Zorin OS -- MS WIndows Killer

There have been several Linux distro releases in the past that claim to offer a MS Windows-like experience to woo new users to Linux, such as Corel Linux, Xandros Desktop, and Linspire/Lindows. These failed mostly because the commercial companies attempted to modify Linux enough to lock the users into their own walled garden. Interestingly, all these distros were based on Debian. A successful Debian-based distro is Canonical's Ubuntu. It doesn't attempt to strong-arm users into its walled garden, but does offer a few special things and a rich user and support environment. It's popularity is well-earned and spurred by its marketing.

Zorin OS 18 is the latest entry into the fray and is a Ubuntu-based distribution, many calls it a "fork" since the UI is customized to mimic MS Windows. They do offer a free download ISO, so I attempted to install that in a VirtualBox VM. It hung up on my first attempt; problems with some LibreOffice packages, so I opted to NOT install updated packages while installing Zorin. The second time seems to be a charm, but it is taking forever installing language packs for LibreOffice -- what a waste of my time. It's almost midnight. I'll check in the morning.

It took an hour and a half!

CONCLUSION

I don't see any need for a knock-off of Ubuntu, especially when Ubuntu is more polished and useful. Sorry Zorin.

RESOURCES

Install the Package Manager, gdebi.

Comments

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