Learn how to – Zorin OS Review.

Introduction to Zorin OS

What I love about the Linux Community is the relentlessness they exhibit in coming up with distributions that fit or serve a particular kind of people. The community is geared at making sure everyone enjoys the flexibility, the freedom and the awesomeness that Linux provides out of the box.

Related: Best Linux Desktop Distributions to try

Zorin OS is no different because of the unique attributes it has. First and foremost, it is a Linux distribution based on Ubuntu. With the parent purring behind the scene, the distribution is developed with one thing in mind. And that is to be beginner friendly and hence giving the people who are migrating from windows good time and stress free transition.

To make it even better, it includes WINE which makes it possible for Windows applications to be installed out of the box. This will really make it easy for you if you would like to settle fast on Linux without much experience of how to find your way around. What is more, if you feel uncomfortable with the applications that are provided, you can install the ones that you are used to from windows. This sounds fascinating right?

What is new in Zorin OS 16.1?

There are two versions available in the latest release. There are Pro, Core and Lite editions.

The development team decided to make one commercial and another one free. The Core one is available for free download and comes with a lot of open source applications out of the box. It includes windows compatibility plus Windows-like themes.

The Pro one is available at a fee and ships with technical support, better features such as game, better layouts of the desktop and total support. See detailed comparison in the image below.

Installation of Zorin OS?

Like its parent, the Ubiquity system installer is also used by Zorin for installation purposes. It is an easy to use graphical application and takes you through without much fuss. The partition manager is awesome and the navigation has been really simplified. You will certainly be done within a few minutes. The following are the following file systems: Btrfs, ZFS, JFS, LVM volumes, ext2, ext3, and ext4.

Zorin OS Applications

There are a lot of applications available on the go. And to stick with the idea of making it easy for new users the following useful applications are available after installation:

The Chromium web browser, Empathy messaging software, Geary e-mail client and for the ones who need office apps immediately then LibreOffice is available.

Apart from those, there is a calendar application, an address book, GNU Image Manipulation Program, scanner utility and the Brasero disc burning software.

Under multimedia apps, there is the Rhythmbox audio player, Cheese webcam manager, the PiTiVi video editor application, and the Videos (Totem) video player.

A good thing about Zorin OS is that it there is an option to install the media codecs during installation. I urge you to install them if you have music and videos you would wish to enjoy immediately. After that, you will be able to play all media perfectly.

There are other obscure applications such as an archive manager, an app for managing third-party drivers and a utility for performing backups. As it had already been mentioned, WINE comes pre-installed together with PlayOnLinux utility which makes it easy for users to install and use Windows applications.

We cannot forget the network manager and the GNU Compiler Collection, systemd 229 and version 4.4.0 of the Linux kernel working tirelessly in the background.

Software management

There is a graphical utility that Zorin ships with to manage Software known Software Updater. It allows software to be updated in a simple fashion. You can always use the terminal to do the updates as well for those who would wish to get into real Linux business.

If the two methods do not seem amazing, you can always launch the GNOME Software center where you can install available software, update the ones that need updates and even uninstall the ones you want to remove from your system.

All of the methods work well and it is a good move that they provided the three ways so that everyone is accommodated and to make software availability high ranking.

Zorin OS Cons?

There were a few issues encountered especially when Zorin was running in the VirtualBox environment. There were instances when mouse clicks were not being processed anymore and hence there was no response on the desktop when icons or anything were clicked. The keyboard behaved in a similar ways as well. A work out for this is to issue a soft reset and everything came back to normal.

Conclusions 

While there is much to say about Zorin OS, what strikes me most about its development is how they make it their primary agenda to accommodate new users into Linux.

It is true that most people would wish to migrate to Linux but they usually stumble into problems of complexity especially if the new environment is completely different from what they are used to.

By giving users a smooth transition without compromising on the Linux philosophy, then I guess ZorinOS will be embraced by many. It is a distribution that is easy to use, has many applications and hence quite like-able. Check out their cool website for more stuff.. https://zorinos.com/