That “780,000 Windows users” number is just made up for the title as clickbait.
That number is never mentioned in the original blog post.
All they said is they have a million downloads and “over 78% of these downloads came from Windows”. At no fucking point did they imply that means 780k unique users. There’s no reason to assume that everyone who downloaded the ISO actually went on to install it.
They also want $48 for their Pro version which comes with a “professional-grade creative suite” consisting of… GIMP, Blender, Inkscape, Kdenlive, and… Audacity (?), going off the screenshots they show:
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They’re shamelessly reselling free software as some sort of comprehensive package, and it’s not even their own distro. They’re just piggybacking on Ubuntu.
And their premium support only covers… installation?
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But hey, they support this edition with updates until 2029!
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Of course, pay no attention to the coincidence that the Ubuntu LTS version it’s based on also hits end-of-life around then:
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So I’m not really sure what you’re actually getting out of this purchase besides some extra themes and some really formulaic desktop wallpapers, and a couple proprietary apps. They say they “contribute to upstream Open Source projects” but offer zero evidence; their site doesn’t even have any Github/Gitlab links.
Its rare to see someone with brain in here
Zorin pro was the main reason I never stuck with Zorin OS however while they heavily advertise that the price is for the software. I think the real cost comes with “installation support”.
For many first time users, having support help with an install is a necessity and they will pay for it. See Geek Squad as an excellent example.
Plus having a preconfigured Linux experience is good for these users.
Nice perspective. I had a wtf moment reading they charge for Gimp etc, but I imagine some casual PC users installing linux would rather pays for the convenience than troubleshoots.
I am conflicted about Zorin, they are selling something using free software… but somehow, maybe marketing i am not sure… they are able to get people on Linux that never did before. So you know, seeing people ditching Windows for Linux might be the first step… maybe someone start with Zorin, get comfortable and jump to something else.
Are they getting people onto Linux, or are they absorbing people that would be switching anyway and taking advantage of those users by charging them for something they may not need? Hard to say which it is
Bruh ain’t no way people are choosing Zorin OS over all the available options.
If this is a result of people searching “best windows like distro”, they’re profiting off of a windows theme for GNOME, not even a full DE.
You can achieve the same thing with zero effort on any distro because DEs and themes aren’t tied to a distro.
You can achieve the same thing with zero effort on any distro because DEs and themes aren’t tied to a distro
No, YOU can. But for the average Windows user this is far from “zero effort”. Just the fact that Zorin OS will automatically run Windows executables through wine without the user having to set it up is a huge deal for people coming from Windows who want their PC to “just work” without fiddling around
Yeah except I have never seen anyone actually suggest Zorin OS for this purpose due to its controversial pro edition.
There are other distros that achieve the same thing. My point is that Zorin is making money off of something I could do with zero effort, which implies its not even worth making a pay to use distro when one of the inherent benefits of linux is that its free.
I could understand if Zorin provided some groundbreaking software like Crossover, which for a long time had some serious advantages over wine and proton (yes I know irony that all are based on wine). But as other people have pointed out, most of this OS is just a reskin + preinstalled app combo. Might as well just use Nobara, which GE made in his spare time with some lazy scripts for Fedora.
I think you vastly overestimate the amount of effort most people are willing to expend for things like this.
Zorin uses gnome? I would not have guessed that based on the couple of screenshots I saw.
Contrary to what many people thing, Gnome is extremely modular and customisable. It’s just not really exposed in the base Desktop Environment itself.
You can do literally anything with the extension system. It’s very powerful.
That does however mean that you can easily break things, which is why by default Gnome marks extensions as unsupported when a new Gnome versions come out, until the maintainer adds a text string inside the extension that flags their extension as being validated for the new version.
You can disable the version checks, of course, and just risk it. But usually I find you don’t need to. By the time a new release comes out, the Gnome beta has been available for over a month, and the extensions have already been updated in advance.
I’m far more bothered by them making Brave the built-in default browser, than I am by them charging for themes & tech support.
Charging for themes and tech support seems fine to me. As long as it’s possible to do it yourself.
They need to make money, to continue the development and that seems a good compromise
The themes and tech support are totally fine to charge for (as long as they’re original themes that the zorinOS developers made or contracted someone to make).
Brave browser as default is borderline as bad as just sticking to windows if the point of you getting away from windows is to dodge the shady stuff Microsoft has started doing.
It should be zen, i’m mildly upset I didn’t start using it earlier. Randomly decided to try new browsers and goddamn, it’s all I wanted from workspaces and tabs and I didn’t even know it. I always tried to use workspaces before but hated how it worked.
I also never bothered to check for tab based extensions because some similar ones do exist.
In zen you have your tabs vertically stacked, hated it at first, but I get it now, I actually can keep track of them all, swapping workspaces is easy/quick and doesn’t suspend all tabs when you do it so you can have multiple categories open without them pausing when you swap. Like a seperate space for research, tutorials, etc. Those spaces can have folders and pinned tabs. On top of that you get essential tabs which are always visible as app icons and easily accessible so you can have youtube as an essential tab and easily hop back and forth accessing it from any workspace. My biggest gripe with workspaces before was having to reopen youtube videos when I swapped workspaces becuase they would suspend and not be accessible.
Zen is my favourite software currently. It blows away the competition for me.
Literally everytime I use it, I’m like why didn’t I check before, I was so lost before, Id just give up and close all my tabs. Now I easily keep track of 100s, know where everything is and why they all exist because they are organized and easy to check at a glance. Really easy to load and unload tabs. Almost forgot you can split screen tabs super easily too, it’s my favorite way of using it, don’t need multiple windows.
Ooo firefox-based. I will be trying it out.
I had stopped enjoying browsing the web, but I do now once again
Can’t wait for the “FOSS enables the bad guys to download 2 marijuanas” headlines from MSM.
My cousin downloaded Linux and died from injecting 3 Marijuana’s at once.
It was Arch btw.
Pff, amateurs. I can download 8 marijuanas simultaneously.
I can haz a torrent of marijuanas.
More!! More! Everybody get others into Linux Mint and Pop OS Cosmic as well!! I am doing my part if we want better we must grow the community
Mint and Pop OS really aren’t usable for cutting edge GPU’s tho.
Edit: I’m probably wrong about Pop OS.
That’s simply not true for PopOS
I just figured because it’s based on Ubuntu. My mistake.
It’s based on Ubuntu LTS, that’s true. But Ubuntu backports device drivers to older (LTS) kernel versions, so the performance/hardware support is often similar/the same as using a newer kernel.
I believe they call this backporting of device drivers the “hardware enablement stack”, but I may be misremembering.
PopOS uses this, but Mint I believe is a strange one. You can get a variant of Mint that enables the hardware enablement stack, but I don’t think it’s a feature of standard Mint.
I remember when I started using Linux on my main machine I installed Mint. It was very unstable and had graphical issues even with the correct drivers installed. I switched to Manjaro and things worked great for a while. I have Mint installed on my mom’s laptop and she’s complaining about screen flickering. I’ve had it with maintaining Ubuntu based distros. I always have problems with them. I’m going to install CachyOS on her laptop. I’m the one who updates it anyway so she won’t know the difference. Maybe it’s just bad luck on my part. I never really had any problems with Debian for what it’s worth. Is there a reason why Ubuntu breaks between updates in weird ways? I don’t see this with Arch-based distros. Sorry, this is a lot. I just don’t understand Ubuntu really.
Just installed CachyOS. It just works.
Never going back
Use Cachy for a while. Not a single issue so far. Very good distro for people who want the OS out of the way. The perfect compatibility with Nvidia is a plus!
Yeah I waited till I had a new gpu, got amd.
But yeah, reinstalled all the arr* stuff I had on windows and other services as podman services, got steam, played a few games. Some Linux native. Some Proton.
Transfered all my stuff then formatted my ntfs disks did btrfs
Never felt like anything pushed back on what I wanted. Was silky smooth.
Never once had to even think about if I had drivers for my things, logitech lightning mouse, wireless headset etc
I just installed Linux Mint on my dad’s old laptop. He asked me to do it!
I checked and it could run Windows 11 with a RAM upgrade. But he wasn’t interested in that.
He was surprised at all of the software installed by default. And mostly just uses the browser to read his Outlook mail…
Same dude!
I got games to run too, using Lutris. I can give you a few tips if you want. I put it on a thinkpad T470p.
I can probably run pretty much anything using Lutris. It can read any iso file and presumably even .exe files though I haven’t tried it with exe’s.
Still, most of what we need is available just in a browser or from open source, like Libreoffice.
Thanks for the offer! But I’ve been running Linux only since 2002 or so, currently with Arch on my laptop, because I’m not yet brave enough to try Nyx. 😄
Bruh ok haha
Penguin sounds intensify
Zorin would t be my first choice. But happy to see those numbers.
I’m happy to see people enter as a gateway. Ubuntu has, and still does, serve that purpose as well.
I would use it if Samba sharing actually worked.
Any other recommendations for non tech savvy people coming from windows?
I install Linux Mint on friends’ a family’s.
Someday Microsoft might realize that Windows should be rolling‑based, like CachyOS. By that time, it will be too late for them to catch up and bring everyone back to Windows.
Pretty sure 80% of them are just people distro hopping, we know the Linux community 😂
Maybe, but those 780k users have plenty of good reasons to choose Linux over Windows 11. It’s all about personal preference and what works best for them.
Wasn’t criticizing the switch. I’m all on Linux as well, it’s just that’s it’s probably a misleading number
It’s because you can in Linux.
Just because you can doesn’t mean you should!
There are two things that are keeping me attached to Windows - my PC not supporting Win11, and Photoshop. My god, if anyone can get a copy of Photoshop to work with Linux, I will say goodbye to Microsoft immediately.
(Yes, I’ve tried GIMP, Krita, et al. They didn’t click for me. This is what 24 years of working with Photoshop does to a mf)
I think the affinity suite can run via wine, but that’s the closest you’re going to get you Photoshop on Linux.
There’s still some retraining needed to go from CS to Affinity Suite, but I did it around 5 years ago after 25 years on Adobe and would never go back. And now Affinity 3 is effectively free for basic use. Of course, this is probably the beginning of the end for it as Canva attempts not-a-subscription services on the Affinity platform (making it freemium), but I expect my Affinity 2 suite will still work for years to come.
This may not suit you, but for me and my skills, it’s a perfect Photoshop clone. All in the browser! Blows the doors off Gimp anyway.
My legitimate copy of Photoshop CS6 works flawlessly with wine. But if you run the latest version it’s a different story
Glad to be a statistic
Decade of the Linux Desktop. It’s here guys!
I switched from Windows 10 to Mint. While there is a steep learning curve with basic things like adding an icons to the menu, I’m wishing I made the move earlier. There is a noticeable performance improvement with Stable Diffusion.
