At least Bill Gates won’t be able to afford the third home for a distant cousin he’s never met. /s
Can’t blame them. The sloth has done so much to alienate their user base that should just kill the division
That’s a fucking low number
How popular is it against other distros? First I’ve heard of it (admittedly doesn’t say much since I’m used to the older ones), which makes me wonder how close to a million people did. Did influencers spread the word or something?
I’ve noticed Zorin does a lot of marketing and it comes in waves, you won’t hear anything for months then it’ll be everywhere for a few days.
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I’m gonna make it 780,001 today.
Decade of the Linux Desktop. It’s here guys!
I downloaded Mint last week and started the installation but got cold feet when it came to drive formatting. I still want to keep my win10 operational in case I won’t be able to run something on Linux.
I never actually used Linux before… I installed it 3 times before and always quickly went back to windows due to some compatibility or driver issues, but…
<Rant mode=“venting”> I am NOT switching to win11… It’s enough that I am forced to use it at work. That system is so fuckin stupid… They took a lot of minor elements and just made each of them worse… I get that the sales department told you to shove OneDrive and Copilot everywhere, it’s stupid and annoying but I get it, it’s just plain old greed, but why can’t the Calendar show the whole month and don’t work on the second monitor?!? (Are you planning to add it as a paid subscription later?!?) </Rant>
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
I used disk2vhd to virtualize my laptop windows disk and put it on a USB stick and then got it running on Linux with VirtualBox. I’m gonna need it once a year for taxes.
I did run into some trouble getting secureboot working in virtualbox, but solved it after I figured out the kernel drivers were compressed.
lol I forgot about the calendar issue
a perfect example of them making it worse for literally no reason at all
You can get a cheap ssd and install linux on it. Before installing disconect existing windows drive. After install reconnect windows drive and make sure that windows boots. Then boot to bios and choose linux as default drive and after booting to mint desktop update grub to include windows. On each boot you will be able to choose which OS you want.
Just add a new partition and dual boot, it is pretty easy.
Also I do not recommend Mint for Windows users, because the officially supported UX layers are more apple-esque. Use a distro that has KDE support baked in. Adding KDE to Mint is easy but may not be for people switching.
For that reason, I recommend going with distros with KDE Plasma by default. Kubuntu or KDE neon.
Why KDE? It feels like where Windows should have gone. It’s like the glory days of Windows (windows 2000, etc) in the modern age. It is a drastic upgrade from Windows with more freedom than you ever had.
One pretty safe way is if you get a separate drive for Linux and completely swap out the Windows one. It’s not dual booting but at least you can switch back if it doesn’t work out for you.
Just make sure you have whatever you need to get the Windows drive working again if it’s encrypted.
If you have issues with mint, try something based on Debian or Fedora rather than Ubuntu like Mint is.
For Fedora I recommend Bazzite if you do gaming and nothing too technical. Flatpaks make it easy to find and install software without messing things up. Otherwise Fedora Kiinoite.
For Debian I recommend Debian itself really. Also runs very well on much older machinery.
Eh, that’s fine but I’m good until 2032 with my Windows 10.
Also, we aren’t for sure certain how many of those people are uniquely downloaded from Windows and specifically the purpose or reason.
Some could’ve downloaded Zorin for experimental purposes. Some could’ve downloaded it from a Windows VM. Some could’ve downloaded it from Windows when they’re in a dual-boot system.
Hate to burst that bubble, but you need to consider these things before big numbers are boasted. There’s a lot of variables involved.
As long as it makes m$ shareholders pantshit, i’m all for it
they need some clickbait news, that’s why.
My machine was once VERY capable. It’s not a top of the line gaming box but it’s still capable and shows no signs of crapping out yet. Can’t run windows 11 but it’s not worth throwing away my computer over.
I’ve been using a PC with C2D till it died. And I’m still having thoughts of checking whether it’s solvable with a bit of soldering, perhaps replacing power.
It’s enough for music, text editing, a little bit of web browsing and old games. Old games here includes a lot of goodness, but even World of Tanks worked under Wine on it back when I used it. Slow, but playable (when you have friends and it’s a social event, alone kinda sad).
Same boat, my computer is basically the computer my wife built probably about 12 years ago before we got together, it was pretty beefy for its time. I basically stuck her old components in a new box (and also stuck a newer graphics card in it because I got a really good deal on a used 2060)
Still manages to run most games out there on acceptable (to me) settings.
Made the switch to Linux about a week ago, no major issues, some things are arguably running better now. It’s not without its hiccups but so far things have gone pretty smoothly.
EDIT: went with Mint over Zorin though.
I’ve got an Intel 6900K 8-core X99 system. Also not compatible with W11, but serving me well.
The issue is even if I wanted to upgrade, that market segment is effectively dead; X299 and X399 (AMD) were the last real HEDT platforms. The only thing now is workstation tier boards, which are about $1K and processors to match
also because w11 is filled with glitches and bugs to the brim.
That “780,000 Windows users” number is just made up for the title as clickbait.
That number is never mentioned in the original blog post.
All they said is they have a million downloads and “over 78% of these downloads came from Windows”. At no fucking point did they imply that means 780k unique users. There’s no reason to assume that everyone who downloaded the ISO actually went on to install it.
They also want $48 for their Pro version which comes with a “professional-grade creative suite” consisting of… GIMP, Blender, Inkscape, Kdenlive, and… Audacity (?), going off the screenshots they show:
click to show
They’re shamelessly reselling free software as some sort of comprehensive package, and it’s not even their own distro. They’re just piggybacking on Ubuntu.
And their premium support only covers… installation?
click to show
But hey, they support this edition with updates until 2029!
click to show
Of course, pay no attention to the coincidence that the Ubuntu LTS version it’s based on also hits end-of-life around then:
click to show
So I’m not really sure what you’re actually getting out of this purchase besides some extra themes and some really formulaic desktop wallpapers, and a couple proprietary apps. They say they “contribute to upstream Open Source projects” but offer zero evidence; their site doesn’t even have any Github/Gitlab links.
Zorin pro was the main reason I never stuck with Zorin OS however while they heavily advertise that the price is for the software. I think the real cost comes with “installation support”.
For many first time users, having support help with an install is a necessity and they will pay for it. See Geek Squad as an excellent example.
Plus having a preconfigured Linux experience is good for these users.
Nice perspective. I had a wtf moment reading they charge for Gimp etc, but I imagine some casual PC users installing linux would rather pays for the convenience than troubleshoots.
If I had a nickel for every time TomsHardware spreads misinformation, makes stuff up or did 0 research on the topic #Ryzen9700X3D I would be millionaire pretty soon.
Can we maybe ban them as a source from here?
Its rare to see someone with brain in here
I guarantee there are PLENTY of people jumping the commercial ship to try Linux of many flavors
I’m not saying there’s no people trying it, or that the actual number is negligible. I’m just saying I highly fucking doubt that 780,000 people have actually installed Zorin OS in the last month.
Love how you just completely skipped over the entire thrust of the comment and then churned out some blithe remark.
More!! More! Everybody get others into Linux Mint and Pop OS Cosmic as well!! I am doing my part if we want better we must grow the community
I tried Mint and it’s just too buggy to use.
What video card do you have? Do you plan to use the machine for gaming?
I switched to mint 3 weeks ago at the gentle age of 48 and so far it’s excellent. I had several issues which i almost all solved with googling and some AI. And I don’t know anything about programing. AND IT DOESN’T PUSH ANYTHING ON ME, IT’S UNREAL.
Mint and Pop OS really aren’t usable for cutting edge GPU’s tho.
Edit: I’m probably wrong about Pop OS.
That’s simply not true for PopOS
I just figured because it’s based on Ubuntu. My mistake.
Bruh ain’t no way people are choosing Zorin OS over all the available options.
If this is a result of people searching “best windows like distro”, they’re profiting off of a windows theme for GNOME, not even a full DE.
You can achieve the same thing with zero effort on any distro because DEs and themes aren’t tied to a distro.
You can achieve the same thing with zero effort on any distro because DEs and themes aren’t tied to a distro
No, YOU can. But for the average Windows user this is far from “zero effort”. Just the fact that Zorin OS will automatically run Windows executables through wine without the user having to set it up is a huge deal for people coming from Windows who want their PC to “just work” without fiddling around
Bringo. I started trying to learn how computers compute in my 40’s, after using them essentially since childhood. Still a dumbfuck. There is a huge class of users who are genuinely interested in… Having a computer - they are neat. The percentage of those people who also want to not be product-fucked on the regular by unimaginably powerful companies is pretty substantial.
It’s odd to look at Linux and open source communities that shame others, and diminish the possible entry point of a user hoping to escape the purgatory of Microsoft’s/apple etc. whims. What’s the goal? Many people are stupid; I’m pretty stupid. Help us more smarter.
What are some experiments I can do to learn grep a little? How do I internalize the file system in this OS better? How do I know I fucked something up, rather than found a loose nut in the software?
Rtfm. Hahah cheers
Same. I am one of those recent Zorin OS 18 users, and even this entry level distro meant stuff like changing BIOS settings, finding and figuring out how to get a Nvidia driver working etc.
Anyway, as for your question what you can do to increase understanding: I am now using www.Labex.io linux tutorial to get familiar with terminal commands.
Maybe further down the road this will lead me to a different distro, this one got me started and saved a perfectly fine running PC from the scrapyard :-)
You’re bang on. Or at least described my exact situation. Biggest issue was having windows 11 on my new machine by default. Been thinking about making the switch for a while, but don’t want to take the time and effort to learn a whole new hobby. Between the forced AI in win 11 and the posts about Zorin today it pushed me into looking into it. I’m going to do the free one after the holiday. If it’s cool I’ll upgrade to the pro. Not that I super need it, but it’d be exciting to have all the extra software. Plus if it’s that good I’m happy to support them.
From another comment in this thread, Zorin is basically Ubuntu with a theme for the desktop environment. And the pro sells you a bunch of free software. May I recommend something like Fedora instead? It’s also easy to use (or is supposed to be - I only use it on my laptop for school), and is more widely known and accepted by the open source community from what I can tell. Every time I hear about Zorin it’s bad (or at most neutral) haha
I think you vastly overestimate the amount of effort most people are willing to expend for things like this.
marketing is important. more important than a good product even.
Zorin uses gnome? I would not have guessed that based on the couple of screenshots I saw.
I know some who went to Linux and a few who moved to Mac. But no one is seeing Win11 and saying “oh man, I gotta get in on that”.
I have two win 11 licensed for older Dell computers. I shudder at the thought of ever needing them.
I jumped in to the Win11 beta and really liked it, they finally got most of the control panel into the new settings architecture and I never once had to dig deep into things to adjust something small, a lot of stuff that took finagling just worked.
And now I fucking hate it. The release version is jammed so full of bullshit features and useless AI junk that it is an active hindrance to whatever I’m trying to do. And more and more stupid fucking bugs bubble up in to the desktop and never get addressed, all while I get pop up after pop up urging me to try some bullshit new feature.
I already had one foot into Linux with my desktop but kept this because it was a Surface and nice at some point, but my next buy has to be a Linux 2-in-1, I can’t deal with Microsoft’s horseshit any longer.
I do want to emphasize that for the moments that it was unadulterated by rent-seeking, the new Win11 actually was kinda great.
In case you weren’t aware there’s an ongoing project adding Surface hardware support to Linux kernel. It’s in a pretty mature state, with most of the features already implemented and working (here is a full breakdown per device). I’ve been using it on my SP6 for a few years with zero issues.
It might be worth a look until you get to buying new hardware.
Thank you for this. I haven’t figured out what to do with my Surface yet, but this sounds promising.
Posting from a Surface Go 2 running Debian Trixie with Gnome+Phosh. Everything except the webcam just works on the stock kernel (for webcam support you need the patched Surface kernel). Vanilla Gnome is fine, too, if you use a hardware keyboard. I run Phosh because the onsceen keyboard is much better than Gnome’s.
Kde is working really well on linux-surface. Had to change the OSK to maliit(?) but everything I need works. I haven’t tried to install the camera driver because I never needed it. Stylus works really well ootb. Use it with Krita. Screen rotation works great and I use it as an e-reader. I choose an easy arch distro because disk encryption works with the native keyboard although it has been some time since i tried a non rolling distro and other distros could have addressed the startup keyboard issues by now. 10/10 would recommend.
I finally committed to the switch last weekend. My desktop PC was the last holdout still on Windows in my fleet, because of Adobe Lightroom. I decided to just force myself to learn Darktable, and nuked the Win 11 install and replaced it with Fedora 43.
Fun side note, some of my games run way better than they did on Windows, despite not having native Linux builds. lol.
My bottles borked my battle.net install somehow so instead of tackling the issue I’ll put it off for months/years and continue dual booting
you can just run battlenet through steam:
- add the installer as non-steam game
- set compatibility to proton experimental
- launch/install
- find the filepath for the battlenet .exe
- change the filepath for the target of the battlenet installer to the .exe instead
- never touch it again; it just works!
a tiny bit of effort, but only required once. everything afterwards just works!
everyone goes through that phase. logs often help a lot, and you will start to get a feel for what may be wrong. once some things become second nature you will stop needing windows. meanwhile, friction means you are learning.
i usually favor lutris for gaming anyway, it’s better at keeping everything together and updated ime. bottles tends to lag behind a bit by default which is not ideal for games atm.
My condolences
I left Windows for Linux in the early 2010s. Windows was shit then, but this is a new level of shit. I don’t know how anyone does it. After discovering the freedom Linux can provide I could never go back to Microsoft.
did you try the ltsc version? i heard it comes without all these unnecessary “features” and feature updates.
I know some people who shoot and hunt their own venison. Some people moved over to butcher shops. But no one is finding roadkill and saying “oh man, I gotta get in on that”
It’s actually not terribly uncommon for people to take roadkill if it’s fresh and in decent shape.
In my state (PA) you’re supposed to report it to the game commission within 24 hours, and you’re supposed to surrender the hide and antlers to them unless you pay for a separate permit.
But no one is finding roadkill and saying “oh man, I gotta get in on that”
Fun fact, there was enough public outcry in '16 for the state of Washington to amend it’s laws and make it legal to harvest roadkill for food.
Of all the states, I wasn’t expecting Washington.
Alabama? Sure.
Mississippi? I can see that.
Georgia? Yeah, ok.
Washington? Of all the states, WASHINGTON??? Oh god damn…
I mean if you hit a deer with your car, why let all that venison go?
Oregon also has roadkill salvage permits available!
I can think of one…
Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel?
Close. RFK Jr.
When I was a kid I visited my cousin in backwoods Missouri, and we heard on the radio that there was an uptick in leprosy because of people eating roadkill armadillo. It was a real wtf moment in my life
Shit. Is there a certain kind of roadkill that’s safer to eat?
Comparatively, carnivores are riskier, as they continuously collect parasites from the animals they eat, especially if they eat them not freshly killed.
Don’t know, and don’t care to find out. I only visited the backwoods, I certainly don’t live there
Gotta make fresh roadkill, then it’s edible sure.
