Zorin Core or Pro?

WetGeek

@tomscharbach and I were discussing (in another thread) the idea (his) of promoting Zorin OS as a replacement for people leaving Windows. I agreed to opine on that, so I created a Zorin Core 16.1 VM for experimenting, but I was unable to set up some of the basic features needed to match my Solus VMs (for comparison).

After updating the rest of my VMs today, I spent some more time trying to figure out how to (1) install Vivaldi, (2) create some workspaces, and (3) connect to my NAS shares on Zorin. Again I failed on all three.

Then a light bulb lit up as I was reminded that there's also a Pro version of Zorin, and perhaps these issues would not exist in the Pro ($) version. I'm not interested in spending money to create a VM just to test this idea, but I thought there might be someone here who has already done that, perhaps on a spare computer.

Tom? Anyone?

tomscharbach

WetGeek Tom? Anyone?

Zorin 16 Core and Zorin 16 Pro are absolutely identical, except that Zorin 16 Pro (1) comes with additional desktop layouts and wallpapers, (2) comes with a number of additional pre-installed apps targeted for small business users and creative types, all of which can be added from the repository by Core users, and (3) entitles users to direct installation support from the two devs, Kyrill and Artyom Zorin. Pro also embeds a version of Zorin 16 Lite with all the Pro goodies. You can look at a comparison chart on the Zorin download page.

WetGeek After updating the rest of my VMs today, I spent some more time trying to figure out how to (1) install Vivaldi, (2) create some workspaces, and (3) connect to my NAS shares on Zorin. Again I failed on all three.

Pro won't make a difference for any of these issues, as far as I know.

tomscharbach

WetGeek I'll check that out tomorrow morning, but I can tell you right now that Zorin's version doesn't remotely resemble the way workspaces are presented in my Solus GNOME VM. Those I understand.

I briefly installed Solus Gnome in a Gnome Box a few months ago, but didn't do anything other than take a guick look, so I can't speak to how workspaces function in Solus Gnome because I didn't look at that aspect of Solus Gnome. The mods may have modified the Gnome DE in that respect for Solus. I have no idea.

I would be surprised, however, if Zorin workspaces functioned much differently from Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Gnome workspaces (right-side vertical, drag-and-drop workspace creation, and so on), because Zorin Core is Ubuntu 20.04 LTS with heavily modified Gnome themes. What I've read about Ubuntu Gnome workspaces as a result of this thread seem to suggest that the two are similar/identical, and I will be curious to see what you find.

WetGeek @tomscharbach and I were discussing (in another thread) the idea (his) of promoting Zorin OS as a replacement for people leaving Windows.

I want to be clear about something, before we head off the rails. I do not promote Zorin (or any other Linux distro) as a Windows replacement for my friends who have pre-Gen8 computers running Windows 10.

My advice to them, as I noted in the Zorin? thread you initiated and refer to, is to "stick with Windows 10 for a couple more years (why fix what's not broken), and then look at the issue again, making a choice at that time between buying new equipment and running Windows 11 or keeping their existing computer and migrating to Linux" .

I don't know where we will be in two years (my guess is that we will be just about where we are today), but if my friends faced a choice today I would recommend that they (all men and women in their 70's who are casual computer users), buy new hardware and use Windows 11 rather than switch to Linux.

If, however, my friends want to keep their old (that is, 8 years old or more in 2025) hardware, then they will no alternative but to migrate to Linux at Windows 10 EOL in 2025.

Based on what I know today, and assuming that things don't change between now and 2025, I'd recommend Zorin to them because (again as I noted in the earlier thread): "I agree that Zorin is a good fit for Windows migrants who use a computer to "pay my bills, watch videos, you know computer stuff" (who probably comprise at least 75% of computer users outside of a work environment). Zorin's careful redesign of Gnome to give Windows 10 migrants a familiar look-and-feel makes migration easy, as it is intended to do. ... Zorin's "familiarity" for Windows users is its great strength. ... Zorin seems to be a good fit for casual users migrating from Windows. It is a low learning curve for that use case."

Although I've used Zorin in the real world on my railroad computer, and installed Zorin on three of the railroad's computers for a specific use case (with a successful outcome for the Window users who use those computers), Zorin is not my preferred distro. What is appropriate for me does not necessarily align with what is appropriate for casual computer users migrating from Windows to Linux. Promoting Zorin is not on my agenda.

WetGeek

tomscharbach Pro won't make a difference for any of these issues, as far as I know.

Thanks! I was getting very tempted to buy a copy ($39) just to assuage my curiosity, but obviously it wouldn't bring it any closer to Solus. I'll just leave my VM as it is ... although I did a fairly substantial update there today. Apparently I've learned all I can about Zorin without spending money on it.

Zorin is a nice, clean OS, and it might very well serve your intended purpose.

riffer

Like tomscharbach said. It just adds some themes (The Mac like one is really nice) + a bunch of software. I gave them the $39 anyway since it is my second favorite distro. I gave solus $39 as well LOL.

Regardless. I'm sure you figured this out but Samba isn't installed by default. You have to set up the user and password as well.
I'm surprised you couldn't install Vivaldi. There is a deb at least.

tomscharbach

riffer I'm surprised you couldn't install Vivaldi. There is a deb at least.

Yeah, I was surprised by this, too.

I've not installed Vivaldi on the Zorin 16 Core bare metal build on my "geezer geek" computer, but I have installed Microsoft Edge (which I use) and Chrome (which the fellow I support uses), with no problems whatsoever using the .deb files supplied by each. I can't imagine why Vivaldi isn't installing.

Edge, Chrome and Vivaldi .deb files all use a deprecated method to locate the key (/etc/apt/keyrings rather than /usr/share/keyrings) and that became an issue with Ubuntu Budgie 22.04 Beta because Ubuntu now displays a "deprecated" warning message ("Warning: apt-key is deprecated. Manage keyring files in trusted.gpg.d instead (see apt-key(8))") about the keyring when sudo apt update is run, but that does not affect installation.

I do know (from months reading the Zorin forum while I was setting up the railroad) that quite a number of the forum users are Vivaldi fanboys, so Vivaldi seems to work fine with Zorin.

WetGeek

riffer I'm sure you figured this out but Samba isn't installed by default.

Actually, I didn't realize that. My NAS does SMB as well as nfs, but I've always connected with nfs. I'll give that a try with Samba ... the /etc/fstab additions shouldn't be much different. Thanks!

WetGeek

tomscharbach I can't imagine why Vivaldi isn't installing.

To be honest, I didn't try installing a .deb. I've never installed one of those on anything but a Debian distro, and that was a long time ago. Maybe it would be possible, if I can figure out how to do thatt on a non-Debian distro.

Remember I'm very much a newbie with Zorin. I'll bet Tom could do it!

tomscharbach

WetGeek To be honest, I didn't try installing a .deb. I've never installed one of those on anything but a Debian distro, and that was a long time ago. Maybe it would be possible, if I can figure out how to do thatt on a non-Debian distro.

Zorin 16 is based on Ubuntu 20.04, which is based on Debian and uses .deb to install apps.

Download the Vivaldi .deb file (presumably using Firefox, since that is Zorin's default browser), double-click or right-click the downloaded file, and select "Open with Software Install" (or whatever the installer is called). That will open the software center and you will see the option to install Vivaldi. Click the "Install" button, let the installation process run to completion, and that should do the trick.

If you prefer to use the command line, just look for "Install Vivaldi on Ubuntu" and that should get you the necessary instructions. I found with Edge, though, that the CLI instructions published online are often incomplete or inaccurate, so I suggest you read and compare/contrast several different sites to make sense of what might work best.

Me, I use the GUI method. Click and be done.

As a general rule, Ubuntu solutions to issues will work with Zorin. Zorin Core is a heavily modified version of Ubuntu Gnome and, although not an authorized and supported Ubuntu "flavor", Zorin Core is Ubuntu Gnome through and through except for the modifications made to the Gnome theme.

WetGeek

tomscharbach Zorin 16 is based on Ubuntu 20.04

For some reason, if I ever knew that, I'd forgotten. Sure, it would be trivial to install it. I was thinking that I'd need to un-arc the .deb and figure out where to put everything.

If I can do that, and connect with my NAS shares using SMB, I'll nearly have won. All that would be left would be some additional workspaces. Even Windows offers that, fergoshsakes.

Sounds like there's still fun to be had with Zorin. 😁

tomscharbach

WetGeek All that would be left would be some additional workspaces. Even Windows offers that, fergoshsakes.

Yeah, well, Windows limps along, ragged and funny poor relation that it is.

I don't use workspaces, but I recall that Zorin 16, like Ubuntu 20.04, has four built in. How you might increase that number is above my pay grade. You might find something in the Ubuntu forums.

WetGeek

tomscharbach How you might increase that number is above my pay grade.

Hah! I haven't even found the four that are built in yet. I saw nothing in the settings, but I might not have held my mouth just right.

Vivaldi was no problem at all. I had it installed within 3 or 4 minutes of starting, and fully configured and sync'd a couple minutes later.

Samba is a different matter. I haven't used it in 10 or 12 years, and all I could find in the software center was something called smb4, a complex graphical utility. The network the VM is connected with is also connected with my NAS, which does provide SMB shares to Windows, but I couldn't find it with the smb4 utility. Apparently there's a significant learning curve with that bad boy.

Still having fun, but sharing my time with other projects, like making beef curry.

tomscharbach

WetGeek I haven't even found the four that are built in yet. I saw nothing in the settings, but I might not have held my mouth just right.

The Zorin DE is a heavily modified version of Gnome 3, so workspace controls should be similar/identical. I might be remembering this wrong (I last used Ubuntu in 2016-2017) but try hitting the Super (Windows Start) key and see what happens.

WetGeek

tomscharbach try hitting the Super (Windows Start) key and see what happens.

Great advice! That definitely has something to do with it, but I'll need to do some more exploring, because there's obviously more to it than just the Super key.

Pressing Super opens a panel on the right (much like Raven in Budgie) that apparently has enough room to show about 6 screens. That's obviously meant for picking the workspace you want to navigate to, but presently there's just the default workspace listed there.

I'll need to figure out how to actually create the workspaces.

tomscharbach

WetGeek I'll need to figure out how to actually create the workspaces.

See if this article helps. The article is about Gnome, but Zorin Core is Gnome. If the article is right, I was wrong about the four workspaces.

WetGeek

tomscharbach See if this article helps. The article is about Gnome, but Zorin Core is Gnome.

I'll check that out tomorrow morning, but I can tell you right now that Zorin's version doesn't remotely resemble the way workspaces are presented in my Solus GNOME VM. Those I understand.

WetGeek

tomscharbach If the article is right, I was wrong about the four workspaces.

Yeah, the GNOME heritage is present in these descendants, but they're all sufficiently different in their application of that heritage to be confusing.

It turns out that on Zorin, you press Ctrl+Alt+Up or Ctrl+Alt+Down to explore your workspaces. That's pretty common as a default keyboard shortcut among other distros and add-ons, but what actually happens as a result varies a lot.

As per the GNOME heritage, as you open an application on the empty workspace, another empty one is created, and you simply need to put stuff on the new one for another new one to be created. I'd need a little more research to be sure about it, but it seems like they're not limited as they are in, say, Budgie.

So, the basic scheme is all GNOME, but the implentation of that scheme is different for the various distros.
I'll reserve comment regarding how I feel about this scheme compared with the way workspaces are handled in Budgie, Plasma, and MATE, for example, because I don't want to offend anyone who's reading this.

P.S.: You were probably right about the four workspaces in versions of GNOME prior to 3.0. Something I read alluded to that's being the case. Apparently you can now create them until you get tired of doing it.

WetGeek

tomscharbach I can't speak to how workspaces function in Solus Gnome.

One starts by looking for a link called Activities at the far upper-left of the desktop. When you click that, the desktop you're looking at shrinks and the very end of an empty shrunken desktop to the right becomes visible. If you click on the end piece, that desktop enlarges to fill the screen and you're now on a new workspace. Rinse and repeat to create more.

I have no idea how many desktops are available there -- I've only ever used two while installing software and configuring it. I get a strong impression that more are created as needed, though, because when I'm using two of them, a small section of a third becomes visible when I click the Activities link.

Whatever mechanism Zorin uses is quite different from all that. Apparently workspaces can be selected from that Raven-like panel I showed you, but at this point it's only conjecture, based on the appearance of a small replica of the current desktop and room for more there. It's only conjecture, because I have no idea yet how to create a second workspace in Zorin.

I'm sure a little research will show me how, but I usually like to find out how to do things for myself, before looking for directions from someone else. You know, 'cause I'm a guy.

You've mentioned "the railroad" a lot. Sometime I'll need to write about living in southern Ohio as a kid, and my adventures along the B&O tracks that ran along the Ohio River a few hundred yards from my home. For example, the connection between railroad torpedos and fishing sinkers. That was during the change from coal to diesel, which was a pretty exciting time for a kid. But that's off-topic here.

tomscharbach

WetGeek You know, 'cause I'm a guy.

According to every woman I know, much overrated. <snort>

tomscharbach

WetGeek So, the basic scheme is all GNOME, but the implentation of that scheme is different for the various distros. I'll reserve comment regarding how I feel about this scheme compared with the way workspaces are handled in Budgie, Plasma, and MATE, for example, because I don't want to offend anyone who's reading this.

Well, Budgie, Plasma and MATE aren't Gnome.

Zorin seems to follow the Gnome article I gave you in an earlier comment exactly, based on a 10-minute look-see. Open an app, hit the Super key, and a new workspace created for the app. Open several apps, hit the Super key, and a new workspace is created containing all the apps that are open.

In any event, you are launched on your Zorin workspaces adventure, and I stand down and go back to pounding on Ubuntu Budgie 22.04 Beta, which is my adventure for this week.

The 22.04 version of UB seems to be an extremely solid and well-implemented distro, and I look forward to the UB 22.04 LTS release on April 21. If Microsoft doesn't get its act together and release an Edge snap by the end of the year, I might adopt UB 22.04 as my production distro.

WetGeek You were probably right about the four workspaces in versions of GNOME prior to 3.0. Something I read alluded to that's being the case. Apparently you can now create them until you get tired of doing it.

For me, that takes about five minutes flat, because for me workspaces are not useful. I did enjoy tracking this down with you.

WetGeek

tomscharbach Well, Budgie, Plasma and MATE aren't Gnome.

Exactly my point. The keyboard shortcuts based on Ctrl+Alt+(arrow keys) are very common defaults among many DEs and distros ... even for the VirtuaWin add-on for Windows. In Windows, of course, it's Ctrl+Win+(arrow keys).

But how those shortcuts are implemented varies. Varies in minor ways among GNOME descendants, and much more dramatically between those descendants and non-GNOME based distros and DEs. In other words, the keys you press are pretty similar, but what happens after that varies a lot.

In Zorin this morning I opened a Firefox window on the original workspace, then pressed Ctrl+Alt+Down and opened a Vivaldi window on the empty workspace below the Firefox one. Then I pressed Ctrl+Alt+Down one more time, and there was a third workspace (empty) below the Vivaldi one. That's a scheme that will meet the needs of lots of people. And not too far removed from the way they might have already done it in Windows.