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The GUI it seems is a LXDE based with Ubuntu 15.4 as the Linux base. The distro seems to try and tailor itself to a W7 like interface which should help casual users be less intimidated by it. I was not happy to see only security updates up to Jan, 2016 though. Not sure if that was a typo or what.
I've played with Zorin a bit but wasn't all that impressed. It's certainly usable and easy to get used to. I just happen to look for something slightly different when it comes to my *nix toys.
Trying to imitate the GUI of another unrelated OS is guaranteed to throw new comers into the UI equivalent of uncanny valley. They see a similar button and they expect the familiar response when clicking it. But the devs can't make them exactly the same (neither should they). And the users will freak out when they see something familiar leading to something not familiar. There will be plenty of "it's broken" responses.
True but usually those familiar enough with an OS and GUI to get that far in are educated enough to know there is a difference. My other problem with thier advertising is the claim Docx etc will open and be usable but they do not explain about it being an office equivalent.
I do not think you should use such a misleading ploy. The problem is unlike an easy OS upgrade this would be a replacement. There is little to no chance of a simple roll back. Those trying to advertise themselves as, or acting as, a Windows replacement should state multiple times to create a system image backup! Switching from Windows to Linux is no task to be taken lightly. The fact is doing so, or letting people think it is, is in itself irresponsible and will lead to Linux as a failure and further distancing general consumers.
To be honest, I was initially put off of zorin a couple years ago when I first tried it because I thought it tried too hard to be "windows". One of the reasons I liked linux initially was because it was different than windows, and that was 7 years ago. (ubuntu hardy heron). Having tried lots of "lite" distros, I can say Zorin (lite) has one of the lighest memory usages. (antiX is#1 imo.) Making it look similar to windows (and they really painstakingly do), they are sure to capture the "XP" crowd looking to upgrade their old PC's for a secure OS and browser. Last week I wiped a friends old XP laptop (pentium-m) and installed Zorin 9 lite, along with libreoffice and dropbox and everything is working great.
Zorin wouldn't be my first choice for a newer laptop though because you wouldn't need to go that "light".
Zorin 10 is based off of ubuntu 15.04, and is only a 6 month release. Zorin 9 is based off of ubuntu 14.04 and has security updates for 5 years.
Thanks for this, makes me wanna try it to be honest. I will install it today on my Alienware 18
Quick Question, my Alienware 18 currently has the OS installed on the EVO 850 1TB mSATA and has two 2TB Samsung 5400 RPM HDDs for a total of 4 GB in RAID 0 mode.
1) Is linux stupid like Windows is? as in, I need to only have the drive I am installing it on and no other drives connected otherwise it may place some OS files on the 2nd drive? or can I safely install it on the mSATA and only the mSATA while being sure that the HDDs aren't touched?
2) the HDDs are not in NTFS format, will I be able to format them in Linux and make them still work as a 4GB partition using the linux file system?
one thing I liked about Zorin is that it claims all hardware will work out of the box and one can install Windows apps thanks to its built in WINE which I think can be installed on any Linux Distro.
You can leave all the drives in the system. Just double check you're pointing the installer to the right device. Nothing will be written unless you tell it to. It will want to write data in system partition, boot loader partition (if you make one) and boot record or UEFI entry. That's it. (I have zero experience with Zorin's installer though.)
Taking out the HDDs while installing is indeed safer (against human error, not the installer) if you don't mind reconfiguring the RAID afterwards.
I believe you mean 4TB total in a 2TB SSD RAID + 2TB HDD RAID configuration? RAID-0-ing SSDs and HDDs together doesn't make much sense.
Whatever file system you have in the HDD RAID will work just fine. You don't need to reformat it as long as you're not installing the OS itself into it.
Well, "claim" is one thing and reality can be another. If you've booted it "live" and indeed everything worked then you're golden.
Yeah, WINE is fine but do bear in mind that it's not 100% foolproof.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that you shouldn't give Zorin a shot. While it wouldn't be my first choice I know several people who are very happy with it.
sorry if I wasn't clear, what I want to do is install the OS in the mSATA 1TB 850 EVO SSD and leave the 4TB (2+2TB RAID 0) HDD for video files storage and whatnot...
Does the Linux file system have any limits in terms of size? you know how MBR has a limit of 2TB so you'd need to initialize the disk as GPT to make a 2TB + Partition
I just thought of something, on my Alienware I have to press FN + F5 to switch between integrated and discrete graphics, how in the world would that work in Linux since it doesn't have the Alienware OSD application installed? or it wouldn't work I guess
I read on a few forums that Linux Mint is bad in the sense, when an update is available, it is a disaster, many said for Linux Mint, Upgrades = Fresh new installation......
MBR and GPT are common partition table standards and have nothing to do with Windows/Linux. If you use MBR you will face MBR limitations no matter which OS you use. On modern systems, use GPT whenever you can.
Muxed Optimus is a tricky one. The Linux Bumblebee Optimus implementation is designed for muxless laptops and I have no idea how it will react to such a system. Since you're not going to have good battery life with a AW 18 anyway you might as well lock it in dGPU mode via the BIOS. Otherwise GPU switching *might* work but you would have to restart your desktop, therefore losing all the running apps. Linux desktop dose not support running the same GUI instance across multiple GPUs with hardware acceleration.
I personally don't use Mint but I don't think "upgrades = fresh new installation" is possible. Can you link the source of the claim?
Tried it yesterday. It is based on Ubuntu LTS and aims at being a very efficient and low resource consuming distro. It uses LXDE as its desktop environment. I really like LXDE. It has a lot of customization and is very comfortable to use. However, Zorin didn't really impress me as i felt the OS was a bit ugly and I did not want to waste my time configuring themes.
On the other hand, I tried LXLE which is based on Lubuntu which itself is based on Ubuntu LTS. It also uses LXDE as its desktop environment and LXLE is surprisingly clean, efficient and consumes very low resources. Overall I really like LXLE and especially the LXDE desktop environment. I have now started using LXLE as my daily linux and I feel I can stick to it. Do try it out.
Other distroes that I tried out yesterday were Bodhi, elementary, Lubuntu and a few others. Overall I liked LXLE most and I suggest you try it out.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
