now with plausible deniability.
Trying to ‘hide’ the use of a racist term because you’re a racist would be one thing, but using the term in a way that is not at all meant as pejorative is another.
In the automotive context, the term meant something like “Putting loads of pointless mods on your ‘shitty’ Japanese car that makes it look even uglier and doesn’t make it go any faster.” - and in that context it was unambiguously a slur, disparaging the Asian import scene in favour of the ‘superior’ western aesthetic and way of doing things.
But even in the automotive context, people can reclaim the term and say effectively “Yes - my car is ‘riced out’ - that’s the aesthetic I want, and I’m proud of it.”
In some ways it’s quite appropriate that this term would extend from Japanese cars into tricking out your operating system. Given the number of waifu wallpapers you see in screenshots, ‘ricing’ has quite a lot of overlap with anime aesthetic, geek cuture and ‘weebs’ (which is another term that was used as an insult, and now reclaimed by people who proudly describe themselves as such). People who have historically been looked down upon by most of society but internally wear their ‘weebdom’ as a badge of pride.
It’s hardly an insult when you are the one saying it about yourself, and doing so proudly.
I had no idea about the origin.
I think Zorin is a pretty solid choice for people with no Linux experience tbh.
It’s at least going to feel familiar
So does Mint though
And people are free to use mint if they want
They charge extra for theming that people could get themselves for free. I don’t like that it’s taking advantage of vulnerable people.
I don’t think that’s “taking advantage of vulnerable people”
The options still exist for people to learn and theming is incredibly inconsequential.
They’re monetising to support development in a minimally impactful way, that is completely optional, and I think that’s a good thing.
They should advertise that everything is free and can be installed after installation if you choose not say $80 gets you a Windows like desktop and software replacements that will save you thousands (Blender/Xournal++/OfficeSuite)
The value proposition is ease of use and integration of these theming utilities.
I honestly think this monetisation strategy of theirs is a non-issue.
People who want a streamlined experience have the option of paying for that, people who want the option of doing it all themselves have that opportunity too.
My problem is them not communicating that.
Not communicating that there are alternatives to their services?
I don’t really think it’s their responsibility to spoon feed alternatives to their customers; they’re not being anticompetitive, they’re not being deceptive, they’re not blocking alternatives.
I think your requirements here are unfair and kind of irrational
That’s why it’s only ~70k downloads. Probably many more for Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, Manjaro, Bazzite and so on.
I really with EndeavorOS or Garuda would replace Manjaro on that list.
Marketing
Year of the Linux download!
Switching to linux has been the best decision i’ve made all year.
Just wish there was a good one-click-setup virtual display option for Sunshine that “just works.” It’s my white whale of features.
You want one off us go to windows again ?
Why? for a feature that doesn’t exist consistently or comfortably on windows?
No, to develop a tool to help windowsers to migrate in oneclick.
I setup Sunshine on my Kubuntu machine last night. Took me fucking AGES to figure it out. Recently set it up on my M1 Mac mini, which took me a couple of minutes.
I went through the same on Fedora, and it was never quite right. On Bazzite it was preinstalled and worked perfectly, just fyi.
Speaking of whales, you might like https://games-on-whales.github.io/
It creates virtual displays on the fly and runs completely in the background. Requires a little bit of setup as well as Docker running but it’s pretty neat.
I’ve seen this but I don’t really want the docker part.
I think it could be phenomenal for some kind of beefy VDI implementation for low demanding games or some kind of monster server with multiple GPUs, but it just feels wrong for an individual who wants to remotely stream their desktop on demand and has no plans on having others share the host.
Maybe i’m overthinking it, or haven’t thought it through enough - but my gut says this has more drawbacks than i’m realizing.
…and just to be clear, this is a multiplatform problem. There’s a single mediocre ‘easy’ option in windows land and a very tinkery option in linux land.
Doesn’t seem like any OS has caught up to the idea of fast streaming desktops quite yet. I’m convinced it’s the future of computing though. Way better than old VDI options from days of yore.
I need my Omnissa Remote Client (VMWare) to work on Wayland with multiple monitors and I’d be good to go.
As it is, I have to use Windows for work.
Ubuntu didn’t work, but PopOS with Nvidia drivers built in works great.
Is sunshine not compatible with Linux? Or is it just the virtual display feature?
It cannot generate a virtual display. It only uses attached displays which by default are real powered on monitors.
I’ve gotten around this on windows with parsec and a virtual display adapter that someone keeps updated on GitHub which can spawn backup displays if none are present, but I find still sometimes fails to spawn them. Parsec is fairly reliable at spawning them when the windows solution fails but it’s not perfect either.
A hack job virtual display on Linux will be more difficult to work with. It’s going to eat my desktop and be fairly hidden.
Dummy plugs exist, but I specifically don’t want to put dummy plugs in all my remote hosts. Seems like an unga bunga solution to something which should be software.
Something with VNC or simply ssh with some scripting could be the workaround I use to get back in when a virtual display fails to work as expected, but I am lazy and want something effectively bulletproof.
Well, dummy plugs are also kinda useful on windows - can’t seamlessly switch to client’s resolution without setting up the resolution profiles first, and that requires a device to apply the profiles to.
Also, you can create virtual displays fairly easy on Xorg, but yes, the entire sunshine setup is infinitely easier on windows.
non-arm-Windows client to Windows host you can use something like parsec where you can adjust resolution on the fly. You can install a fallback virtual display for when the display is off from right inside the app in a single click + UAC prompt. I really don’t like parsec though because I know the enshittification will come, and I don’t really trust them to be secure or to not abuse their backdoor accesses.
This project allows you to create virtual displays that are persistent, and you can configure them so that when the primary monitor is off the backup one is enabled in windows, just by using the default windows display manager options. You can change the resolution freely… because this is using the same vd driver parsec created https://github.com/nomi-san/parsec-vdd - this works pretty well overall with Sunshine
Ultimately though, Sunshine and Parsec are the only two things i’m aware of with great low latency and high fidelity remote capabilities, aside from niche implementations like what the PS5 has. If something like Xorg had similar quality and latency parity i’d be interested, but i’m under the impression everything is like old school vnc or rdp where it is functional when necessary but not very pleasant overall.
Year of Linux on the desktop. Why not say it? It’s been true for decades now.
year of the
it’s been decades.
Should we tell them?
Every year it is true.
let him rest, he has lost his mind from all the compiling through the years
Tell who, you?
So I’ve mucked around with ubuntu… gonna switch over to linux. Ideally something more user friendly at first.
Can someone TLDR Zorin OS vs Mint?
For now I just want something I can swap out my main device until I have more time to finish learning ubuntu.
Both are adequate. Both are based on Ubuntu. The biggest difference is going to be the interface.
Zorin has a Gnome-ish interface. If you pay a few extra bucks, you can customize it to make it function like Mac or Windows or Ubuntu, etc. in one click.
Mint has a (in my opinion) much less modern interface that I don’t like. But it’s also, I believe, the single most popular Linux distro so there will be endless amounts of community support for it.
Zorin has a commercial license for additional GUI front ends, installation support, and a bunch of “professional” apps. It’s not clear if they’ve done something to make adobe/Autodesk/pro audio stuff work on Linux, pre-bundled their FOSS alternatives, or have made software themselves.
Personally, if I was looking for something “professional”, I’d go PopOS!. But if I were a small or mid-sized business I’d consider Zorin Pro if I could get license to include additional support outside the installer… Or just buy System76 computers with PopOS! pre-installed and support built-in to their sales pipeline already.
That said, Mint is also very Windows (classic)-like in their GUI experince (intentionally). It also has one of the largest Linux communities focusing on GUI usability.
Depends on your use case on which flavor you should go. But for $50, I’m curious what Zorin’s software suite is and might dive in.
Or just buy System76 computers with PopOS! pre-installed and support built-in to their sales pipeline already.
S76 (and all Linux PCs) are all just insanely expensive and overpowered for the needs of most people. I wish they would just offer a barebones model with an N100 or something for $500 that normal people could afford…
You can buy nearly any budget machine and load Linux off a USB stick, but most people just take whatever they have and their last windows action is to download a boot image and write it to a USB stick, then boot off the stick and tell it to use the whole disk
Then use your backup system to restore your documents, pictures, web and mail configuration, and game settings and saves to your Linux machine
I mean, that’s kinda the cost for low volume sales + computer support.
They’re not selling computers for the average Linux user, they’re selling computers for independent professionals and businesses that need the support licenses to confidently run their operations.
For the average Linux user, they have put out an incredibly stable version of their OS that has a professional in mind (docking station ready, highly optimized GUI workflow tooling, familiar OS styling, and more). We can then go grab a bare machine and toss their OS on ourselves.
I get it though. I’ve strongly considered snagging one of their laptops in the past. Especially since I want to support them. I’ve even considered some other machines for niche purposes (HTPC, home lab VM host) , but always wind up snagging a Lenovo or IBM laptop or building my own desktop instead.
No, that’s the cost of high-end hardware.
I have the pro version, aaaand it’s convenient… But honestly all applications can be downloaded without much work. Zorin is also so stable that I’ve never had to contact support. The extra layouts is pretty nice tho.
This is more of a “donation” option imo. If you love foss you should definitely financially support projects that you endorse!
The amount of contributions to FOSS from a downstream Ubuntu remix are very limited. Better donate to Debian or buy a Steam Deck.
and a bunch of “professional” apps.
It is in fact a bunch of pre-installed free software. I like Zorin, but Zorin Pro just seems like a way to trick businesses into paying for the distro. I guess having access to a support team is nice, but otherwise it’s not worth it at all.
I think that is the point. Its like red hat. You pay for support.
Both have an Ubuntu base
Mint develops their own desktop called Cinnamon which is like a cross between Gnome2 and windows 7 UIs. Its looks a bit bland, but some people prefer that.
Zorin uses Gnome3, but is heavily customized to give people a choice between windows 7, windows 10 or MacOS type experiences. The UI does look a lot more modern than mint in the looks department. They also have a commercial support option.
Both have a pretty good suite of software for customization and management.
Personally I’m loving Bazzite, which is Fedora based with a lot of customizations for gaming and modern hardware. It’s also immutable, which makes it difficult to break.
I’d advise using Mint in place of Ubuntu as your training wheels/potential daily driver, since Ubuntu’s developers (Cannonical) have the habit of making features and restrictions absent in the rest of the ecosystem (Snap comes to mind).
Mint has a much larger and more dedicated userbase, so you probably will have an easier time finding answers to questions (Mint’s forums are pretty good nowadays), and it’s been an established “Windows jumping-off point” OS for quite a few years now. Zorin is the new kid on the block (while they existed in the past, their quality was nowhere near on par with Mint), so I’d wait and see before checking them out.
Zorin vs Mint comes down to; do you like the color green or blue? Jokes aside they are basically the same. I prefer gnome(zorin) over cinnamon(mint). I also find Zorin does a better job guiding newbs from windows. For example if you would download and run a windows exe, then Zorin will show a pop-up telling the user about alternative Linux apps, or it will handle running windows apps for you through wine.
As a linux newb your choice of distro really doesn’t matter too much. Just don’t go for difficult stuff like Nix, Gentoo. Desktop Environment is where it’s really at for newbs. So try out Kde Plasma, Gnome, Cinnamon and pick the one that you fancy.
Interesting! This is exactly why I asked. I knew the general consensus would be go with mint. I’m looking for an easy OS cuz I don’t want a project car for my daily driver.
Mint is loved for a reason! One user takes a left turn, the other right. Like i said focus on desktop environments :)
zorin is more out of box and mint is lighter. so when you install zorin its going to put in libre office, disk burning, windows rpd, wine with play on linux, its a long list. So it comes down to out of box (I want a bunch of software I may use to be installed along with the os) or lighter and get what you want later. zorin is basically a lazier distro which is why I like it :) while some stuff may be a waste of space I just want it available right away or in a situation where im offline and did not think to install it previously for some reason (disk burning is a good example for this kind of thing)
Just go Mint and then you can get as deep or not as you want into Linux.
Zorin and Mint are quite similar in philosophy, Zorin is more “fancy” but Mint is more reliable in my experience (not to say Zorin isn’t, just that it’s har to beet Mint). Any reason for wanting to use Ubuntu? Mint and Zorin are based on Ubuntu so pretty much everything that works on Ubuntu works on Mint/Zorin, most of the instructions for Ubuntu even transfer over
Nothing specific.
Few years back I thought I might get into cyber security. Had an old gaming PC that I put ubuntu on for learning purposes. Had fun, eventually bricked the PC (it was a Frankenstein anyways).
I figured everyone would say go with Mint. But its nice to hear everyone’s thoughts.
Nyarchlinux is the Linux for you!
Honestly I downloaded it as a joke but it’s great
Fuck it we ball, I have to know how scuffed it is.
Username checks out? LOL
Looks fun enough to spin up in a VM at least. :)
I love that this exists
Is this a serious comment? Because I don’t see an /s
I use nyarch, btw
(Haiku user, patiently waiting for our year to come.)
Haiku will soon shine. The distro that all will love. … actually no.
as someone that have been scrolling lemmy daily for 2 years, i am surprised i have never heard of this distro, i thought being a lemming made me a linux expert
It’s basically a linux distro that’s meant to appeal to Windows users who want to keep the Windows look and feel.
In other words, blasphemy in this church.
blasphemy in this church.
Indeed tis spoken oft as heresy in the Cathedral…
…But perhaps opinions are more diverse in the Bazarr?
Did it three days ago. Took the windows partition out back and formatted it.
If you don’t mind me asking, why did you choose Zorin? How do you hear about Zorin?
I don’t think you’ll get an honest answer tbh.
It might be my lemmy client but when I go to that link I just see a basic steam next fest post with a Linux picking section from a different user.
What am I missing?
It’s a comment link from Xenny that they just installed Bazzite. Maybe they did both?
Some folks change Linux distros like I change my underwear.
3 days ago?
They’re not saying they went to Zorin, they’re saying they went from windows to Linux recently.
They are right to be happy about it
Anyone have strong opinions about Zorin?
Already downloading it out of curiosity. The app to connect with your phone over the local network looks cool.
I was unable to get the sound card to stop popping when on Zorin. Same for Mint. Would pop anytime sound played after more than a few minutes. No updates to the sound driver or any of the configuration fixed it. I also had GPU issues and was unable to play many games. I finally moved on to CachyOS and it’s been rock solid everywhere.
The app to connect with your phone is a straight ripoff of KDE Connect with rebranding.
Its a good lazy out of box distro which is why I use it. I don’t have to tweak or install much to get work done once installed. Most additions I have made are for some nice quality of life or just a niche thing (sending text to a network port for a virtual machine. oh and the virtual machine software). I complained that they should use kde and finally installed it myself but again I don’t have to configure or add anything after installation to be using it for most things I do so I can hit the ground running. Again. Lazy.
Zorin has laudable aims but it’s delivered in a flawed way. It’s essentially Gnome with extensions to make it look and feel like other GUIs. Problem is, Gnome is not a good base for this type of approach - it is fundamentally not flexible and not designed for this. So Zorin is basically deliberating breaking Gnome to make it into something it’s just not meant to be under the hood.
Zorin looks very nice graphically and seems good at at first but then niggles come along. Minor but constantly present.
I think it’s probably OK for a Linux newbie but not ideal long term and doesn’t have the user base to make it as easy to get support as Mint for example.
If you do want to mimick other GUIs then really don’t start with Gnome. You can achieve much better results using KDE on any distro; KDE by design is flexible and it doesnt require breaking fundamental design decisions made for Gnome to mimick something else. Only downside to do-it-yourself with KDE is if you do want to perfectly mimick another GUI then it is a manual process of finding themes and skins that match the aesthetic you want.
That’s becuase Linux is it’s own thing and not focused on trying to mimick other DEs (even if some GUis have superifical similarities to Windows or MacOS).
I get what Zorin is trying to do, but I think using Gnome is a mistake but also for me the basic idea of “familiar to ease you in” doesn’t really work. Better for people to learn how Linux is different - there is a choice in design philosophies but all of them are shaped around what Linux is and how it works rather than what Windows or MacOS are.
Familiarity is very important for onboarding users. You’d be surprised how easy people give up because something is different. Kde Plasma is great, I run it myself, but information overload and flexibility is more likely to deter the average pc user than to win them over.
Started with Zorin but had a rough time. I didn’t realize until actual months later that my issues were due to a hardware fault and had nothing to do with the OS. By the time I realized, however, I had settled on Mint. I’ve since tried a handful of distros but always come back to Mint because I’m so used to it now. I do recommend Zorin for its level of polish and apparent desire to simplify the transition for folks coming from Windows.
The fact that they default to Brave Browser already makes me wary. I have plenty of issues with Mozilla myself, especially their recent trend of integrating AI into the browser but I would rather use a fork or even vanilla Chromium rather than Brave. I know it’s just the default and you can switch easily but the fact they landed on THAT out of all available options doesn’t give me confidence, I would go with Mint instead.
that must be new as I have not uninstalled anything and brave is not on mine. I added several browsers so im not 100% what was on by default.
Brave might not be as hardcore “foss” oriented like some other browsers. But the stats don’t lie. Out of the box it gives good protection, non techies won’t be hardening their firefox configs. Zorin is about giving an easy onboarding. Brave just fits that user friendly design principle.
Just because Brave comes out as “the best” on privacy tests doesn’t mean it’s worth it to support a commercial browser that pushes AI, cryptocurrencies, that blocks ads while replacing them with their own locked behind their system that they get a cut from, that added their referral links to websites you visited and only removed them after severe backlash, whose CEO is a notorious homophobe that donated 1000$ to a campaign aiming to ban gay marriage rights in California. Zorin might claim they chose it based on merit and remove a lot of these features from it but they still push people to use it and increase its market share.
Most browsers push AI, I’ve never touched their crypto stuff in years of use, so easy to toggle off. Honestly I like the concept of what they tried to do with ads and crypto. It’s a model that atleast pays back the user, al other ads are just leeching off your data without giving anything back.
Yah okay that last one I can’t defend 🙄. CEO’s certainly should shut their mouths more nowadays
Loved Zorin, it was the first Distro that made me fall in love with linux. Definitely install it and try it out for yourself. It’s essentially a pretty and better functioning Ubuntu without the spyware
No idea what the other commenter is on about, I used Zorin ~2 years ago. It’s a great distro for people new to Linux, and IMO has the cleanest aesthetic of any distro I’ve used. It was also super stable and reliable.
My issue with it (and ultimately the reason why I moved) is that it aims to be very stable which means its packages can get very outdated. I think the Nvidia drivers they used at the time I was on it were two years old. It’s not something most people would notice especially with how much Flatpak is used nowadays, but you’ll run into annoying cases where that thing you want to update isn’t available in that package manager.
Even looking at the website, Zorin 18 is out but it seems people on Zorin 17 will have to wait a few weeks for a way to upgrade.
Yeah I used it somewhat years ago which is why when I really made the switch I put it on my laptop. I actually still want to go to an image based distro but there is a bunch of stuff I sorta gotta get sorted and like all my zorin comments. so lazy. I mean im not but there is a lot of non laptop os things I got to do as well.
When I used Zorin OS in the past (roughly 3 years ago), it was a pretty miserable experience, and was absolute garbage in comparison to Ubuntu and Mint back then, mainly due to a lack of polish.
That being said, it has been worked on quite a bit since then, and while I’m cautiously optimistic, I’ll stick to recommending Mint for non-gaming and Bazzite for gaming users new to linux for the time being.
Try KDE Connect for connecting to your phone. Works on Windows, Linux, and Mac. Also available on both Android and iOS.
This looks so good. Ok, I’m going to install this instead of the new distro after all. Lol
Nice. Glad I could save you some time and effort.
Thank you.
Yeah, I actually booted Zorin and started the install process last night, intending to put it on my secondary SSD, but instead of the usual “where would you like to install?”, the prompts were written in a way that didn’t assure me that it wasn’t going to mess with my primary SSD, then I ran out of time and bailed for the night.
This was the tool that I was most curious about anyway, so this will be much easier.
KDE connect is such an under appreciated killer app it’s not even funny.
When I go to house sit for a friend I just hook my laptop to their HDMI, pull out KDE Connect, and bam I’m kicking back 10 feet away watching my streaming stuff on my system with adblock running and everything, and the media controls just work.
I’m strongly considering using a Pi 3b+ as a TV machine where KDE Connect is the primary interface. It just works so well.
I also love getting text alerts or low battery notifications on my desktop without having to keep looking at my phone. It’s just amazing.
My favorite thing is media pausing automatically when I get a phone call and resuming when I hang up. I listen to music all day while I work, so when someone calls it automatically pauses and I don’t have to pause it myself or turn down my speakers. Really helpful for busy customer call days when I’m on the support rotation.
Notifications are also pretty great, useful for 2fa notifications since I’m at my machine for work all day.
Got me into Linux, 1.5 years ago. Tried Mint first, but that was pre some of their UI updates. I found the look quite outdated when I tried it. From there I started out by dual booting Zorin and Windows. Slowly moved everything over to linux and haven’t looked back since(only work laptop run windows now).
Nothing more to say than a very solid distro. Doesn’t update often, but that has the advantage of never breaking lol. Also installed it on all my parents devices and it “just works💫”.
I actually just switched to Zorin as my daily driver this past summer. Good riddance Windows
Got to do the distro upgrade but holding off till the weekend. Its never given an issue before but im paranoid like that.
I have only had problems from dist upgrade when I have been running server software (specifically email and mailing lists). Games, productivity stuff, pictures and so will be fine.
Always a good move. Doesn’t matter the software, there will always be some time when a “routine update” turns into a forum hunt and troubleshoot mission.
That being said, snapshots are amazing. The BTRFS file system supports them, and TimeShift also integrates with it.
If you don’t want to bother with another file system though (it requires basically a reinstall if you didn’t choose it at first), at least get TimeShift and another large drive or partition to save restore points to! It’ll basically just copy backups of all the files instead of lighter snapshots, but being able to roll back after a funky update is lovely.
But either way, don’t sweat all that too much, just make sure your essential data is on
3 copies. 2 different media. 1 offsite.
