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?
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.
Take a look at Timeshift.
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.
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.
Doesn’t seem to be available directly in the standard Debian repositories but in theory you should be able to add the Zorin repo install them with apt-get, or download them from the Zorin repo and install them manually. Just be careful as to not fall into dependency hell.
Yeah that might be a bad idea to mix repos like that.
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.
There’s usually a donation or merchandise model that’s relied on to support FLOSS devs, as well a gaining corporate sponsorships.
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.