In my search for a better running Linux OS for my old Acer PC, I have decided to use Zorin Lite 15 32bit for a while. I have tried several 64bit distros but they all had issues with the onboard graphics. Old PC is not worth spending money on, but it is fun to see what will and will not work.
This is my partition layout for the install. I had to do some research on Dedoimedo website, after installing grub in the, /boot partition, to get it working properly.
Their was a thread on Zorin the other day, and all I can say is that Zorin installed without any problems.
I do have an old Nvidia graphics card that I may use in this machine, but not today.
The Gparted partition layout is totally subjective, #1 is the /boot partition, now I am no Grub genius, but I believe this partition was more useful, during the days of Grub Legacy than with Grub2. In other words, this partition is not needed, since Grub2 will still be installed to /dev/sda, for the first stage of the boot sequence. #2 is the size of the / partition, I can remember the days of separate /tmp, /home, / whatever, but Linux, nowdays can be set up with a 20GB / partition for root and a small swap partitions.
The Zorin Lite XFCE start menu is very much like Vista and W7 start menu. It could make some user a very nice Linux OS
I have installed a AMD5670 graphics card in this machine, I can now get 1920x1080 display setting, really helps this old machine.
I hear stuff about Zorin being used, lately. It was like 12 years ago(?) when I tried out Zorin and somehow the OS left a bad impression on me, so this was the last time I tried it. I think it seemed too bloated to me, at the time, but I am not sure if I remember the reasons correctly for why I did not like it.
Right now, I don’t have any real reason for trying it out, so I still won’t, but it is interesting to see that there are also normal users that don’t use Ubuntu or Mint or anything like that, for a change. I want to see more normal every day users on different platforms, then sharing their experience with those.
Zorin is bloated, that is for sure, but 32bit distro are becoming like dinosaurs. This is the first time I have used Zorin, in a very long time. I think I might put my spare graphics card in and see if it will run ext-deepin.
I was really curious as to why one user had so much trouble with Zorin. I do know it is still free to download, but so is Elementary LInux, which I really do not like.
I just installed Zorin on a Latitude e4310 and it went smoothly.
I have nothing bad to say.
I installed Zorin OS on an old computer for my 70 something mother-in-law, then the old PC died and she bought a new one with Windows installed. She asked me to put Zorin OS on the new computer and she used it till she died. She prefered Zorin OS to Windows.
Hi @TrekJunky I remember trying out Zorin on old HP Notebook live in RAM from one of those great DVDs included with LinuxFormat magazine. I really liked it but at the last minute discovered that there were some shady practices going on… which kinda puts one off the distro for life - would you buy a car from these guys - reaction.
So as you know I went with Trisqel which has the shortest, clearest Privacy Policy known to man (other genetic coding is available T&Cs apply)
@Ankush_Das wrote an article for it’sFOSS on this privacy or security issue with Zorin as did many others…
If you are after something truly lightweight that gives you mega choice of screen resolutions please have a read of my mini-Trisquel review…
Curious if you’re still running it?
I just test-drove a ZorinOS install (16.x Pro) in VirtualBox (took a few gos - was surprised to discover a 30 GB VDI was too small!) - but I’m getting there now (bumped it up to 44 GB)…
They don’t have 32 bit anymore - but still provide a link to get 15.3 32 bit - which - I already had on my NAS - which I’m going to try on my Samsung N150 Netbook when I can find the diminutive little piece of crap…
Not that I want to switch from Pop!_OS - I’m impressed with the three installs of Pop! 22.04 so far - it’s currently my "go to’ distro and probably long term keeper (famous last words - I seem to remember saying something similar about Fedora 36/37 last year). It’s hard to put my finger on it right now, why I prefer Pop! over stock Ubuntu - there’s not a huge amount of difference, so it’s not a huge “cultural shift”… I kinda like how it’s nearly EXACTLY the same on my Raspberry Pi4…
One of my Lottery Win dreams would to be to buy a Flagship model from System76, heck if it was a major lottery win, I’d go for the BEST system they can build (laptop and desktop) with AMD processors…
Note - as for Mint - I’ve tried it a few times and always got exasperated and shelved it… I don’t like the desktop… I don’t like Cinnamon or Maté… I know a whole swathe of Linux on the desktop users jumped to Linux Mint when Ubuntu defaulted to Unity… But not me - I LOVED Unity and I still miss it (but NOT without the backing of a big distro vendor like Canonical - yeah - they support a “respin” but its half arsed and I can’t be arsed with it).
Anyway - I always stood “shy” of Zorin because of “pay for pro” features… But without installing a single external theme - I’ve got the look and feel of MacOS… so it’s a winner and 32 bit version of 15.3 will be going on the Samsung N150 Netbook (dual Atom, 2 GB RAM, 64 GB SSD - “technically” 64 bit capable - but for all intents and purposes, stick with i386/i686) when I can find it and it’s elusive proprietary power brick - THANK GOT FOR USB-C power! Best thing since ATX, or PCI, or SATA I reckon…
Oh - and I forgot how much I missed the novelty of wobbly window effects in Compiz (it’s a toggle in ZorinOS - it’s a gnome extension in Pop!_OS and Ubuntu)… Tried to enable it in arm64 Pop!_OS (default is snap) and it’s not available on arm64… I wasn’t expecting much - HOWEVER:
I’ve noticed Wobbly Windows in 2023, on a half decent gaming (intermediate) GPU isn’t anywhere near as responsive as it was in Compiz on something like Ubuntu 8, 9 or 10, or Red Hat 4, with a decent NVidia PCIe GPU - I had (still have - I never throw anything away!) a decent GTX series Gaming card that could easily be hacked to appear as an NVidia Quadro Pro, not only, but also, I actually had a couple of previous generation Quaddro Pro PCIe cards!