Zorin OS 8 a replacement for Windows XP?

[John Bowden]

OK........ I decided to start a Zorin thread instead of continuing to post in the Windows XP thread, since basically I'm going to be posting about Zorin and my observations and opinions. I WAS a faithful fan of Win XP and will miss it's stability and ease of use (at least for me). Hopefully this will turn out to be a viable substition for XP and allow older laptops and desktops to still be useful and stay away from the side of the road on garbage day. After all most of the PC now in use are light-years better than the ones used by NASA for man to go to the moon, it seems a shame to toss them out!

I have installed Zorin on my old Dell D630 laptop, specifications are as follows:

Dell Latitude D630
Intel Core 2 Duo CPU T7500 @ 2.20 GHz
4 GB of RAM
80 GB HardDrive
Intel 965GM Graphics Card

I have upgraded this laptop to these specs and had installed Vista Ultimate 32-bit on another hard drive, as a replacement for Windows XP. I was pretty satisfied with XP but.......... well y'all know the rest.

I figure this machine would run Win 7 ok, but really did not want to spend the money for a COA and instead I have invested that money shopping on eBay for purchasing new parts to build a new (to me) laptop to run Win 7.

Anyway back to Zorin.............

I chose Zorin OS 8.1 as my trial.......... I have tried several different linux OS in the past and have not been very satisfied with the learning curve and quasi DOS interface and command input. I've been a Windows user since Windows 2 so I left DOS and line command input a very long time ago.

The installation was pretty straight forward, I did do a little online reading and took the suggestion of selecting "login autonmatically" so as to not have to deal with a "Guest Session" starting up. The machine will only be used by me so there is no reason to have it any other way.

With Zorin it has a very Windows-like interface, and it still allows terminal input so those who like to type can still do that. It also comes pre-installed with several linux software but the best one for me was WINE. This allows you to install SOME Windows software. Google Wine and the Software you might want to see if it will work. NOT ALL WINDOWS SOFTWARE WILL WORK.

In my trial the first Win Software I tried didn't work and after googling it, it will not work........... Adobe Illustrator.........but I have successfully installed Adobe Photoshop CS2, Microsoft Office 2000, and Atomic Clock (system time sync software)

OK........... this is where I am at this time, I will continue to play around with it and will post my success and failures, observations and opinions in this thread.

I hope this interest folks and also I request anyone of the Linux guys that see this Please post tips to help a guy out.......... old dogs do learn new tricks......it just takes a long time and lots of brain cells!!!

john

[mbauer]

I'll keep an eye out for what you like/dislike as this thread progresses.

Thank you for taking the time and effort to post your findings!

Mike

[thorst]

John,

regarding your question on how to place a program icon on the desktop: I am not sure if it works properly, but try to drag&drop the icon of the program from the opened folder to the desktop with a pressed "Alt"-key and then choose "Link here". At least on my Ubuntu (ver. 12) the alt key gives me that option. Then the icon should do what you want.

Please try it and report if it works... I'm curious, too.

Cheers,
Thorsten

[PhantomCruiser]

How different is Zorin from Mint?

The reason I'm asking is that I've installed Mint 13 on one of my machines, and I've enjoyed it so far. It's not WinXP, but but it seems to work pretty OK. I'd heard about Zorin on the other thread and took a look at it, it looks pretty sweet also.

[cmdr199212]

I've been using Linux for almost a year now on my laptop(posting from it now) and its worked great! I'm using an OpenBox windows manager built into an Ubuntu base, and its fantastic. I can operate nearly every command/program through programmable keyboard shortcuts, and I'm a huge fan of that. I use Chromium for a web browser, its nearly identical to Chrome and it will even import your bookmarks etc from Chrome, so I'd highly suggest it. Good luck!

[John Bowden]

Thorsten............ the "ALT" trick works in Zorin too! Thanks!!!

PhantomCruser.......... Zorin's interface seems more windows-like from the get-go. Also with MINT I had trouble getting all the laptops ardware working.......... it just might have been the version, but with Zorin everything works from the start.

[PhantomCruiser]

Working right out of the box (or download as it were). That's what I like to hear.

Cool. I've got and older netbook, and had to go back to Ubuntu 10 (netbook remix edition) to get things working again. I'll give Zorin a try on it and see how she flies.

[John Bowden]

Dave in the XP thread mentioned that Zorin only allows FireFox and Chrome as web browser, but it also comes with Midori as an option to install.

I installed Firefox, removed Chrome and installed Midori. I wanted to see what Midori was. It's just another web browser, no big deal. It works and does whatever a browser is supposed to do.

I also read that Pale Moon could be installed using WINE. I'll try that soon.

It also comes with :

"Zorin Look Changer

The Look Changer lets you change your desktop to look and act like either Windows 7, XP, Vista, Ubuntu Unity, Mac OS X or GNOME 2 for ultimate ease of use."


That's a cut & paste from the Zorin Home page. I'm going to play with this also.


john

[John Bowden]

I played with the Zorin Look Changer and decided that the original setting........Windows 7, is what I'll go with. I like the task bar icons that you only have to click one to start a program.

Give it a shot, it lets you see what the desktop will look like, all be it a thumbnail, and youcan switch between the setting very easily.

john

[John Bowden]

Installed Pale Moon using WINE and it works fine. Now if I can just figure out how to pin it to the taskbar and get it to work...........old dog still learning!