A lot of excitement about the latest release of Zorin OS, a version of Linux that is one of the most user-friendly and best looking around. Very popular with Linux newbies and people switching from Windows. It’s fast and ideal for reviving an ageing PC or laptop. I’ll be upgrading some of my Zorin 17 laptops today.
The Education version is stuffed full of apps for kids and students of all ages, and can even be used in the classroom by teachers. It has great parental controls, ideal for a family PC and kids’ laptops.
There is also a paid Pro version that comes with support and pre-installed alternatives to all the popular work tools. (It is entirely possible to build this up yourself from the free version of course)
The video link below presents a quick summary of the whole End of 10 thing and then shows how to install Zorin 18 alongside Win10 so that you can try it out yourself.
Zorin 16 was my distro of choice for my attempted switch to Linux a while back because it seemed a little less daunting than some, had good native trackpad support (I don’t like using a mouse, so this was important for me) and a decent UI. Back then I spent a entire weekend repeatedly failing to install it on my Macbook (I wasn’t able to work out why the installation process got stuck each time), which discouraged me from actually giving it a proper go.
But maybe Repair Day and the release of Zorin 18 is a good nudge to give it another try!
I’ve just installed it on a 2012 Macbook Pro Retina and everything is working out-of-the-box, including Wi-Fi and camera. It’s sitting next to Mint 22.2.
Also installed on a 2012 Toshiba Portege, again all working without any mucking about.
I’m looking forward to upgrading but didn’t think it was possible just yet.
I know I could do a new install side-by-side but don’t really have the space for another installation on the machine I’d use for this which already has four OSes installed.
