Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Zorin OS

zorin.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 208 posts

Re: Zorin OS

#151

Post by gxonatano »

lproven wrote: post #91
gxonatano wrote: post #58

I know there's a place for distros like these, designed to be familiar to users of Windows or MacOS, but to me it shows Linux at its laziest: where exciting new ideas in system and UI design are skipped over, in favor of bad design ideas from 1995 (looking at you, Start menu). On MacOS and Windows you're stuck with whatever OS UI those respective corporations decide you get—the Apple menu, the Start menu, floating wi…

> in favor of bad design ideas from 1995 (looking at you, Start menu) For what it's worth, that's the point when your comment jumped the shark. I knew then that this was just a rant. The Start menu was a _superb_ piece of design, as was Win95 in general. If nothing else, the existence proof of this is the sheer number of other desktops that imitate the design: KDE; GNOME 1/2; MATE; Xfce; QNX Neutrino Photon; Inferno;…

> the existence proof of this is the sheer number of other desktops that imitate the design

That's where you're wrong. The desktop environments that imitate Win95 elements do it to provide something familiar for their users. The KDE team is not sitting around going, "you know what was designed really well? The Start Menu!" In fact, many of the desktop environments you mention (GNOME Flashback, Cinnamon) were a conservative reaction to the new GNOME 3 design which broke from the Windows aesthetic. The Wikipedia page for Cinnamon, for instance, says it aims to "follow traditional desktop metaphor conventions" and aims for a "gentle learning curve." They're explicitly choosing familiarity over innovation.

> The Start menu was a _superb_ piece of design

Not really. It achieves a reasonably clean look, but at the expense of excessively hierarchicalizing programs and documents. GNOME's Activities panel allows you to click "Activities" then click the program you want to run. Even better, you can just tap the Super key, type a letter or two of the program, and press enter. On Windows 95, I remember trying to launch a calculator, and clicking Start, then clicking Programs, then clicking Utilities, then clicking Calculator. In 1995, lots of people were complaining about the Start Menu, how clunky it was and how it slowed down common tasks. GNOME 3's approach is better, as is MacOS's Launchpad, as well as lots of other desktop launchers.

> billions of people use desktop interfaces modelled upon it, representing the combined work of thousands of developers, reimplementing it in dozens of languages.

The idea that pervasive ideas are somehow good, just because they're popular, is a well-known logical fallacy called Argumentum ad Populum. The Start Menu was never good. It was just popular. One does not follow from the other.

Re: Zorin OS

#152

Post by Kaytaro »

fao_ wrote: post #109
afavour wrote: post #12

I hope this succeeds where others have, well, not failed, but not had overwhelming success. Years ago I installed Linux Mint on a family member's computer but they got frustrated enough with it (and required my regular intervention enough) that we ended up switching away. Zorin boasting about you being able to play "an enormous library of your favorite games" or boasting about the vast software library feels like ask…

> Zorin boasting about you being able to play "an enormous library of your favorite games" or boasting about the vast software library feels like asking for trouble. It won't be long before users run into rough edges. Out of the top 1000 games on steam: https://www.protondb.com/dashboard 29 are "borked" (unplayable) 26 are "bronze" (issues playing like "might crash") 82 are "silver" ("runs with minor issues but is pl…

I find protondb misleading because GTA V is supposedly "Gold" except Online does not work at all because of anti-cheat. Same goes for many other popular multiplayer games.

Re: Zorin OS

#153

Post by spookie »

pjmlp wrote: post #117
fao_ wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On windows you have to apply "a few tweaks" just to get the start bar to stop showing advertising and work as it should. Windows users in the modern day have to do way more tweaks than Linux users do just to get a functional and unobtrusive operating system.

Which Linux users, from the myriad of Dritrowach rankings? And no, many normies use Windows just as out of factory, as anyone that has had to fix the cousin's computer during a holidays visit is well aware.

Just try to count the amount of people trying to fix the goddamn context menu (right click) by going into the registry or god forbid the command line.

Windows is as constant of a PITA as Linux. But alas, these criticisms are never taken seriously.

Re: Zorin OS

#154

Post by timeinput »

marci wrote: post #141
olejorgenb wrote: post #128

I assume it's due to marketing, but it really irks me that I have to scroll down to the bottom and click "View technical details about Zorin OS" to find out that this is a Linux distro build on top of Ubuntu...

It's in the homepage, in the blue and green parts near the middle (Reliable | Secure). But still, they have the place for windows and macos in the tagline, they could add linux.

I think I'm mostly agreeing with you.

In old newsprint there was a term "below the fold" with a literal meaning. If it's below the fold it's less important than what is "above the fold" since no one reads below the fold.

Is it burying the lede to point out that it's Linux (or GNU/Linux+Ubuntu extra packages how ever we want to pronounce it)? I would guess probably not.

On a 32" monitor in portrait mode I did have to scroll quite a bit to see those bits. It was worse on my phone, and was even worse on a landscape monitor. "It's Linux" is far less important than what Forbes has to say about it, and it being Linux is more important than it being privacy respecting (which probably means Firefox as the default browser) to the page authors, but who am I to question them. Maybe this is the year of the Linux desktop.

Re: Zorin OS

#155

Post by mitkebes »

kube-system wrote: post #135
mitkebes wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commented this above, but I've had freinds and family ask about alternatives to windows lately because of privacy concerns or just being unhappy with it. I've been sending them the link to the ZorinOS page, and it's been popular with them. It convinced my dad to try Zorin on a new laptop they were buying, and he's been happy with it.

I would think if somebody could figure out how to install an OS just being given a link to that page, they're probably savvy enough that they could figure out how to use something like Ubuntu. But really, in your case, the marketing copy on their site isn't really doing much, your family got there because of the word-of-mouth reference. If somebody is navigating to a website for an OS, they already have some sort of…

In the case of my dad's computer, I installed Zorin for him. However the website itself convinced him that Zorin was what he wanted instead of windows.

Re: Zorin OS

#156

Post by ChocolateGod »

fao_ wrote: post #142
jeroenhd wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proton isn't Wine. The version of Wine that Zorin ships won't run games quite so well. Installing Steam and running games through Steam will fix that, but it won't help with users downloading the Epic Game Store or GOG or the Rockstar Launcher. Having helped a few users get acclimated with Linux, I've found that there are always a few rough edges around games. Zorin seems to hide them very well out of the box, though…

> Proton isn't Wine. Proton _is_ Wine. Fixes in Proton get upstreamed into Wine, and Valve hires developers to work on Proton, Wine, and Mesa. Wine isn't in the dark ages anymore and is able to run the majority of things you throw at it confidently and capably. > but it won't help with users downloading the Epic Game Store or GOG or the Rockstar Launcher. That's... why we have Lutris? You literally cannot shake a sti…

> Proton _is_ Wine

I think it's fairer to say Proton includes Wine, because it ships with software that is not part of Wine such as DXVK.

Re: Zorin OS

#157

Post by close04 »

bigyabai wrote: post #144
close04 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and the paid version comes with a tonne of apps pre-installed I didn't like the way they sell this on their page, "Bundled with alternatives to over $5,000 of professional software". They list the commercial alternatives with their prices but no mention of what's the bundled alternative. Probably the usual free software that any user with a modicum of familiarity with an app store can install in minutes. The lack o…

They say "alternative" right in the sentence. Not "replacement", not "superior choice", but "alternative". It's not at all dishonest to suggest GIMP as a bitmap editor, Inkscape for vectors or Blender for 3D meshing. Blender absolutely beats the pants off Maya and C4D, and frankly I think Inkscape and GIMP is easier to use than Illustrator and Photoshop. You're kinda splitting hairs, here. If you've used Creative Clo…

> Not "replacement", not "superior choice", but "alternative". It's not at all dishonest to suggest GIMP as a bitmap editor, Inkscape for vectors or Blender for 3D meshing.

If anyone told you they need Photoshop for their work you wouldn't feel at all silly to offer MS Paint as "an alternative"?

Zorin's page doesn't name any alternative, just a lot of names of commercial software. They sure do suggest that the alternatives are reasonably equivalent to those, which is a huge stretch. I can think of 2-3 paid Office alternatives that would give MS Office a run for its money but that's not what Zorin offers and I have to find this out on Reddit instead of their own page. They bundle the free stuff that also comes with a most other Linux distributions.

> You're kinda splitting hairs, here.

I'm not the one trying to debate word definitions when the complaint was very clear. The vagueness and the framing of the comparison are intentionally misleading to sell a product. Bending over backwards to defend this behavior just draws even more attention to its sketchiness.

Re: Zorin OS

#158

Post by FirmwareBurner »

incanus77 wrote: post #143

I have been using and administering macOS since 2002 and Linux since 1998. Zorin is my favorite distro when I need to put an OS on a machine and want a cohesive, well-designed, low hassle, free system for myself or others. It’s really well done and truly feels like a unit instead of the many, many disparate parts that it is made of. Sure, you can do all of the things that it does in more custom ways assembling and us…

How does Zorin compare to the likes of Mint?

Re: Zorin OS

#159

Post by prmoustache »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #150
afavour wrote: post #12

I hope this succeeds where others have, well, not failed, but not had overwhelming success. Years ago I installed Linux Mint on a family member's computer but they got frustrated enough with it (and required my regular intervention enough) that we ended up switching away. Zorin boasting about you being able to play "an enormous library of your favorite games" or boasting about the vast software library feels like ask…

Something that I believe is dragging down “mass audience” sorts of distros like Zorin is that they’re only Windows-like in a vague sense, leaving them in an “uncanny valley” of sorts. One of these distros really needs to commit to the bit of Windows-like-ness so it’s a seamless drop-in to the greatest degree possible.

I don't know, when I installed a linux distro with xfce on her laptop after he hdd died it took my partner months to realize she wasn't using windows.

I mean she only figured out libreoffice was installed instead of the pirated copy of office she used to run and complained the menus were different. Little she knew that a more recent version of Office would too have different menus/items placement anyway.

Re: Zorin OS

#160

Post by fao_ »

ChocolateGod wrote: post #156
fao_ wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Proton isn't Wine. Proton _is_ Wine. Fixes in Proton get upstreamed into Wine, and Valve hires developers to work on Proton, Wine, and Mesa. Wine isn't in the dark ages anymore and is able to run the majority of things you throw at it confidently and capably. > but it won't help with users downloading the Epic Game Store or GOG or the Rockstar Launcher. That's... why we have Lutris? You literally cannot shake a sti…

> Proton _is_ Wine I think it's fairer to say Proton includes Wine, because it ships with software that is not part of Wine such as DXVK.

Ok yes, Proton is a distribution of Wine, incorporating fixes that then get upstreamed, and some other software that users typically want to pull down.

If you open up `winetricks` in a default installation, you can just select to install all of these extra components yourself -- including DXVK (Not that I'm suggesting that someone who is green-eared does that without a guide, but it is literally just clicking checkboxes and then "OK"), and Lutris is another kind of Wine distribution that manages your games and pulls down these extra libraries for you. Most people either add stuff as non-steam games (which handily keeps track of all of the games for you too), which lets you run it via Proton, or just uses Lutris (or Heroic I guess).

But like, even the default distribution of Wine is able to handle things very, very capably now and a lot of things that required tinkering JustWork(tm). I say that as someone who ran a single Arch Linux distribution for 7 years straight back in the mid-late 2010s

Post reply on HN