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780,000 Windows Users Downloaded Linux Distro Zorin OS in the Last 5 Weeks (zorin.com) 115

In October Zorin OS claimed it had 100,000 downloads in a little over two days in the days following Microsoft's end of support for Windows 10.

And one month later, Zorin OS developers now claim that 780,000 people downloaded it from a Windows computer in the space of a month, according to the tech news site XDA Developers. In a post on the Zorin blog, the developers of the operating system Zorin OS 18 announced that they've managed to accrue one million downloads of the operating system in a single month [since its launch on October 14]. While this is plenty impressive by itself, the developers go on to reveal that, out of that million, 78% of the downloads came from a Windows machine. That means that at least 780,000 people on Windows gave Zorin OS 18 a download...

[I]t's easy to see why: the developers put a heavy emphasis on making their system the perfect home for ex-Windows users.

780,000 Windows Users Downloaded Linux Distro Zorin OS in the Last 5 Weeks

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  • I'm one of them (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Z00L00K ( 682162 ) on Saturday November 22, 2025 @12:39PM (#65812157) Homepage Journal

    And it's on a USB stick, and I have installed it on multiple machines already.

    • Out of curiosity, what made you choose Zorin over other similar popular choices e.g. Mint?

      • Re: I'm one of them (Score:5, Informative)

        by Z00L00K ( 682162 ) on Saturday November 22, 2025 @12:48PM (#65812179) Homepage Journal

        I saw that it existed and I wanted to try it and it was a good Windows substitute.

        • Sounds like Zorin's success is primarily due to marketing. "Hey Windows Users, Come Here" worked.

          Though, I will add, caring about work flows and little details, like serving up little things in ways that people actually use, is genuinely helpful. Mint started innovating like that in the beginning, but it has ossified and no one there cares about actual work flows.

          But about 99% of what Zorin does, Mint does too. Just Mint doesn't draw flashy arrows around it. Marketing works.

          • Re: Marketing (Score:5, Interesting)

            by Z00L00K ( 682162 ) on Saturday November 22, 2025 @02:30PM (#65812369) Homepage Journal

            I think that the best marketing comes from Microsoft rendering older fully functional hardware unusable and with the overreach by adding ads, requiring M$ account and forcing bitlocker just tipped the scale.

            Zorin is based on Ubuntu too, and that means that if it works there it works with Zorin too.

            • Well, yes... but it also hurts a bit to hear news suggesting that the inevitable resulting flood of Windows users leaving for Linux all somehow landed on a distro I hadn't even heard of until two days ago. This in turn strongly suggests they knew how to position themselves in a marketing perspective in a way that shows all the other more venerable distros out there really dropped the ball.

              • This in turn strongly suggests they knew how to position themselves in a marketing perspective in a way that shows all the other more venerable distros out there really dropped the ball.

                I don't think so. I think it's more a case of Zorin being the only Linux distro that made an effort to have a look and feel that's as close to Windows as possible so as to make it easy for Windows refugees to make the transition.
              • Zorin has been featured here on Slashdot a few times before, and this initiated my interest.

                The strong UI resemblance to Windows would make the change smooth for people used to Windows, and this is important since I plan to transit my 80+ year old parents to Linux by using Zorin from them having been on Windows 7 so far.

            • The hardware being unusable of course made a big difference. But you're well and truly overestimating how a *normal* (that should read: no one here on Slashdot) user uses the OS. For the most part virtually no one gives a shit about the occasional popup in windows, virtually everyone expects accounts required as a fact of modern life for everyone (and outright expects it in a modern OS - thanks Android and Apple), and I'm not sure why you think there's a single person out there who considers bitlocker on by

              • by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

                When they discover that their files can't be recovered when there's a problem with their account then they'll learn what bitlocker is.

      • I run Zorin on two machines, I went for it because they tweaked the UI a bit in a way that I thought might be nice. Overall happy but there are also things I wish they would change.

    • Well, if 2025 isn't the year of the Linux desktop!
  • Look and feel (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Iamthecheese ( 1264298 ) on Saturday November 22, 2025 @12:42PM (#65812165)
    I don't care about the look and feel. I need an OS that I can plug a sound card into, start up my machine and it installs the driver and starts working. I need my system administration routine down around 30 minutes per month. I want GUIs for all common tasks and I want it intuitive enough the I'm not spending hours looking up which command line options to use or installing package managers to install drivers to install features to install programs.

    I'll try Linux, but it has failed me in this respect several times in the past, despite the insistence among lovers of Linux that it's actually just as low-maintenance as Windows.
    • > I want GUIs for all common tasks

      A common task for you might not be for me...

      • by Archfeld ( 6757 )

        are you trying to help or just be contrary...

        • For instance, I never screencast. yet it is considered a common use case.
          OP mentions "plug a sound card in" , last time I did that was around 2000. Since then AC97/Azalia hold the fort.

          For me (and my social circle) a common use case is working build system, multiple choices of compilers, and having headers and debug symbols for all software in the OS. Yet almost no OS does that.

          I'm trying to say that what is "common" is dependent on which usecase you and your social group have.

      • by gtall ( 79522 )

        "I want GUIs for all common tasks"

        What you need is something like MacOS used to have with Commando and MPW, I see that AU/X has something similar and even called the same. You'd probably need a pipelining capability to it. As someone below mentioned, something common for you will differ for someone else.

    • I want GUIs for all common tasks

      I'm curious, why is it so important? I like GUIs for certain things (email, web browsing) but not for others (batch file manipulation, batch image manipulation). Why is it so important to you to have gui for everything? I mean for some cases a GUI is clearly an inferior solution from my perspective.

      • Then it's most likely not a, keyword here, "common" task.

        • by allo ( 1728082 )

          Aren't it the common tasks that are better with typing 20 characters instead of clicking through 5 menus and 3 dialog windows? The more often you need to do something, the more efficient you'd like it to be.

      • I want GUIs for all common tasks

        I'm curious, why is it so important?

        For someone raised on Windows, it just is.

        And as others here have pointed out, there are many Linux distros that probably will support Iamthecheese's common tasks in GUIs.

        • Thanks. You are not answering my question. I am asking for the motivation behind what you formulate as "it just is". Nothing just is, everything has a reason. I am curious about these reasons. I don't think it falls under "matter of taste" either. "Has to be gui" seems like a very artificial constraint to impose on oneself, I am certain that OP sees it differently, I would just like to understand their motivation because currently they escape my understanding.

          • Thanks. You are not answering my question. I am asking for the motivation behind what you formulate as "it just is".

            What I meant was that Windows users just expect pretty much everything to be controllable via a GUI. They don't do CLI, even though for some uncommon tasks it is essential. Just like almost all Linux distros that have GUIs for most common things, but not all.

            I can't give you a better reason because I'm not the OP. I'm not sure the OP actually has one, other than GUIs being somewhat self-describing in terms of available options. And I can relate to that. But it only takes you so far. Point-and-click becomes

    • Re:Look and feel (Score:4, Informative)

      by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Saturday November 22, 2025 @01:06PM (#65812233)

      >"I need an OS that I can plug a sound card into, start up my machine and it installs the driver and starts working"

      Generally, that is Linux. I have installed various Linuxes over decades on hundreds of various machines. For the most part, modern Linux detects all the typical hardware and just configures and uses it. There is no need to "install drivers".

      >"I want GUIs for all common tasks and I want it intuitive enough the I'm not spending hours looking up"

      Again, that is generally the case with modern Linux. All the good distros can be completely managed through a GUI.

      Could you end up with trying to install a not-so-great distro on a machine that has some unusual hardware? And have to take a dive into stuff? Sure. But that is the exception, not the rule, at least not in 2025.

      • >"I need an OS that I can plug a sound card into, start up my machine and it installs the driver and starts working"

        Generally, that is Linux. I have installed various Linuxes over decades on hundreds of various machines. For the most part, modern Linux detects all the typical hardware and just configures and uses it. There is no need to "install drivers".

        By the way I don't know if you've seen the post I made about my Emergency Digital RF communications or not, and how W11 is making a trainwreck out of the sound drivers. of which the whole thing falls apart. During Windows 7 days you set it, and it worked. No more.

        Windows 10 had enough issues with Sound drivers already, then W11 came along and said "Hold my beer!"

      • Could you end up with trying to install a not-so-great distro on a machine that has some unusual hardware? And have to take a dive into stuff? Sure. But that is the exception, not the rule, at least not in 2025.

        And, to be fair, I've had friends and co-workers run into that sort of thing on Windows. Quite a lot.

      • It's been ages, but Linux compatibility used to be terrible on relatively well selling HW. Dell, in particular, was terrible enough that I gave up trying.

        Get a cheap-ish two year old T-series ThinkPad. It'll be fine.

        • This right here âï. My old thinkpad has a second gen i5, it runs 10 great, and it screams on the Mint partition. Why the fuck would I get rid of it just because M$ arbitrarily decided not to include it in an upgrade path, ( it COULD run11 fine)When 10 LTS support ends, that partition goes bye bye. The old Thinkpads are rugged, easy to work on, and parts are readily available.

      • I just tested some live distros here. Fedora, Mint, etc. Guess what, none of them were able to use my sound card (AE-5) correctly, no sound in any of the distros tested. Oh, several “suggestions” on how to fix it via command line, of course. And guess what, none of them worked.
        • How old were the distros you tried? I just googled and found someone who uses an AE-5 with Linux kernel 6.6.9 as of January 2024. No problems.

          • Downloaded an hour or two ago from the official websites before I made my previous comment. In the meantime, I tested Manjaro further and managed to get the sound working on it after some experimentation using alsamixer, which strangely enough, the exact same method does not work on Fedora or Mint. I find it funny that alsamixer can even correctly identify the sound card model, while the supposedly much more up-to-date GUIs of KDE and GNOME can't even do that, let alone correctly configure the sound channel
            • I'd suspect the initialization/configuration steps in the sound subsystem or its audio clients, not the GUI. But I could be wrong.

              I have seen similar glitches happen in Windows that "just go away" when you reboot or reattach devices.

        • I've been using Linux, just as a desktop user, I make no pretence to having a lot of expertise, for quite a while. Sound on Linux continues to suck, even though my hardware has never been exotic. It has sucked since PulseAudio was invented and then inexplicably became popular. I get it working, then it randomly decides I do not have any audio hardware, though the system configuration has not changed. Thus, I think the described experience is completely plausible.

    • You have the newest model of Soundblaster? Are those still made?
      • I have an older SB card in my computer because when I first built the computer (in 2018?) the MSI MB was new enough it was barely supported and the sound chip on it wasn't, hence throwing in a SB sound card and moving on. If I took that card out, I'd *probably* find that the sound chip on the MB just worked, but since it's all working now why bother to change it. :)
        Looks like Amazon still sells them for about $56 brand new.

    • I read this a lot and then folks type into an Ai bot prompt. ðY

    • I don't care about the look and feel. I need an OS that I can plug a sound card into, start up my machine and it installs the driver and starts working. I need my system administration routine down around 30 minutes per month. I want GUIs for all common tasks and I want it intuitive enough the I'm not spending hours looking up which command line options to use or installing package managers to install drivers to install features to install programs. I'll try Linux, but it has failed me in this respect several times in the past, despite the insistence among lovers of Linux that it's actually just as low-maintenance as Windows.

      Windows 1 sucked too. I haven't had one driver problem with Linux for over a decade and a half. In fact, I've had many many more with Windows. They will kill drivers, while Linux allows the old drivers to work. My group has had so many problems with W11 drivers bin wrecked with updates.

      Never install Linux without an internet connection. It runs out to the net and downloads and installs them.

      And do not try to impose Windows mores on Linux. I've seen so many people try to do that.

      You will have to learn a

    • What's an example of a common task? Copying files onto a USB stick? Formatting said USB stick? Editing a WAV file? Playing movies and MP3s? Ripping a CD? I think Linux and several other OSes have covered these particular common tasks for quite some time now.

      Of course, if you're used to Windows or a Mac, the steps and names of the programs are going to be different on Linux/*BSD. But at a high level it's going to be a very similar process to complete any "common task".

      • Those are application tasks, I wasn't talking about those. I'm thinking set dark mode, power settings, network settings, add Japanese typing ability after OS install, TTS, change printer driver, update graphics driver, downgrade graphics driver, restore system to earlier configuration, user account configuration, stuff like that.
        • Ok. yes. That helps a lot. I think almost all of the items you listed have a GUI on most desktop environments for *nix, GNOME and KDE certainly. And that's part of the challenges with Linux, we say Linux but really mean KDE, GNOME, etc. Because if you had GNOME on Linux and GNOME on FreeBSD, they are more alike from the end-user's perspective than a system with KDE on either OS. And we can do maddening things like have mostly-KDE system with bits of GNOME installed because maybe we like a few of their apps

    • Re:Look and feel (Score:5, Informative)

      by organgtool ( 966989 ) on Saturday November 22, 2025 @01:58PM (#65812309)

      I need an OS that I can plug a sound card into, start up my machine and it installs the driver and starts working

      That's weird because these days I find that Ubuntu does that way better than Windows. If I just plug in some random device, it won't provide all of the bells and whistles but I often get the basic functionality with zero clicks. For many devices, that's enough for me.

      I need my system administration routine down around 30 minutes per month

      That's possible with Windows Update? I've seen Windows machines take nearly that amount of time just to install one feature update. My Linux maintenance is usually around 2 mins per month, but maybe that's just because I've been using it for so long and know how to optimize the workflow.

      I want GUIs for all common tasks and I want it intuitive enough the I'm not spending hours looking up which command line options to use or installing package managers to install drivers to install features to install programs.

      This is especially curious. My job requires me to assist Windows users sometimes and I've been amazed at how many times the solution requires firing up Powershell and asking a completely non-technical user to execute commands. It's one of the most frustrating parts of my job.

      I'll try Linux, but it has failed me in this respect several times in the past, despite the insistence among lovers of Linux that it's actually just as low-maintenance as Windows.

      There's this notion that Linux is difficult because it takes so much effort to get everything initially running and that Windows is superior in that regard. After well over a decade of not using Windows, I decided to install it on my desktop and I was blown away by how much effort it took to get even basic things working. What I learned is that installing Windows from Microsoft's default image isn't easy and that the reason Windows seems easy is because most people are using a version of Windows that was highly customized for their hardware by the manufacturer. Therefore, since you're probably using such a version and you're already comfortable with that, it may not make sense to switch unless you're really motivated for some reason. But once you get your Linux system running the way you like it (and that's easier now than ever), you'll likely spend far less time on maintenance in the long-term.

      • This is especially curious. My job requires me to assist Windows users sometimes and I've been amazed at how many times the solution requires firing up Powershell and asking a completely non-technical user to execute commands. It's one of the most frustrating parts of my job.

        I support windows customers all the time and when I do I just paste their question into Gemini and paste back it's response. Normal people can figure out complicated technical issues on their own if they want to now, they just don't realize it.

      • it won't provide all of the bells and whistles but I often get the basic functionality with zero clicks.

        I struggle with your argument. You say that Ubuntu does it better than Windows but describe a situation where some of the features don't work, and then sign off with a statement that it's "good enough for you"? That doesn't sound like it's better than an alternative, it sounds like you're accepting of downsides. My own experience is Ubuntu's horrendous management of audio devices is ... charitably said, as bad as Windows, but especially for the likes of communication headsets, significantly worse.

        I've seen Windows machines take nearly that amount of time just to install one feature update.

        Feature up

    • by dbialac ( 320955 )
      Linux on the desktop failed me years ago. I got tired of running Windows for Office and Linux for a csh and later bash prompt and gcc tools. I got tired of having to find some weird configuration file to make an otherwise mainstream piece of hardware work. Keep in mind, we're talking late 90's early 00's. OSX 10.0 came out (yes, I actually ran 10.0 during the brief period it was out) and they were both wrapped up into one computer. I still needed Windows for games, but I was usually otherwise on my Mac. Sin
    • Re: Look and feel (Score:4, Informative)

      by HnT ( 306652 ) on Saturday November 22, 2025 @02:04PM (#65812323)

      Get a Mac. You are one of their biggest target audiences.

      • Well, as long as cost is no object anyway. Nany of us don't want to have to spend $3,000 for a decent desktop computer.

        • $3,000? That's a pie-in-the-sky machine. For giggles, I spec'd a new M4 Pro Mac Mini with the highest number of cores, 48GB RAM, 1TB storage - sure, you could get more, but 1TB is an adequate starting point - and it came to $2,200. And that's a bit better than "decent." For comparison, my 2023 M2 Pro with 10 cores and 32 GB RAM is still more than acceptably chugging along, and I have no interest in replacing it for a while. Unless I got a good deal on a trade-in.
          • $2,200 is freaking expensive to switch OS. As a PC user you rarely replace everything. For instance, I recently upgraded my home server. The price point for this was $500 with an M2 drive, new mb and cpu + ram. No, it wasn't high-end parts but it highlights the difference between this approach and switch ecosystem
          • I'm glad to see that Apple prices have come down a bit.

            For comparison, an HP Windows 11 desktop with 64 GB of RAM + 1 TB storage comes in at $900. https://www.amazon.com/HP-400-... [amazon.com]

            There are even cheaper options, depending on your specs.

    • I need an OS that I can plug a sound card into, start up my machine and it installs the driver and starts working. I need my system administration routine down around 30 minutes per month.

      nice try, 90s guy

    • by sarren1901 ( 5415506 ) on Saturday November 22, 2025 @06:17PM (#65812643)

      Just stay with Windows. It won't work either but then we won't have to listen to you complain about an OS that you don't use.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Do people use those anymore?

      Regarding a driver, they're all kernel modules, you don't need to download them. Plug in new hardware, it'll be initialized properly. You don't even need to think about drivers at all.

      As time has gone on there have been GUIs built for all of those tasks because of the increased usage of Linux as a desktop OS. You don't have to use the command line anymore. Installing programs, updating them, it's done through the GUI. Drivers, again they're just part of the kernel and handled aut

    • Absolutely!
      Not to mention that in *Nix, sure... some Windows stuff _might_ work _mostly_ correctly in WINE (if the phase of the moon is right, and the chicken you sacrificed had just the right amount of feathers), but under Windows, that Windows stuff works.
      Try opening a DOCX with oddball formatting in Libre... I did just that, the file had a portrait first page, followed by two landscape pages, then back to portrait for the rest... Libre decided everything was landscape. I'd love to see what Vegas does in

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      While I understand your requirements and they do make sense, they are not realistic at this time. The technology is not mature enough for it and will remain not mature enough for quite some time. Hence something has to give. With Linux, you will need to do more system administration and occasionally fix some things manually. The good thing is that things generally stay fixed on Linux. With Windows you will get lack of security, reliability and, more and more, lack of usability. It will also break in new and

    • by allo ( 1728082 )

      The thing about Linux is, that you plug in the sound card (I guess you mean USB sound sticks) and it doesn't even ask for a driver, but what applications should now use the new sound card as output. Good bye driver installation, with Linux it just works.

      Getting printers to work under Windows is a PITA compared to Linux where USB printers are just added to the list of available printers after plugging in. The same for webcams. Some companies even manage to fuck up mouse drivers for Windows. Linux just uses t

    • Why would you want to install a sound driver? Pretty much all drivers are already installed with Linux.

  • Even if all 1 million downloads turn into real OS installs, it's a drop in the bucket compared to Windows installs. However, after Microsoft's recent announcement their own updates have broken their own system [slashdot.org] combined with no longer supporting W10, this can only lead to good things.

    • Even if all 1 million downloads turn into real OS installs, it's a drop in the bucket compared to Windows installs. However, after Microsoft's recent announcement their own updates have broken their own system [slashdot.org] combined with no longer supporting W10, this can only lead to good things.

      Yeah, my students are having a hellava time with their shiny new Windows 11 computers shitting the bed. I even switched over to the MacOS build of the software in order to know it works.

      I've never been all that worried about market share or installed user base. More the opposite. I call it the VHS effect. VHS ruled the early camcorder and home recording market. It was also the worst technology among it's peers.

      I guess the main difference is that Linux and MacOS aren't going away.

      • by dbialac ( 320955 )
        VHS won in part because Sony wouldn't license pornographic film. It also won because VHS didn't have licensing fees in the first place.
        • I think VHS won when an executive at Sony said "This is awesome, you can record video onto magnetic tape! The only limit on how much you can record is how long the tape is in the cassette and we are setting the standard so we can make them any physical size we want! Let's design the cassettes to be quite small so that it will be a nightmare to try and extend the capacity later!"

    • >"Even if all 1 million downloads turn into real OS installs, it's a drop in the bucket compared to Windows installs."

      True. But if even if a small number of those people then show someone else and that other person switches, and on, and on, awareness keeps spreading. That is a great thing.

      Generally, I don't care what OS people use (as long as I don't have to support it), but I do care if they are unhappy. Having Linux as an option is really great and works fantastically for a large number of people wi

      • The majority of the people you show it you will download it and do a full nuke-and-pave, then wonder why this new 'Windows' can't run their favorite programs.

        Myself, the licensing stuff doesn't ever bother me... I haven't paid for any software since Diablo II came out (running Win10 Enterprise IoT LTSC on both Win machines). Win11 will never be installed on my end, we'll see what 12 has in store (see if they keep going with the every other version thing).
        But, have fun with LibreOffice and Mint or Zorin or

        • >"The majority of the people you show it you will download it and do a full nuke-and-pave"

          Doubtful. Although it might be a significant minority.

          >"then wonder why this new 'Windows' can't run their favorite programs".

          Like a browser? Because for a huge chunk of home users, that is all they really use now.

  • by hwstar ( 35834 ) on Saturday November 22, 2025 @12:56PM (#65812203)

    As the enshittification continues, more and more people will consider dumping Windows for something else.

    Microsoft probably doesn't care much about home users. A milloin users leaving windows for Linux, so what? What they will care about is their enterprise users jumping ship.

    The other thing to watch out for is open privacy-protecting web browsers getting shut out from major web sites. At some point these web sites won't support browsers with small market shares as it isn't worth the time and effort to support them. I think this will become a major issue in the next 2-3 years. You'll have to use Edge or Chrome to access important web sites for things like tax preparation, paying property taxes, car registration, and social security. So some form of "Sandboxing" might be required to run these privacy-abusing web browsers in there own padded cell.

    • by Iamthecheese ( 1264298 ) on Saturday November 22, 2025 @01:01PM (#65812219)
      It's not really about those home licenses. The thing is, the higher the percentage of home users the easier it is to build a Linux shop, the more people have a cousin who can tell them how to fix their computer, the more IT support companies have a Linux guy. It's a network effect.
    • Isn't the web supposed to be vendor neutral as long as the sites follow the HTML standards?

    • As the enshittification continues, more and more people will consider dumping Windows for something else.

      The vast majority of people don't see Windows as enshittified. That's something more unique to the minority of technical people.

      Tech people: "WTF can't I install a local account anymore. ENSHITIFICATION!"
      Normal people: "Oh look my documents folder is automatically backed up by the cloud!"

  • I've downloaded Linux many times in my career. Sometimes it was at work on corporate pcs, sometimes it was to fire up VMs, other times it was to make installation media to build servers at home. Every single time since the mid nineties I've completed the downloads on Windows boxes. I don't think I've ever downloaded Linux using Linux.

    That 2% recently becoming 3% is a far more honest measure. You can conclude bugger all from this observation.

    • I usually download Linux on my Raspberry Pi and install it on a new x86-64 laptop. The RPi is my random tasks computer that is hooked up to one of the ports on my living room TV. The RPi comes in handy because it has some I/O ports I can use to hook up experiments. And I have some emulators installed. And I have a wacky arcade joystick hacked together and plugged into it.

      If I were to install Windows today, I'd have to download the disk images from Microsoft using Firefox on a Linux computer. I think theoret

    • by dbialac ( 320955 )
      I mean come on. Linux will be ready for the desktop in 2 years. /s
  • by Anonymous Coward

    I was soarin
    on zorin
    But life without Windows
    was borin
    I went back to
    whorin
    went on tirade
    got an upgrade
    windows 11 might be my grave

  • One of the deciding factors for loading Linux Mint or reinstalling Windows 11 on my niece's first computer, will be Middle Click Paste.

    It will only confuse her, esp given how some laptops have a middle button on the trackpad and I worry about her ability to regulate her pressure on the scroll wheel.

    I haven't found a simple way to turn it off entirely, even the option on the DE doesn't change the applications, as it's per application changes. I could disable the middle button entirely in the command line, bu

    • I'd upvote if I had mod points. Not being able to middle click paste is absolute garbage especially on laptops where middle click is on the same surface as left/right click as you describe.
    • A trackpad with a middle button and a scroll wheel? What kind of beast did you Frankenstein together?

      • by DeAxes ( 522822 )

        A Thinkpad T440 with a USB Mouse connected.
        The Thinkpad has a middle button on the touchpad, which is hard to tell until you encounter Middle Click Paste.

  • I played with Zorin a few years back and ultimately went with Mint. Not because I didn't like Zorin but because I couldn't fully test it in a VM. I could not get Zorin to play nice in VirtualBox (graphics and drop down list issues) but Mint worked flawlessly. Given its new popularity I think I'll give it another try.

  • I've been a heavy user of Microsoft Windows and its applications since MS-DOS, including Windows 3.0, 3.1, 3.11, 95, 98, 2000, XP, Vista and 7. They met my needs, and were required by my employer. I would still use Windows but (1) I retired and (2) MS screwed me too many times.
    This began with Vista which would BSOD crash very often and for years. Windows 7 was fine but then MS decided to drop the Sidebar feature which is important for me. Microsoft also changed the Windows Updater such that my system would

    • by Bumbul ( 7920730 )

      The only Windows application I use heavily on Windows 7 but cannot get for Linux is "Everything". It's an amazing app, but tied to the implementation of NTFS.

      What are you using on Linux for file search? Have you tried FSearch, how does it compare to Everything? https://cboxdoerfer.github.io/... [github.io]

      • Good questions. I've used FSearch on Linux occasionaly. Nearly all my saved files are still on Windows 7.
        FSearch and Everything feature excellent file searching: very fast, excellent search parameters, flexible "datebase" control.
        Where Everything excels is in integration with the Windows file manager. The output from Everything is essentially another window. You can copy/move, delete and rename the files directly. Changes are seen immediately in other open windows. These abilities are very valuable to me.
        (B

  • If not, then it's going to remain a niche thing like the HUNDREDS of active linux distros.

    Don't get me wrong, for certain things, particularly things that have a person of high computer-literacy to maintain it, some linux is probably great.

    OTOH most people and businesses want their computers to serve as tools, not necessarily their "hobby" to constantly futz with. They don't really give much of a shit how much of their meaningless daily work is hoovered up by MS.

    • And when I say RUN I mean "run natively" not in a shell of a shell of a virtual machine or whatever.

      • I do want to see someone run Vegas using WINE... bet all of it's drivers won't play nice in a non-Windows environment.

        Really, though... is there a real reason that you can't just install Office 2016 in Linux and have it work? Does Linux just not understand the code that the installer is written in? or, is It truly that it can't make heads or tails of a DLL?
        Is it just that nobody wants to piss off MS by including a native method of running Windows (or, for that matter, MacOS) programs in Linux?

        • by mz721 ( 9598430 )

          Or is it that Microsoft is notorious for not following published standards, even when they say they have, and that heaps of people have devoted a lot of time to try to get Win stuff to run on Linux despite Microsoft's unhelpful attitude? I think a lot of Linux users and devs would be more than happy to piss of MS, but the pissing off is usually running the other way. If MS was ready to collaborate on making its stuff runnable on wine (Linux), the problem would be solved. The problem is Microsoft, not Linux.

          • Note: argStyopa was the one who said "run natively". I just mentioned running Vegas in WINE, because it'd be funny watching absolutely nothing work at all or work right because the program uses a ton of DLLs and stuff to do every single thing in the program.

            So, not even caring about MS collaborating... there is absolutely 0 (zero) way to write something that just like runs all the time and just lets you run Windows stuff the way it works natively when run in Windows _without_ having to rely on WINE or a VM

    • by allo ( 1728082 )

      You overestimate how many Windows programs are needed for using Linux. For many users its about 0.

  • After a 20+ year career of supporting Windows, starting with 3.11 in 1990, and ending during the XP to Win7 migration at my last company, when I retired in 2010, I decided I was done with using Windows on my personal systems. Since I became aquainted with Linux around 1995, it was now my go-to OS. After seeing the "shit-show" that Windows has become, since Win7, I couldn't be happier with my choice of switching to Linux. Oh I still have some specialized software that Wine does not run, so I have a heavily c

  • Where's the OneDrive functionality? I installed Zorin OS and have yet to find OneDrive as an app or a plugin of the Files app.

  • Well, it's another Linux distro. I would be concerned about the default browser. Still, I'm sticking to Mint for now, though we Linux users are fickle lot.
    • I felt the same. I am glad people are trying Linux, but I see nothing special about Zorin.
      I suppose it looks like windows, and it was marketed well.
      IMO: MX Linux looks more promising.

  • looks like 2026 will be the year of linux on the desktop.

There is no opinion so absurd that some philosopher will not express it. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero, "Ad familiares"

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