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1M Downloads of Zorin OS 18

blog.zorin.com

91–100 of 277 posts

Re: 1M Downloads of Zorin OS 18

#91
post #43

They have a very slick and professional looking webpage. Is it weird that that makes me wary? I’m used to the best distros having webpages that look like a wiki or a professor’s website.

Zorin OS' main pitch is the design work they put into it to make it look like Windows or macOS. As far as I can tell they wrote zero new software (the taskbar is a forked GNOME extension, and the Zorin Connect app is a forked KDE Connect). So, its not surprising they made an effort to make a nice looking webpage, design work is basically the only thing they are doing.

Honestly that's one of the thing where Linux is truly behind other os. Design really need someone to step up, gnome choices are really debatable, kde is great but c'mon.. it's not for beginners or people who just want things to work.

I found that Linux mint desktop environment is the best of both world, zorin a bit behind then everything else.

Re: 1M Downloads of Zorin OS 18

#92
post #63

Very sleek marketing, but why did they rebrand (the fantastic) KDE Connect to "Zorin Connect"[1]? From the mere If it was tightly integrated into the OS I could sort of understand not mentioning its name, like you don't want "Foobar Control Panel" and "FizzBuzz Start Menu". But KDE Connect is a standalone app you can install even on Windows. And this is not just hiding the name, it's replacing it! So, why the "rebran…

[deleted]

Re: 1M Downloads of Zorin OS 18

#93
post #74

I've been a Windows user since 3.1; and I've even defended Microsoft in the past (particularly when they made unpopular choices, but for technically correct reasons, like UAC or forcing vendors to rewrite their drivers into userland or using a safer driver model). BUT, I won't defend Windows 11 and Microsoft's general direction. I feel like there has been a slow cultural shift within Microsoft, from a core of fantast…

A big concern I have for the industry is what happens as people who truly understand how this stuff works age out. Unfortunately we seem to have stopped replacing them. Part of the issue is that computers today require no deep knowledge to use, unlike first or second generation PCs that genX and millennials grew up with. So you’re not getting as many people with this knowledge. Just as significant I think is the prev…

Thank God for lucrative work higher up the stack. Maybe programmers will stop being the only scapegoats for rising home prices and the high cost of living.

Re: 1M Downloads of Zorin OS 18

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A distro working out-of-the-box for a certain user group is not a weird spinoff. Some people love to economize time; a distro that takes care of exactly that is a good deal.

None of these distros economize time. This is not Debian/Arch/Ubuntu with some preconfiguration. Every single user of these distros is in the hands of a tiny number of developers who mostly work on this as a hobby. Things are going to break and they will break in ways nobody will know why, since the base distro does not have these problems. There is a very good reason why the Arch forums do want reports from arch der…

> This is not Debian/Arch/Ubuntu with some preconfiguration.

Well yes it is. Zorin is literally based on Ubuntu LTS and their packages are binary compatible.

Re: 1M Downloads of Zorin OS 18

#95

I’m looking for a replacement OS for my mother in law whose computer is aging out of Windows 10 support. I’m glad to see slick distributions like this trying to fill that gap. That said her requirements are _so_ simple that Debian with Chromium would probably satisfy 100% of her requirements which are ‘download documents from gmail and print them’.

Get her on a Mac if you can. I got my mum to switch to Mac from Windows over a decade ago and it’s been fantastic for both of us. Her support needs dropped from once every two months to once every few years, and she’s been able to do more with her computer than she would ever have attempted on Windows. She’s been using knitting software to make patterns to share and learnt how to use photoshop, all by herself. The co…

No I don’t think I’ll spend a minimum of A$999 so she can use chrome and print things.

Re: 1M Downloads of Zorin OS 18

#96

I've been a Windows user since 3.1; and I've even defended Microsoft in the past (particularly when they made unpopular choices, but for technically correct reasons, like UAC or forcing vendors to rewrite their drivers into userland or using a safer driver model). BUT, I won't defend Windows 11 and Microsoft's general direction. I feel like there has been a slow cultural shift within Microsoft, from a core of fantast…

I think the toughest thing for me has been watching my former coworkers on Windows transform from technology loving builders into depressed cynics. Like these were some of the most brilliant people I knew and now they struggle to get out of bed.

100% agree, I still can't believe how fast windows is deteriorating. With that said, Linux and Debian helped me a lot. I enjoy tech again. With windows I hated 95% of changes, with linux it is the exact opposite. Having some experience since Ubuntu 12.04, it's amazing to see the progress especially of the last 5 years.

Re: 1M Downloads of Zorin OS 18

#97
post #47
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is Gnome have really committed themselves to screwing up UI paradigms. I'd be much less happy with Linux if Cinnamon DE didn't exist because that's essentially a Windows like experience without the BS. Conversely the default Gnome desktop is awful IMO. Taskbar, start button and menus all have decades of proven effectiveness, no one needed to mess with them just get the details right (e.g. fonts and intera…

You know what is proven effective? Not needing to reach for a mouse to interact with taskbar, start button and menus. GNOME is extremely effective as long as you aren't a clicker. If you want to stick to a 30 year old desktop metaphor that's on you but the rest of us have moved on.

I often see people praising gnome for it's keyboard efficiency but they are not even 10% as good as macos.

If they cared so much, they would have keyboard shortcut for everything, in every app, with the top bar displaying menu and every shortcut attributed to it, just like macos.

Instead you can use the keyboard to switch an app, close it and so on but once you are working inside, you immediately need to take your mouse. What's the point ? It saves 1 second and confuse lot of beginners.

Re: 1M Downloads of Zorin OS 18

#98
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably like MX Linux, which has, for some reason, topped the Distrowatch popularity list for years in front of Fedora, Ubuntu, Arch Linux, Debian. Strangely enough, CachyOS seems to have adopted the same strategy and it's now first place on that site. I've been using Linux since 2001, and I honestly I find it funny how these niche flashy distros are popular with the new generations. Probably because newbies follow…

> Rock-solid distros like Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora don't have that "cool" factor so noobs don't even consider them Isn't Ubuntu the first thing a "noob" thinks of when they hear the word "Linux"?

CachyOS is the new cool noob distro, with plenty of footguns so it stays fun

Re: 1M Downloads of Zorin OS 18

#99

I've been a Windows user since 3.1; and I've even defended Microsoft in the past (particularly when they made unpopular choices, but for technically correct reasons, like UAC or forcing vendors to rewrite their drivers into userland or using a safer driver model). BUT, I won't defend Windows 11 and Microsoft's general direction. I feel like there has been a slow cultural shift within Microsoft, from a core of fantast…

You mean the m3 MacBook Air?

Currently, I do, but mostly I mean whatever last year's generation of Macbook Air is. Since you get the best bang for your buck that way, and there are some incredible deals on the M3 and will likely be on the M4 when it is replaced.

Re: 1M Downloads of Zorin OS 18

#100
post #7

How many came from AWS, Azure and GCP IPs? ;) Seriously though, a per-country breakdown would've been very interesting to see.

Who would run Windows on AWS? I know some companies do, but it's like 0.01% of all Windows machines.
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