Like the title says, my partner’s laptop was still running Windows 10 and they got infected with a backdoor malware. We’ll need to reset her computer. It’s an Asus Tuf Gaming A15.
She’s been using Windows 10 for as long as she could but support is running out. At her work the computers are on Windows 11 and she hates it. Plus she’s fervently anti-AI and wants none of that forced Copilot bullshit and privacy eroding features of Windows 11. She’s seen me use it for over a year now and I also installed it on our old OG 1st gen MS Surface Pro table and she sees how well it’s going. So now she wants Linux on her laptop.
After careful consideration and comparisons, I’ve decided to go with Zorin OS. I thought of Linux Mint, but it just looks so dated. There are inconistencies in the looks and I feel it lacks some features that I found that Zorin OS has. (It’s essentially Gnome with QoL extras.) My only concern is that Zorin has Snaps out of the box but I don’t think that’s a concern for her. I’ll install it on a BTRFS partition with automatic snapshots and grub-btrfs to recover from snapshots. And I’ll schedule monthly backups of her files through rsync, or whatever the built-in backup tool does, onto an external drive.
I’ve tried Zorin on a VM and it was already outstanding. On the live USB session it was able to detect her NVidia card and recommend either the nouveau or NVidia proprietary driver. Everything worked out of the box. So I’m fairly confident everything will work well. One concern I have is she uses her personal laptop for work, and needs to connect to her work’s Microsoft account. I see there’s an accounts section in the settings where this can be set up, but I’ve never used it, so that’ll be a first. Her work also requires Cisco AnyConnect VPN client. There is a Linux client, but you need a Cisco account to download it, and her work IT department does not support Linux, so I don’t know if she’ll be able to get it. One of the IT people has Linux on his machine and was able to set it up so maybe we’ll rely on him for that part. She’ll also need MS Office which uses a work license. I wonder how that will work on Bottles. We can try with Libre Office but I know the spacing and fonts get all wonky when you open a MS Word document or a Powerpoint presentation. Every other app she uses is open source apps like Gimp, Inkscape, Audacity, etc. And she doesn’t game much, but I know this will work just fine. And the Gnome-Network-Displays will allow her to cast her screen onto our NVidia Shield device for watching movies.
Is there anything else I should be concerned about? Maybe hardware wise? Or anything to so with Snaps that could cause issues?
As somebody who converted to Linux about a yearish ago, I would like to provide some feedback.
Right now, your best options are: Mint (latest version of Cinnamon looks pretty modern in my opinion, if you haven’t looked at it for too long), Fedora (Workstation for GNOME, KDE for Plasma), and maybe one of the -buntus depending on how recent the hardware is. For a first-timer, I would avoid the atomic distros like Bazzite, as they will work fine until there’s a weird issue that is annoying to troubleshoot. It’s very good if you already have Linux installed and are e.g. installing it on a handheld or HTPC but not for a first-timer.
I would let her try in a LiveUSB with GNOME, Cinnamon, and KDE Plasma to see what interface she likes best (screenshots aren’t enough, the interfaces are different enough between them). Use VenToy for this I think, between Mint, Fedora Workstation, and Fedora KDE. Once that is decided, go with one of them.
Tip as somebody who first installed Fedora: make sure to enable proprietary drivers on first boot if you want access to Nvidia drivers + Steam! It’s very important, as otherwise you need to manuakky configure those repositories. I don’t believe this is an issue on Mint though, it’s mostly a Fedora thing.
As for Office, I mostly get around with LibreOffice, but if that doesn’t work, you can try OnlyOffice (but the company is Russian and a little shady, licensing issues, look into it), the web version of MS Office (ew, horrible), Windows in a VM, or dual-booting Windows (quite difficult to set up since MS does not play nice).
Linux Mint with kde-standard is my go to.
You get the stability of Mint, no snaps, and the customisability of KDE.
Ooooh interesting.
Oh but I looked it up as I was typing this and the latest Mint is still on KDE Plasma 5 when the latest is 6. Even Debian 26.04 has KDE Plasma 6 now. Mint 23 is coming out in December.
I’ll need to update before then as 25.10 will hit end of life this month.
In any case, I’ll keep that in mind.
One concern I have is she uses her personal laptop for work.
I will never agree to use my personal laptop for work. When I finish work, I hide my work laptop under the sofa so that I don’t think about it. I need to physically separate work and my personal life.
If, for any reason, she cannot get a work laptop, I would not recommend installing a Linux distro because her livelihood depends on it.
She’s mostly editing excel sheets, word documents, powerpoint presentations, using outlook, and maybe Zoom and Teams for chat & meetings. It’s not worth it.
It also means more techno junk that’ll end up in landfills, too.
She doesn’t mind honestly.
My work tried to make me use my personal GrapheneOS phone for work. Unfortunately some things did not work. When they tried to fix it I said “look, your stuff doesn’t work on my phone, if you want me to have a specific phone with specific software, you can send me one, but this one is mine” and so they did.
Although in this day and age I think it’s plausible to say “I don’t own a computer”.
LOL!
I had 2 smartphones for one job and I hated it. Had to carry 2 devices everywhere. What a pain in the butt that was. Now you can have a separate work profile that you can shut off at a press of a button which is great.
I don’t carry 2 devices because I don’t take it home with me. And I don’t have to have corporate spyware on my personal device. No need to cycle profiles.
I never understand the thought process of giving a Linux newcomer some niche Ubuntu derivative.
Just go with Bazzite desktop. Pretty popular and should something go wrong, there is fairly up to date information out there, so no forum posts from 15 years ago with shell commands that at best don’t work and at worst break stuff.
One concern I have is she uses her personal laptop for work
Employer needs to provide a new notebook.
No. Bazzite is a gaming-focused RedHat based atomic distro. She doesn’t want a Steam machine. She wants a workstation. One that she will understand how it works without having to explain to her what the fuck an atomic OS and containerization is. It’s a terrible choice for her.
Zorin OS is far from being a niche Ubuntu derivative. I don’t know where you got that idea. Drauger OS is a niche derivative. Ubuntu Budgie is a niche derivative. But Zorin OS is a solid competitor to Linux Mint and is one of the fastest growing distros in terms of users. I don’t consider that a niche distro at all.
Heck Bazzite is as niche a distro as it can get. It targets very specific users with very specific purposes with a very specific non-standard way of doing things. C’mon man.
Bazzite might be fine for YOUR specific needs. But you should consider that different people have different needs.
How is Zorin a “niche Ubuntu derivative” and Bazzite is not a “niche Fedora derivative”? Bazzite is way more niche and way more derivative and most Fedora commands won’t work on it.
Meanwhile any troubleshooting that works on Ubuntu (probably the most popular Linux distro?), Mint, Debian, etc. will all work on Zorin.
Bazzite is way more niche
Well, ackchyually...
If this is used to mean “less popular”, then I’d like to (gently) push back on that.
Sure; we’ve all seen the reports of Zorin OS being downloaded millions of times since last year’s release. I’m glad to hear they’re doing good.
However, downloads =/= unique downloads =/= retention =/= actual usage =/= community. As telemetry is a no-go on most distros, we’ve got to look elsewhere for our comparison…
I’ll spare you the details, but across the many metrics found below, -if anything- I’d ultimately suggest that Bazzite is more popular than Zorin OS.
Metrics looked at:
- Google Trends (including web search and YouTube search)
- GitHub
- Steam Survey
- ProtonDB
- Respective subreddits
- Discord
- Discourse/forum on own website. (This is actually the only one in which Zorin OS did better.)
To be clear, I don’t claim the above is airtight or anything; it’s just my best effort (without trying to be actually exhaustive). But please, if you believe there’s a (major) oversight in my methodology, then feel free to correct me.
Nope. You’re wrong. Sorry.
Your sources are all biased towards gamers for the most part. Sorry but Steam survey? Proton DB???
Dude.
Recommends another niche derivative
I never understand the thought process of giving a Linux newcomer some niche immutable Fedora derivative. Just go with ***&@$#_##-$&##*** desktop. Pretty popular blah blah.My point here is that your comment is a little judgmental, hostile, and isn’t very constructive.
I agree with the underlying concern, but the delivery is what makes it come off mean and unproductive.For a first install, the key is picking a desktop and a setup that matches what they need day to day. Whether it’s a Ubuntu-based distro like Mint, Zorin, or something else. The questions are more like: will their work VPN work, will Nvidia drivers be painless, and will Office workflows be tolerable.
Just as long as it’s not
Ubuntu
(Which introduces many issues due to its poorly implemented modifications to GnomeDE) :::, you really can’t go that wrong with any distribution. You just need to find the one that caters to you best.
Everything has upsides and downsides.
E.X. immutable options can be great, but in practice, immutable styles can add friction in a few ways: you have less freedom to tweak the system directly, certain troubleshooting steps look different, and you often hit extra steps for installing or updating drivers, VPN clients, or other system-adjacent software.
If you need something mission critical for work, that matters, because the first Linux install is already the biggest learning curve, and an immutable distro can increase that. There’s a reason why immutable desktops aren’t Fedora’s flagships and are treated as being special builds. The point isn’t “immutable bad”, just that there’s lots to consider, so a “why use X just use Y” isn’t very helpful.
You need to take everything into account and build a constructive case of pros and cons that one must consider to make a decision on it.👆💯💯💯💯💯💯
Couldn’t have said it better.
I used Zorin for several years and love it, I always recommend it to newcomers. Everything Just WorksTM
I used it. Its a nice out of box distro that is windows like in gui setup and lets you just install and go. That being said I eventually wanted better windows type snapping behavior and installed kde. I went to bazzite just to have something out of the box ready for gaming and I like the whole right only image thing. Anything debian based is nice to because many websites with windows downloads offer a .deb option. I use app image for most of my software though much like on windows I used portable apps as it makes moving to a new machine easier.
Yeah, Debian is my OS of choice honestly. Rock solid and very stable and secure thanks to the thorough testing the packages go through. Yeah the software is older, but it’s worth it in terms of time saved.
And like you said, there’s TONS of 3rd party support for it.
This was my exact journey, though I eventually landed on immutable Fedora with KDE. Zorin is a great OS but it’s in a weird space because it’s probably already too simple for anyone who knows what Linux is.
Some people just want their OS to get out of their way. That’s what Zorin does.
That’s what I liked about Kubuntu. Install it and forget it. You barely have to do anything and you forget you’re running Linux at all while you get all your work and play done. I don’t have time to mess around with some configs to modify my atomic installation and what not. I just open the software center and install whatever the heck I need. And if the Flatpak doesn’t work, I can install from the deb instead.
But now that Snaps are becoming mandatory for core features, I’m going to go the Debian route.
I’d make sure to keep Win10 as dualboot. Office and the Microsoft account are big concerns and you didn’t verify on them.
That’s a very good point. I might take @avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 's route though with a VM.
Just make sure it’s well setup with shared home integration and all so it “just works.” Can also use snapshots to “reinstall it,” for when Windows shits the bed.
Keeping Windows in a VM worked for mine. Provided 3D graphics aren’t required, even virt-mamager (QEMU/KVM) works fine. She used VMware for a decade. With shared home folder into VM’s Z: drive.
Here developing bigly applications with visual studio in vm. Works just fine.
The issue with snaps is that they are proprietary, and are less space efficient and probably a bit slower. If that doesn’t bother her than it’s fine. You could also choose to use flatpak (also containerized like snaps) or just use apt (from the terminal or a gui)
Also OnlyOffice might be a better option for MS compatibility. You could also just run a VM if you need to.
Yeah. I’m aware of all of this.
Snaps is not an issue with her. It’s an issue with me though lol! I’ll be sure to tell her about the options and which ones to pick.
Thanks :)
The win10 ESU has been extended for yet another year, so you have a bit more time. Your partner sounds reasonably tech savvy. could be worth grabbing a few different distros on a ventoy drive to play around with, even though the main factor in terms of UX is often the DE.
might have a slight bias here but fedora workstation has been a reliable system for me and I’m just a dumb guy on the internet. I use it with gnome + plugins to make gnome leas daft, though the kde spin is solid.
openconnect should work with cisco anyconnect; you can theoretically connect via CLI but that may be a bit rough UX wise. You could also set her connect command up to a global hotkey in gnome or whatever, and initiate a connection via keyboard shortcut.
Office via web might be the best should for now, however.
Hi, thanks for the advice! Yeah we know about the extended support. But it’s going to end at some point anyway and she was just about ready to do the switch before that was even announced. So might was well.
My beef with Fedora is that it’s backed by RedHat which I don’t particularly like. ( They do business with the Israeli military forces. ) And also it doesn’t come with multimedia codecs out of the box. Third: I’m more used to Debian’s packaging system as well, so it’ll be easier for me to troubleshoot or give her directions.
Totally understandable that you’d gravitate toward Zorin. It really can feel like a “ready-made desktop” experience, and for a lot of people that first impression is the whole game.
But if you are thinking in terms of what she will actually enjoy using day to day, I would shift the focus a bit. Since you are the one choosing for her, the win is not only picking the right distro, it is picking the desktop experience that fits her habits and taste.
As the Desktop Environment (DE) is going to be the primary way she’ll interact with the computer, and as any DE can be installed on any distro. It’s more important to figure that out first then find a distro that caters to that DE experience best while covering as many of her needs as possible. GNOME, KDE Plasma, COSMIC, Xfce, Cinnamon, Budgie, Deepin Desktop Environment,
Pantheon
Elementary OS’s Pantheon can be installed on other distributions, just a pain.
I’ll install it on a BTRFS partition with automatic snapshots and grub-btrfs to recover from snapshots.
Take a look at Timeshift.
Maybe hardware wise?
You can use hw-probe to check if the hardware is working and if you need to take any further action to get things working, it’s a very good starting point.
Or anything to so with Snaps that could cause issues?
It maybe more preferable to use flatpak, so I’d suggest considering it.
Thanks for the advice.
I asked her what her thoughts were on the desktop and she really doesn’t care. She’s used GNOME already on our Surface tablet. She’s seen me use KDE. Those are the two options I presented to her because they have the best visuals and the most features and also the best app collection to go with it. In the other DE suggestions you offered, I find they are missing features, or aren’t polished enough for my taste, or are still in their early stages of development. (Relatively speaking)
Although I really enjoyed Budgie and Pantheon when I tried them out. Both delivering a Win 10 and Mac OS like experience respectively. But yeah, they’re not finished yet and are quite buggy.
And of course I’ll be using Timeshift! Since I discovered this tool it’s been a game changer. Along with btrfs-grub to add the snapshots to the grub menu, that’s even better. Even if it doesn’t come in the Ubuntu/Mint/Zorin repos, it can easily be built from source. That’s what I did on my own PC.
Finally, I’ll tell her about the snaps for sure and tell her to stick with Flatpaks. Security is MUCH easier to manage with Flatseal than Snaps.
Nice thing about Zorin is they have 4 maybe more modes you can set the desktop to. Closer to Gnome or more like KDE on the other end.
Yeah, Zorin Appearance gives you lots of other system desktop layouts and theming. Which is great, but Zorin OS Standard is essentially GNOME with added customization, so it is not a fundamentally new desktop environment. If you’re willing to install the relevant Zorin Appearance packages or install the right GNOME theme elements like icons, GTK and window manager themes, and a few extensions or docks, a similar look can often be recreated on other GNOME based distributions. The main difference is that Zorin bundles it preconfigured.
You’re not wrong. lol But the fact it’s pre-packaged and ready OOTB is a big factor. Honestly they made the GNOME desktop the way it should have been in the first place. They also have added configuration menus and other QoL features that bring added value.
It’s not tweaks on top of gnome its back end GNOME config done by Zorin team. GNOME is highly customizable just not easily the user facing way like KDE.
I dont use Zorin but in trials I’d say it is a solid choice; they are working at making it a solid stable corporate distro, including the Grid Product for mass system deployment and management.
You can take just about any GNOME install and just do something like :
# apt-get install zorin-appearance # apt-get install zorin-appearance-layouts-shell-core # apt-get install zorin-appearance-layouts-support # apt-get install zorin-auto-themeIt’s really not terribly hard to do. Say like fedora workstation for example, you could do it without too much trouble assuming the packages are available in some capacity.
It’s essentially just as System76’s Pop_OS! was prior to Cosmic DE.
The appeal is valid, it’s just that you can pretty easily reproduce it on a different distribution. That’s the real appeal of Linux, don’t you think.
It’s just something to consider before you pay $50 for ZorinOS Pro.Are these packages available in Debian Trixie? Because then I know what I’m installing on MY pc next.
EDIT: Honestly 50$ for a one-time fee really isn’t that bad. I’ve paid more for video games that I spent less time on, and this is going to team that’s doing great work. They deserve it.
Sure, but I’d pay $50 at this point. I like that Linux is free, but supporting them through a one time paid model is a good thing. SaaS though, that shit can fuuck right off.
Sure, but I’d pay $50 at this point. I like that Linux is free, but supporting them through a one time paid model is a good thing.
There’s usually a donation or merchandise model that’s relied on to support FLOSS devs, as well a gaining corporate sponsorships.
SaaS though, that shit can fuuck right off.
As a consumer model I 100% agree, software as a service is horrible. Fuck Adobe btw.
As for if corporations have to pay for it and consumers don’t, it works.
Wouldn’t go with Zorin - the Snaps will be frustrating.
Choose something with KDE which is still very Windows-like + either a Debian build or Fedora build. Both can support Flatpaks easily.
PikaOS if you want a Debian based distro with KDE that’s game ready, or Nobara for a Fedora based distro that’s game ready. Nobaracones with a good deal of Wine presets that should make running certain Windows software easier too.
Thanks. I understand the concern. I don’t think the Snaps are going to be a big deal for her. As long as she understands not to install Snap apps unless strictly necessary. (And she won’t need to from the list of software she uses.)
I thought about getting her Debian with KDE. That’s probably what I’m going to do with my own PC as I want to avoid Kubuntu 26.04 and their forced snaps. (They’re a concern for me though lol)
I looked at Pika and Nobara. She doesn’t want a gaming focused OS. They’re also pretty niche and might not last long, relatively speaking. I mean Nobara is one guy (Glorious Eggroll) and PikaOS is very new and is also based on Sid (testing, unstable) which can potentially come with it’s loads of problems.
She’s new to Linux. It was either Mint or Zorin. I went with Zorin for the desktop experience that’s loads more polished with great features. Mint seems a bit old in comparison and I find the look isn’t really consistent throughout. It lacks some customization features as well.
If the ms office apps don’t run on Linux you might be able to use them through a browser, just like Google docs.
Yeah, but she wants the desktop version. She has a license for it. Might run it through wine, yes. The problem will be printing. I haven’t figured out how to set up a printer in Wine yet.
I think older versions of office work under wine. I think the 2020 versions… I forget
Zorin is a solid choice. Ubuntu-based without digital ID, Irish-made (not subject to the American digital ID laws), and designed with digital freedom in mind, despite snap format being enabled by default.
That’s the ONLY thing preventing me from installing it on my own PC honestly. I absolutely love how they customized Gnome and the many QoL features they added.
I’m currently using Kubuntu 25.10 on my own PC and need to switch because I don’t want Ubuntu’s 26.04 with forced Snaps for core features of the OS. I think that’s bullshit. I love KDE and how close to Windows the experience is and how much you can customize it. But I miss the GNOME simplicity sometimes. Gnome 2 was perfect. Switched to MATE when Ubuntu started shipping with Gnome 3 and that held for a while. Then I moved to KDE Plasma once it evolved from the bug-riddled, resource-heavy mess KDE Plasma 4 was when it came out. And I’ve stuck with that since.
Honestly now I’m considering just installing Debian Trixie with KDE and call it a day. I’m used to it now and I don’t want to spend weeks customizing my Gnome shell with a million extensions that might break at the next update.
W11 Enterprise IoT LTSC is a very solid, no AI option if she wants to stick with Windows. Use StartAllBack on top of it, and it will remind you of a fresh W7 install.
