Amazing how lemmings will find a way to jump off of any cliff.
“Free OS that works great?”
NO! I WANT TO PAY.
I’m pretty sure every distro lets you pay if you want to. Many beg you to
Free as in Freedom and not free as in beer. I donate to a lot of open-source projects such as KDE.
I keep hearing about this “free as in beer.” Where are you guys getting free beer? Can I have some?
If you came to my place, I’d give you free beer - I’m a home brewer but not much of a drinker
I’m mostly amazed that they discovered it. When I think of a good transition distro this is not what comes to mind. Must have been some kind of targeted ad campaign. Also there’s probably a ton of people that think no good software could possibly be free.
They’ve been astroturfing the fuck out of it for the last 6 weeks.
This was my guess. This shit doesn’t come from nowhere. My bet is that some big wig or VC backed it and is trying to get ROI.
Zorin? Its a great transition distro. Clean aesthetic, with back end gnome tweaks so you can have it look like KDE/windows. Software store made easy. Everything seems to work OOTB.
with back end gnome tweaks so you can have it look like KDE
you know what looks like KDE?
KDE.
But KDE isn’t as integrated throughout the system like GNOME, on Zorin you have 4 desktops styles you can choose that range from GNOME like to KDE like without having to switch DEs.
I know KDE is highly customizable, but it doesn’t have the smooth feel of GNOME, and for a distro where their whole vibe is a clean aesthetic GNOME makes more sense
KDE is free
Zorin is a smooth clean aesthetic, and GNOME has that integration into everything, making the system feel polished. So when a user transitions to Zorin you can stay on same DE and have it windows like, and later choose 1 of the 4 styles of interface without tweaking.
KDE Is amazing for customization, but with Zorin being so focused on being a polished UX, GNOME makes more sense.
I mean, I don’t mind monetization if it keeps the project alive and they’re actually doing work. I do mind free stuff that comes at the price of your data, or free stuff that is eventually bought up, or free stuff that can’t sustain itself and constantly splits off and churns through personal drama cycles.
To people who will pay whatever they think a thing is worth, a free OS is worthless
This is unironically a huge issue, and it’s just fascinating how the psychology of pricing and valuation works.
Semi-large company needs something. They make a budget for €100k and start looking at different alternatives. They find alternatives a) €120k, b) €80k, c) €15k. I bet you they’ll try to ask their superiors to expand their budget in order to buy the premium €120k solution, and they will not in any way consider the €15k one.
Come to think of it, it goes beyond software as well.
It’s honestly like that with free mobile apps. You either find a paid version or you install free abandonware riddled with ads.
Or you look on fdroid…
so your going with pro then?
Removed by mod
Where have you been? Lol. Its been quite popular in Linux discussions I have seen around the COVID era. Started in 2009/2010 Used to have a suggested fee and you’d just type how much you wanted to pay, even $0. Looks like they now specifically set it into separate downloads , free for core version and money for preinstalled apps.
Zorin’s been around for years. I’ve only ever used the free version. It’s okay, but I think Mint is a better transition between Windows and Linux.
I’ve been using Nobara as my first distro for the past couple months. It’s been braindead easy and I haven’t had any issues aside from Steam Remote play refusing to work.
No wonder Windows users switched to it - Core, Pro and Education editions, each with a cost? That’s Windows in a Linux jumpsuit
The Pro edition is basically a donate button that gets you a few themes and applications that you can just as easily install from Flathub.
Core is free. And then you install the apps to make it like Pro. Some people like everything done for them, and some businesses won’t approve free software for use, as it has a stigma of being sketchy, so adding a paid version can get this past your chief technical officer at a corporation.
There’s nothing wrong with giving money to FOSS projects.
In fact, a major issue with the open source world is users never donating.
I’ve never used Zorin and don’t intend to, but the existence of optional paid software isn’t why.
The answer to your question which sounds like a statment is no.
If windows users want to pay for a superior OS even though they don’t have to, let them.
Ha, didn’t realise Zorin was paid for. I’ll stick with Debian. Not only is it free, it was made for lesbians who I also whole heartedly support.
Hahah, I can’t tell if this comment is queer, or neckbeard. X)
Neither interpretation paints the commenter in that good a light.
I’ve had Zorin on an old laptop for a few years now, it’s pretty good. I’d previously tried Mint and another distro I can’t remember the name of, but I’ve stuck with Zorin. I’ll probably go with it on my PC once I’ve done a backup.
How does Zorin compare to Mint?
More glitz and glam than many other distros I’ve tried. It was the first one I tried when trying to leave Windows. Eventually did Mint, Pop, Nobara, and Garuda. Chose Mint to stick with for now and haven’t regretted it.
If one of my less savvy friends asked about switching to Linux, I would mention Zorin as a possible option simply because it goes out of its way to feel familiar.
Thanks! I got the feeling that it was trying to feel like windows to ease the pain of transition. I’ve just seen several hype posts for it recently and wondered what was up.
I don’t really get this “it has to be similar to Windows” approach. It’s gonna be different, the more you try to imitate windows, the more frustrating it will be when you get to things that HAVE to be different.
Prettier but has a track record of having more technical issues. Also the devs are a company with absolutely no transparency. At some point there was so few communication that I thought they closed shop.
If you want a similar UI, I would advise going for a vanilla Gnome and adding the desired “Zorin *” extensions. It’s a bunch more work to setup but it feels more trustworthy to me.
out of box distro so it comes with a bunch of software pre installed. .
Uses Gnome instead of Cinnamon, has a paid version, that’s all the differences I can think of
@yessikg @King @pressedhams It also tries a bit harder to look superficially like Windows.
Why does Zorin exist?
Linux Mint exists to be defuckulated Ubuntu, and to show off the Cinnamon desktop which is defuckulated Gnome.
Neon is KDE’s in-house distro, because I guess they get to have one even if it is functionally identical to Kubuntu.
Manjaro is Arch that’s ready to go out of the box.
What is Zorin for? Do they develop any software, or do they charge money for re-themed Ubuntu Gnome?
please do not suggest that manajaro is arch ready to use arch. manjaro is just bad. if you want easier to install arch go endeavour os or cachy or some other arch plus gui installer. https://manjarno.pages.dev/
I said that’s the reason Manjaro exists, not that it’s any good at it.
Nobody has answered me what Zorin is for.
DDoSing the AUR
Jesus fucking Christ
they have done that twice
I, personally, think Omarchy is the best “easier to install Arch” out there - you can hand out a flashdrive to anyone with at least the most basic IT-knowledge and they would get a working, useable and upgradeable system within ~20 minutes.
Why would anyone who wants something easy to install go with Arch? You’re not the target audience! Just install Fedora or Debian!
Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, Suse… in the end, it doesn’t matter. If you (you as in “newbie Linux user”) find a distro that captures your attention that is all that matters. For me - personally - it was some Slackware based distribution that hooked me back in the 90s…
I do. I know how to install arch, but I do not always have time or patience to get internet working (mostly this). I prefere arch for many reasons, and there is more to it than just the installer. But when I last installed arch, archinstall script was yet to be stable, so it was not an option, but now even that is fine i guess.
[…] I do not always have time or patience […]
ARCH
should this not be a testament to arch? i have a custom bootloader (well not custom, it is uki, generated by a relativly new an niche uki generator booster), i started using rust coreutils since march or april, have swapped much of other core stuff, or have a relatively minimal system, and still be patient?
Arch’s specialness does not end with installer. and this kinda is not unique to arch - arch does it, so does debian (but slower to get new packages i want), gentoo (maybe better than arch, but i do not want to compile everything), void (less packages), fedora (between arch and debian i guess), etc. most base distros allow you to swap stuff.
I am not going to get into politics, and just suggest a read of https://マリウス.com/a-word-on-omarchy/
Yes, Omarchy is in some ways quiet… hacky and has a bit of a “style over substance” approach, but i think that is not THAT important for the role it fills. It remembers me of the various riced up setups from the early 00s (and perhaps late 90s, but my memory is hazy in that regard) that simply looked cool (i just say “compiz”) and had this WOW effect on regular Windows users.
Omarchy has this and also benefits from an idiot proof setup routine. If it drags in people from Windows its good, some will start tinkering with it, some will dig deeper into the Linux / Unix world… its an entry level drug in a way.
It’s a defuckulated Ubuntu with a a dozen custom Gnome extensions. They do publish the extensions code. It exists because Mint is often ugly and not very ergonomic. See the “file” apps for both distros, Mint’s buttons are too small and the progress indicator is a tiny 16px icon in the status bar.
And sometimes the dark themes available in Mint make the buttons the same dark colors as the dark backgrounds ;u; (cinnamon user here)
I remember having this bug on Debian, like, 7 years ago or something
I hope they find Mint soon. Zorin never worked well for me.
