11 ms·

Zorin OS 16

102 points by oedmarap 5y ago

outside1234 5y ago
Is this Linux under the hood?
- thih9 5y ago
  Yes. > Zorin OS is a personal computer operating system designed and promoted for users new to Linux-based computers. (...) The new editions continue to use the Ubuntu-based Linux kernel and GNOME or XFCE interface. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zorin_OS https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zorin_OS
- theamk 5y ago
  This is an Ubuntu with extra packages. I thunk here is a repo with all the extra packages that this OS variant has: https://launchpad.net/~zorinos/+archive/ubuntu/stable https://launchpad.net/~zorinos/+archive/ubuntu/stable
  - Flex247A 5y ago
    Yeah, I didn't want to install Ubuntu then because it looked ugly. Zorin and Elementary were really appealing to me then.
  - fouuler 5y ago
    Why isn't this just a desktop environment?
    - npteljes 5y ago
      For the out of the box experience, I'd think.
Flex247A 5y ago
I really like it, especially the Inter font, which I think is much better than Cantarell. I hope the GNOME team decides to switch to it. I remember installing Zorin back in 2016 after watching an ExplainingComputers video on it. Brings back the memories ...
- ruph123 5y ago
  Can you not just change it yourself in Gnome Tweaks? Which font is it they are using?
  - Flex247A 5y ago
    But the GDM font remains the same
    - compressedgas 5y ago
      That has to be changed in the GDM theme. Look in /usr/share/gdm/themes . Find the XML greeter file for the theme you are using, make a backup, and edit the font attributes.
      - Flex247A 5y ago
        Thank you!
- rubyist5eva 5y ago
  Inter is very nice, but personally I’ve taken to Iosevka Aile and it’s what I’m using on my own workstation for UI don’t (along with Iosevka Mono for code).
Timothycquinn 5y ago
Give me ZFS option in the installer, I will give it a go. Presently om Ubuntu because it has the best desktop experience with excellent ZFS support out of the box.
- skrebbel 5y ago
  Curious, why does the filesystem matter for desktop usage? (I ask out of ignorance, not pedantry - I'm on Windows which only allows one filesystem choice and I've never felt limited by that)
  - pacoverdi 5y ago
    > I'm on Windows which only allows one filesystem choice and I've never felt limited by that I'm on Windows too (because professional constraints and bad hidpi support on Linux) after 25+ years on Linux. I cry everyday because of poor filesystem performance. Don't know if it's due to NTFS, to Windows, or antivirus stuff (Defender which is disabled most of the time). Git operations in particular are very slow. Any filesystem on a Linux box would feel 10 times faster :(
    - skrebbel 5y ago
      That's not an argument for swappable filesystems as much as for Microsoft to get their shit together :-) But yeah, competition could do that so point taken. Ps. An article made the rounds on HN the other day (can't find it back) that was rather confidently suggesting that it's Defender running in every CloseHandle system call. But it's all an obtuse black box so super hard to actually find out what's going on.
      - kryptiskt 5y ago
        To be pedantic, Windows already supports other filesystems, it's just a feature rarely used for the main disk (network filesystems and FAT memory cards are ubiquitous, of course). And for those who wants a to live dangerously, there is even a port of ZFS: https://github.com/openzfsonwindows/ZFSin https://github.com/openzfsonwindows/ZFSin
jaytaylor 5y ago
It looks beautiful, but I don't want flatpack anything.
- RachelF 5y ago
  Unlike most Linux distro's, the "ultimate edition" is not free.
  - 2Gkashmiri 5y ago
    Yeah... last I read up, they kinda sell you KDE connect at a price. yeah . zorin connect... i find that..... uh
    - nerdponx 5y ago
      I find it great, by all means let me pay for something if it means you can use my money to maintain and improve the thing.
      - e3bc54b2 5y ago
        I would support it too, but I'm not sure they contribute anything back upstream.
- viraptor 5y ago
  You don't have to use it. It doesn't look like anything comes from Flatpak by default.
- lokedhs 5y ago
  Flatpak is the only practical approach to achieve some degree of isolation on Linux today, unless you are willing to go with Qubes OS. And yes, I know Flatpak has some way to go before it actually reaches that goal, but I don't see any other solution to this problem that Linux users in general seem to be happy just pretending doesn't exist. If not Flatpak, do you have an alternative approach to propose to regular users who just want to be able to run a random application without worrying that it has access to all your information?
throwawaysea 5y ago
Wow this looks beautiful. They have more details on why they charge for certain versions and what their overall goals are like at https://zorinos.com/download/why-pay/ https://zorinos.com/download/why-pay/ My one question is how security is upheld in what seems like a project maintained by a small number of people.
- g_p 5y ago
  > My one question is how security is upheld in what seems like a project maintained by a small number of people. This is a really good question, and one that needs to be asked more. When it comes to distributions, small ones seem to either tend to blindly track their upstream (say Debian or Ubuntu), and add a few custom packages over the top, or go it alone completely, and have to manage all their own distribution and building. The latter really needs a lot of time spent dealing with CVEs. When a backport of a patch is needed (for a non rolling release distribution), that's effort that smaller distributions can struggle with. I can't find it just now, but I've seen a table comparing different Linux distributions, and their time in days to ship to users a patch for given vulnerabilities. Some of the bigger distributions were certainly not the best. In terms of security around software supply chains, reproducible builds are one possible way to do that. Nothing (or almost nothing) is going to stop a rogue developer in the team from adding a malicious patch though.
squid_demon 5y ago
"Undoubtedly the most groundbreaking and revolutionary feature we’ve ever included, Jelly Mode". I seriously thought this was a joke. But after seeing the animation I was completely blown away! This is going to change how we interact with computers without a doubt. Wow.
- rzzzt 5y ago
  It did change it, about 15 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compiz#Beryl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compiz#Beryl
- Deukhoofd 5y ago
  KDE has had "Wobbly Windows" in their desktop effects settings for some time, with pretty much the same animation. It gets old quick.
nt2h9uh238h 5y ago
Design is still massively under-appreciated. Airbnb, Airtable and Coinbase and Stripe massively succeeded, because of Design. And Zorin OS 16 is on the right track, but still: hire an excellent Designer to review the entire system again. Check margins, Branding, consistency of the entire system, and more. Design makes all the difference and creates real business (and user experience) value.
- nt2h9uh238h 5y ago
  and: please kick sourceforge.net, that download page is incredibly ugly and destroys the "quality aura" you built up on your own website.
- mraza007 5y ago
  I totally agree with your comment. I think design is one of the reasons Linux Hasn’t been able to take over the desktops despite offering so many distros to choose from.
- montroser 5y ago
  ElementaryOS is the best at this I've seen, as far as Linux distros. They have their own desktop environment, pantheon, which a designer has obviously laboured over. Use Inter as a UI font, disable all font hinting, and you have visual aesthetics and usability that is better than Windows, and in striking distance to macOS.
- outime 5y ago
  Totally agree. I don’t understand why so many programmers insist on designing stuff themselves. Except few exceptions we all suck at that (but then I admire people who are good at both).
  - benttoothpaste 5y ago
    Insist? While it is easy to find programmers to contribute to a community project for free, designers expect to be paid. Not everyone has enough spare cash to pay a professional designer. So they do the design themselves to the best of their ability.
iforgotpassword 5y ago
I know linux always had the problem of being unappealing to normal people, so I guess it's good folks are trying to make pretty websites for their distros, working on pretty and consistent themes, sane defaults, layman terms etc. But does that mean you have to completely hide any technical information from your website? It maybe I'm just too dumb to find it? What distro is that based on? Indirectly mentioned by saying the Ubuntu apt repo is available. What's the DE based on? You certainly didn't create a new one. It looks like a reskinned KDE to me. You mention how fast it is, and that the new release has been optimized for performance. How? Did you fork KDE, the kernel, or apply some clever configurations, or did you get that performance for free because upstream just optimized their code? How is this different from installing Ubuntu and adding flatpack and your KDE theme? Again, first impression is this is a great distro for my mom et al., but for a HN submission I ended up with more questions than answers.
- HKH2 5y ago
  I think it's for Windows converts. By keeping things similar, like the start menu position, it makes things more welcoming.
- sunsipples 5y ago
  It doesn't answer any real questions but for someone new coming to linux who has read zorin is a good starter for windows users... front page has a large blue download zorin os button it. click it, default to ultimate version and a blue download/buy zorin ultimate. feels like the website was created by marketing department or a used car salesman.
- luke2m 5y ago
  Zorin was my first distro (on Arch now), and it was a choice of Gnome or Xfce (both skinned to look the same). Aside from a few applications by Zorin, and many preinstalled, the theming and easy layout changing is the primary difference from Ubuntu I think.
- linsomniac 5y ago
  I believe the feature table lists Xfce for the light version and Gnome for the other. https://zorinos.com/ultimate/ https://zorinos.com/ultimate/
cyberlab 5y ago
Does anyone know why the Ultimate version found here: https://zorinos.com/ultimate/ https://zorinos.com/ultimate/ is on version 15 and not the new 16 version? Because I want Zorin to take my money for building such a great OS
- luke2m 5y ago
  16 is still a beta, according to the link.
dxxvi 5y ago
Is it possible to put the cpu, memory usage, network speed (both in and out) in the bottom panel? It'll be great if the cpu&memory usage color can be customized, e.g. green if < threshold1, orange if from threshold1 to threshold2 and red if > threshold 2. Similar customization for the battery level.
f4stjack 5y ago
Just installed Zorin's lite version to an Aspire One with Atom CPU and 1gb of ram. Works like a dream for a machine that's ancient for our standards. Some aspire specific tweaks were required but all in all replacing the mechanical disk with a SSD made it live again. The fact that it looks very similar to Windows makes it usable for non-Linux people. So seeing on HN was a shock to me. Recommended for old hardware nonetheless!
8bitsrule 5y ago
>Your feedback will allow us to improve Zorin OS 16 even further Damn, that's bright! Is there a dark mode?

Zorin OS 16

102 points by oedmarap 5y ago

outside1234 5y ago

Is this Linux under the hood?

thih9 5y ago
Yes. > Zorin OS is a personal computer operating system designed and promoted for users new to Linux-based computers. (...) The new editions continue to use the Ubuntu-based Linux kernel and GNOME or XFCE interface. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zorin_OS https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zorin_OS
theamk 5y ago
This is an Ubuntu with extra packages. I thunk here is a repo with all the extra packages that this OS variant has: https://launchpad.net/~zorinos/+archive/ubuntu/stable https://launchpad.net/~zorinos/+archive/ubuntu/stable
- Flex247A 5y ago
  Yeah, I didn't want to install Ubuntu then because it looked ugly. Zorin and Elementary were really appealing to me then.
- fouuler 5y ago
  Why isn't this just a desktop environment?
  - npteljes 5y ago
    For the out of the box experience, I'd think.

Flex247A 5y ago

I really like it, especially the Inter font, which I think is much better than Cantarell. I hope the GNOME team decides to switch to it. I remember installing Zorin back in 2016 after watching an ExplainingComputers video on it. Brings back the memories ...

ruph123 5y ago
Can you not just change it yourself in Gnome Tweaks? Which font is it they are using?
- Flex247A 5y ago
  But the GDM font remains the same
  - compressedgas 5y ago
    That has to be changed in the GDM theme. Look in /usr/share/gdm/themes . Find the XML greeter file for the theme you are using, make a backup, and edit the font attributes.
    - Flex247A 5y ago
      Thank you!
rubyist5eva 5y ago
Inter is very nice, but personally I’ve taken to Iosevka Aile and it’s what I’m using on my own workstation for UI don’t (along with Iosevka Mono for code).

Timothycquinn 5y ago

Give me ZFS option in the installer, I will give it a go. Presently om Ubuntu because it has the best desktop experience with excellent ZFS support out of the box.

skrebbel 5y ago
Curious, why does the filesystem matter for desktop usage? (I ask out of ignorance, not pedantry - I'm on Windows which only allows one filesystem choice and I've never felt limited by that)
- pacoverdi 5y ago
  > I'm on Windows which only allows one filesystem choice and I've never felt limited by that I'm on Windows too (because professional constraints and bad hidpi support on Linux) after 25+ years on Linux. I cry everyday because of poor filesystem performance. Don't know if it's due to NTFS, to Windows, or antivirus stuff (Defender which is disabled most of the time). Git operations in particular are very slow. Any filesystem on a Linux box would feel 10 times faster :(
  - skrebbel 5y ago
    That's not an argument for swappable filesystems as much as for Microsoft to get their shit together :-) But yeah, competition could do that so point taken. Ps. An article made the rounds on HN the other day (can't find it back) that was rather confidently suggesting that it's Defender running in every CloseHandle system call. But it's all an obtuse black box so super hard to actually find out what's going on.
    - kryptiskt 5y ago
      To be pedantic, Windows already supports other filesystems, it's just a feature rarely used for the main disk (network filesystems and FAT memory cards are ubiquitous, of course). And for those who wants a to live dangerously, there is even a port of ZFS: https://github.com/openzfsonwindows/ZFSin https://github.com/openzfsonwindows/ZFSin

jaytaylor 5y ago

It looks beautiful, but I don't want flatpack anything.

RachelF 5y ago
Unlike most Linux distro's, the "ultimate edition" is not free.
- 2Gkashmiri 5y ago
  Yeah... last I read up, they kinda sell you KDE connect at a price. yeah . zorin connect... i find that..... uh
  - nerdponx 5y ago
    I find it great, by all means let me pay for something if it means you can use my money to maintain and improve the thing.
    - e3bc54b2 5y ago
      I would support it too, but I'm not sure they contribute anything back upstream.
viraptor 5y ago
You don't have to use it. It doesn't look like anything comes from Flatpak by default.
lokedhs 5y ago
Flatpak is the only practical approach to achieve some degree of isolation on Linux today, unless you are willing to go with Qubes OS. And yes, I know Flatpak has some way to go before it actually reaches that goal, but I don't see any other solution to this problem that Linux users in general seem to be happy just pretending doesn't exist. If not Flatpak, do you have an alternative approach to propose to regular users who just want to be able to run a random application without worrying that it has access to all your information?

throwawaysea 5y ago

Wow this looks beautiful. They have more details on why they charge for certain versions and what their overall goals are like at https://zorinos.com/download/why-pay/ https://zorinos.com/download/why-pay/ My one question is how security is upheld in what seems like a project maintained by a small number of people.

g_p 5y ago
> My one question is how security is upheld in what seems like a project maintained by a small number of people. This is a really good question, and one that needs to be asked more. When it comes to distributions, small ones seem to either tend to blindly track their upstream (say Debian or Ubuntu), and add a few custom packages over the top, or go it alone completely, and have to manage all their own distribution and building. The latter really needs a lot of time spent dealing with CVEs. When a backport of a patch is needed (for a non rolling release distribution), that's effort that smaller distributions can struggle with. I can't find it just now, but I've seen a table comparing different Linux distributions, and their time in days to ship to users a patch for given vulnerabilities. Some of the bigger distributions were certainly not the best. In terms of security around software supply chains, reproducible builds are one possible way to do that. Nothing (or almost nothing) is going to stop a rogue developer in the team from adding a malicious patch though.

squid_demon 5y ago

"Undoubtedly the most groundbreaking and revolutionary feature we’ve ever included, Jelly Mode". I seriously thought this was a joke. But after seeing the animation I was completely blown away! This is going to change how we interact with computers without a doubt. Wow.

rzzzt 5y ago
It did change it, about 15 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compiz#Beryl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compiz#Beryl
Deukhoofd 5y ago
KDE has had "Wobbly Windows" in their desktop effects settings for some time, with pretty much the same animation. It gets old quick.

nt2h9uh238h 5y ago

Design is still massively under-appreciated. Airbnb, Airtable and Coinbase and Stripe massively succeeded, because of Design. And Zorin OS 16 is on the right track, but still: hire an excellent Designer to review the entire system again. Check margins, Branding, consistency of the entire system, and more. Design makes all the difference and creates real business (and user experience) value.

nt2h9uh238h 5y ago
and: please kick sourceforge.net, that download page is incredibly ugly and destroys the "quality aura" you built up on your own website.
mraza007 5y ago
I totally agree with your comment. I think design is one of the reasons Linux Hasn’t been able to take over the desktops despite offering so many distros to choose from.
montroser 5y ago
ElementaryOS is the best at this I've seen, as far as Linux distros. They have their own desktop environment, pantheon, which a designer has obviously laboured over. Use Inter as a UI font, disable all font hinting, and you have visual aesthetics and usability that is better than Windows, and in striking distance to macOS.
outime 5y ago
Totally agree. I don’t understand why so many programmers insist on designing stuff themselves. Except few exceptions we all suck at that (but then I admire people who are good at both).
- benttoothpaste 5y ago
  Insist? While it is easy to find programmers to contribute to a community project for free, designers expect to be paid. Not everyone has enough spare cash to pay a professional designer. So they do the design themselves to the best of their ability.

iforgotpassword 5y ago

I know linux always had the problem of being unappealing to normal people, so I guess it's good folks are trying to make pretty websites for their distros, working on pretty and consistent themes, sane defaults, layman terms etc. But does that mean you have to completely hide any technical information from your website? It maybe I'm just too dumb to find it? What distro is that based on? Indirectly mentioned by saying the Ubuntu apt repo is available. What's the DE based on? You certainly didn't create a new one. It looks like a reskinned KDE to me. You mention how fast it is, and that the new release has been optimized for performance. How? Did you fork KDE, the kernel, or apply some clever configurations, or did you get that performance for free because upstream just optimized their code? How is this different from installing Ubuntu and adding flatpack and your KDE theme? Again, first impression is this is a great distro for my mom et al., but for a HN submission I ended up with more questions than answers.

HKH2 5y ago
I think it's for Windows converts. By keeping things similar, like the start menu position, it makes things more welcoming.
sunsipples 5y ago
It doesn't answer any real questions but for someone new coming to linux who has read zorin is a good starter for windows users... front page has a large blue download zorin os button it. click it, default to ultimate version and a blue download/buy zorin ultimate. feels like the website was created by marketing department or a used car salesman.
luke2m 5y ago
Zorin was my first distro (on Arch now), and it was a choice of Gnome or Xfce (both skinned to look the same). Aside from a few applications by Zorin, and many preinstalled, the theming and easy layout changing is the primary difference from Ubuntu I think.
linsomniac 5y ago
I believe the feature table lists Xfce for the light version and Gnome for the other. https://zorinos.com/ultimate/ https://zorinos.com/ultimate/

cyberlab 5y ago

Does anyone know why the Ultimate version found here: https://zorinos.com/ultimate/ https://zorinos.com/ultimate/ is on version 15 and not the new 16 version? Because I want Zorin to take my money for building such a great OS

luke2m 5y ago
16 is still a beta, according to the link.

dxxvi 5y ago

Is it possible to put the cpu, memory usage, network speed (both in and out) in the bottom panel? It'll be great if the cpu&memory usage color can be customized, e.g. green if < threshold1, orange if from threshold1 to threshold2 and red if > threshold 2. Similar customization for the battery level.

f4stjack 5y ago

Just installed Zorin's lite version to an Aspire One with Atom CPU and 1gb of ram. Works like a dream for a machine that's ancient for our standards. Some aspire specific tweaks were required but all in all replacing the mechanical disk with a SSD made it live again. The fact that it looks very similar to Windows makes it usable for non-Linux people. So seeing on HN was a shock to me. Recommended for old hardware nonetheless!

8bitsrule 5y ago

>Your feedback will allow us to improve Zorin OS 16 even further Damn, that's bright! Is there a dark mode?