[HN Gopher] Zorin OS 16 is what a Linux desktop distribution sho...
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Zorin OS 16 is what a Linux desktop distribution should be
Author : NikolaNovak
Score : 66 points
Date : 2021-09-04 19:27 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.techrepublic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.techrepublic.com)
| walrus01 wrote:
| Maybe I'm a GUI traditionalist, but I prefer the stock debian
| config of xfce4. Without the pseudo dock, just the taskbar.
| princevegeta89 wrote:
| I've tried Zorin and while it's great, KDE Neon seems better.
| It's amazingly snappy and looks more polished
| kodah wrote:
| I was just looking at Zorin. I use PopOS as a daily driver and
| one of my favorite things about it is that it supports the
| firmware update manager. Zorin Connect is highly compelling, but
| without the firmware update manager I'm not quite sold.
| amelius wrote:
| How easy is it to install different versions of packages side by
| side?
|
| This is my first question when it comes to Linux distributions,
| having been through dependency hell too many times.
|
| Of course, a distribution should also be officially supported by
| important vendors such as NVidia.
| prirai wrote:
| Your question should be reversed. Nvidia itself doesn't care
| about open sourcing their driver so that it could be integrated
| as a kernel module. They provide a closed source blob which
| isn't even updated quite often. - Lookup for what Linus
| Torvalds said about Nvidia. For the dependency part, idk what
| problem you're facing. As long as you install using your
| package manager, you don't have to care about dependencies most
| of the time. However, if you build it from source there might
| be some errors here and there which you can easy solve. The
| best part is that after solving the issue you can also
| contribute to their project by informing them of a required
| dependency.
| amelius wrote:
| The main problem is that some projects require versions of
| other projects that are of the form "later than X but no
| later than Y". These projects can conflict with the
| requirements of other projects.
|
| Regarding NVidia, yes I know about the gesture which Torvalds
| (rightfully) made to them. The problem is that I (and lots of
| people) are dependent on NVidia, so we are dependent on OSes
| which are supported by them.
| flatiron wrote:
| Look into Docker or appimage if you want that. Any distro
| supports it
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > Since it's based on Ubuntu 20.04.3
|
| ...ok, can someone explain why anyone should bother with this
| when Ubuntu 20.04.3 already exists? What does it do so much
| differently that makes it "fun, productive, and rock solid"? As
| far as I can tell from this marketing copy, it's just Ubuntu with
| specific set of preinstalled packages and _maybe_ a special
| theme.
|
| Honestly, there are so many of these "OS"s that I kinda want to
| just create thisosdoesnotexist.com that randomly selects packages
| to bundle in an Ubuntnu installer image and generates a name,
| logo, and marketing copy that calls it some combination of things
| like "beautiful", "blazing fast", and "powerful".
| sureglymop wrote:
| I somewhat agree, except when it comes to Pop!OS (which is what
| I use). Their tiling wm and shell are a huge improvement over
| regular gnome and their package distribution (including nvidia
| drivers and other stuff) makes it more solid than Ubuntu for
| me. I could live with Ubuntu though.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Pop!_OS makes _some_ kind of sense because it is paired with
| System76 's purpose-built hardware so they want to be able to
| tweak everything so that it works properly on that specific
| hardware. Still seems unnecessary but at least I can
| understand that.
| istingray wrote:
| As someone new to Linux, I'm curious about this as well.
|
| As a comparison, take Android. Thinking broadly about
| fragmentation, Android is fragmented because of so many
| different hardware vendors who use Android on their phones.
| They make hardware and have an incentive to customize Android
| to work on their phone because it's free and helps them sell
| phones. But the vendors don't try to call it anything but
| Android usually (not sure).
|
| But this isn't the case for Linux. Basically zero vendors are
| Linux first, only a small number like System76 or Purism. So
| where's the incentive to create all these distros?
|
| I can only conclude that the incentive to create more distros
| is created by builders. It's not companies (as in Android's
| case), and it's not users as users have better things to do.
| It's a bit odd to me.
|
| PopOS by System76 perhaps is similar to Android then. System76
| wants to differentiate. I have read their guide to how it's
| different than stock Ubuntu [1] But why not call it "Ubuntu -
| customized for System76" version or something. But look, I'm a
| huge fan of System76 so if they say it's needed, I trust them.
| And sure, the tweaks they've added seem fine (disk encryption
| on install, power profiler)...but making it distinct from
| Ubuntu to me is a negative. I trust Ubuntu, why sell me
| something else? I added mouse drivers and custom keyboard
| commands to PopOS - is it now iStingray OS?
|
| Disclosure: I'm new to Linux, switched 2 weeks ago due to
| Apple's surveillance. Am on a System76 laptop running PopOS. I
| support System76 and donated to PopOS directly.
|
| [1] https://support.system76.com/articles/difference-between-
| pop...
| seniorivn wrote:
| Ubuntu is a trademark, they can fork it as they did, but if
| they want to use their name, they need permission and Ubuntu
| has a strict policy on that
| istingray wrote:
| Ah got it, so that makes sense. I bet the licensing around
| Android also explains some of the fragmentation etc. IMO it
| would serve System76's brand to have a tight Ubuntu
| partnership/license, at least for me as a customer. Maybe
| that's in their roadmap.
| yunohn wrote:
| Not everybody wants to setup Ubuntu to be the way ZorinOS comes
| out of the box?
|
| Surely this concept is not so foreign to you in 2021, after
| questions like yours have been rehashed on HN thousands of
| times.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| The fundamental question of what distinguishes an OS is
| relevant to the thread, and worthy of ongoing discussion.
| junon wrote:
| Please do that. It would be incredible.
| ostenning wrote:
| I think Linux users believe they have choice when in actuality
| its the same shit just repackaged in a different way again and
| again. Sure there are innovations that happen between distros,
| with some having novel philosophies, but its not as often as
| users would like to think
| greenhatman wrote:
| The main differences between distros are the desktop
| environments and the package managers.
|
| I'd say those are meaningful choices.
| yukinon wrote:
| They are targeting users that don't want to install their
| packages or learn how to set up a new wm or theme. That's
| simply it. As much as distros and the Linux ecosystem prides
| itself on its customizability, there will always be people
| (myself included) that simply want an easy way to run something
| with preinstalled defaults that matches my aesthetic and
| functional requirements. Yes, I could install Ubuntu, and then
| go ahead and install some other packages and a theme. This
| saves me several steps and they'll presumably keep it updated
| and compatible with each other nicely in a way that I couldn't
| care to as an end user with my modified Ubuntu.
| smoldesu wrote:
| The ultimate explanation is that none of these distros are
| necessarily competing with one another. I use Ubuntu on my
| media server, Arch on my desktop, Debian in my cloud instances,
| BSD on my router and I play with NixOS on my dev machine. You
| could argue that it doesn't matter since they're all POSIX-
| based, but typically someone doesn't go through the trouble of
| releasing their own disk image unless they're doing something
| novel.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > but typically someone doesn't go through the trouble of
| releasing their own disk image unless they're doing something
| novel.
|
| That's what I'm saying though, what is novel about this? So
| novel that it made sense to make a new distribution for it?
| prirai wrote:
| The word 'Distros' is in itself called roughly a packaging.
| What differs is the following: Display Environment Kernel
| Preinstalled packages Package manager Display Server Build
| tools Resource requirement Philosophy + some addition
| tweaks by various distros to improve experience.
| l0b0 wrote:
| Ubuntu is based on Debian, another Linux distro, and was still
| a huge step forward. Building on the current best in class to
| create something better sounds like a sensible idea.
| Koshkin wrote:
| I don't know about that... Recently I installed Ubuntu on a
| laptop, said "meh" and then replaced it with the stock Debian
| stable which has been working flawlessly. (Also, I feel like
| I trust Debian more than Ubuntu, although I'd have hard time
| explaining exactly why.)
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| In what ways? That's all I'm asking. If you build something
| you think is so different from what it is based on that it
| deserves to have its own name+OS, then why can't you be
| bothered to say what it is that makes it different? Instead
| we get useless words like "fun", "beautiful", and "easy to
| use".
| smackeyacky wrote:
| Debian has a rule that precludes the distribution of non
| free software by default. They also select older versions
| of software than you might like due to their release cycle.
|
| That includes stuff like firmware for peripherals. So
| distributions further down the chain tend to include that
| stuff, so if you prefer to be on the cutting edge and
| aren't a purist about your distribution, you pick something
| else.
| edoceo wrote:
| The point is that those words have actual meaning to actual
| users. You think its "useless" but like, that's just your
| opinion man.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Do they? What does "fun" mean here? "Beautiful"? "Easy to
| use"?
|
| These are all subjective terms at best. I can call Motif
| beautiful and no one can say I'm wrong.
| edoceo wrote:
| Because Motif is objectively beautiful :)
| Koshkin wrote:
| Beautiful is never objective, it is "in the eye of the
| beholder."
| edoceo wrote:
| Friend, I'm aware. I was attempting humor.
| II2II wrote:
| Subjectivity is the point of those words. People need
| only agree that they are true, rather than agree upon why
| it is true, since it is meant to make people feel good
| about their decision. As for those who disagree, they
| don't really matter since they are not the target
| audience.
| yunohn wrote:
| Did you read this article? Or visit ZorinOS' website?
|
| Or do you somehow believe that only a 5 word motto should
| explain everything to you?
| edoceo wrote:
| Zorin is like ChromeOS w/o Google.
|
| It's pretty, comes with the stuff you* want, "just works"
|
| It's UI is actually quite nice for older users who you don't
| want on ChromeOS.
|
| *You is the "average" normie user, not you (or me)
| specifically.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > You is the "average" normie user, not you (or me)
| specifically.
|
| Ok, I disagree with this characterization of users, but
| whatever.
|
| _Why_ is it better than stock Ubuntu? What in the hell makes
| it so special that adding another distro to the 300 already
| out there seemed like a good idea?
| edoceo wrote:
| I answered why you should "bother". But I don't know the
| answer for the new question of why it's "better".
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| All you said was:
|
| > It's pretty, comes with the stuff you* want, "just
| works"
|
| Which describes about 200 of the 300+ distros out there
| by their own marketing copy.
| [deleted]
| bitL wrote:
| Does it finally support HiDPI? The last time I tried it (a few
| years back) it didn't.
| commoner wrote:
| The Zorin Connect desktop frontend
| (https://github.com/ZorinOS/gnome-shell-extension-zorin-conne...)
| is based on the GSConnect GNOME extension, which works on GNOME
| Shell with any distro:
|
| - https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1319/gsconnect/
|
| Zorin Connect and GSConnect are clients that are compatible with
| KDE Connect:
|
| - https://kdeconnect.kde.org
|
| KDE Connect compatible clients are available for Android, Linux,
| macOS, Windows, and Sailfish OS. macOS users can use the Soduto
| client:
|
| - https://soduto.com
|
| - https://github.com/soduto/Soduto
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(page generated 2021-09-04 23:01 UTC)