Comment by afavour
5 days ago
I hope this succeeds where others have, well, not failed, but not had overwhelming success. Years ago I installed Linux Mint on a family member's computer but they got frustrated enough with it (and required my regular intervention enough) that we ended up switching away. Zorin boasting about you being able to play "an enormous library of your favorite games" or boasting about the vast software library feels like asking for trouble. It won't be long before users run into rough edges.
TBH in the current environment I still think the best OS for "revive an old computer for a not very tech savvy person" is ChromeOS. I've never tried the open source alternatives for that but I'd be much happier setting up a relative with a glorified browser as an OS than something that attempts to do everything.
The advantage of Zorin is that it comes with some level of Wine integration. If it detects that there's a Linux version of a Windows installer, it'll guide the user towards the Linux version instead, but opening .EXEs works quite well out of the box as well.
Getting a recent version of Wine on anything but Arch-based distros without some kind of confusing intermediary is quite tricky, so making Wine somewhat usable goes a long way for non-tech-savvy users.
I've seen Zorin on computers sold for cheap in several second-hand stores. All PCs that have no hope of running Windows 11 (and probably struggled to run Windows 10 before getting a RAM+SSD upgrade). For reusing old tech, it's not a bad solution, though some users might have someone install Windows 10 later anyway.
>. If it detects that there's a Linux version of a Windows installer, it'll guide the user towards the Linux version instead,
My anecdotal experience with the steam and steamOS has been that the windows versions of games run better via proton than their native linux versions.
One game i have didn't run even run when i was on windows, but the windows version worked in Linux..
>One game i have didn't run even run when i was on windows, but the windows version worked in Linux..
Was it an old game? Those tend to do that
>My anecdotal experience with the steam and steamOS has been that the windows versions of games run better via proton than their native linux versions.
This is very interesting, does anyone have insights into why? I can only guess the games/their engines are more mindful of optimizing their calls to the native windows APIs, which when translated turns out to be pretty efficient on the output side too
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> My anecdotal experience with the steam and steamOS has been that the windows versions of games run better via proton than their native linux versions.
I've experienced the same thing with game console emulators. The Windows version run smoother on Linux than natively compiled ones do.
My cousin got my grandmother moved to Linux Mint with some actual success. All she did was check her email and browse the internet, and Linux can do that perfectly competently.
Same story here. Purchased a System76 machine for my ex-wife's grandmother. She "enjoyed learning about the new system". As a bonus she is now completely support scam immune, one of the advantages of the year of the Linux desktop not having happened yet.
Not going to lie, I feel a System76 machine is way overkill for someones grandmother who likely doesn't really need that kind of horsepower... Especially given the cheapest model they sell is 1400.
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Honestly, iPad might have been better.
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There's a big difference between noobs on their own and noobs with a competent relative.
Way back in the day, I set up my grandpa with Slackware and FVWM. Yeah, I had to edit a configuration file to add a program - but that also meant that once I set it up, it would never break.
> Zorin boasting about you being able to play "an enormous library of your favorite games" or boasting about the vast software library feels like asking for trouble. It won't be long before users run into rough edges.
Out of the top 1000 games on steam: https://www.protondb.com/dashboard
29 are "borked" (unplayable)
26 are "bronze" (issues playing like "might crash")
82 are "silver" ("runs with minor issues but is playable")
823 are "gold"/"platinum" (works perfectly with tweaks, and works perfectly ootb)
> TBH in the current environment I still think the best OS for "revive an old computer for a not very tech savvy person" is ChromeOS.
Only 52 games are listed as "certified" for proton on Chrome OS.
Proton isn't Wine. The version of Wine that Zorin ships won't run games quite so well.
Installing Steam and running games through Steam will fix that, but it won't help with users downloading the Epic Game Store or GOG or the Rockstar Launcher.
Having helped a few users get acclimated with Linux, I've found that there are always a few rough edges around games. Zorin seems to hide them very well out of the box, though, much better than any of the other distros I've tried.
> Proton isn't Wine.
Proton _is_ Wine. Fixes in Proton get upstreamed into Wine, and Valve hires developers to work on Proton, Wine, and Mesa. Wine isn't in the dark ages anymore and is able to run the majority of things you throw at it confidently and capably.
> but it won't help with users downloading the Epic Game Store or GOG or the Rockstar Launcher.
That's... why we have Lutris? You literally cannot shake a stick without coming across those. Even just typing "epic games on linux" into google and being a dumbass that reads the AI overview, it will tell you that Heroic and Lutris exist: https://i.imgur.com/KBiw1cR.png
After that, you just click some buttons that are clearly marked and wait for things to install, and it just works: https://i.imgur.com/XUFJaUu.png
To be clear, I literally just did this because I wanted to try Fall Guys on my laptop with an aggressively underpowered graphics card. It took only minimal intervention from me (clicking "install" and "next", and then logging in to Epic).
It's not as seamless as hitting "Install" on Steam would be, but if you're able to mod games on Windows (i.e. "follow instructions") you're more than able to deal with the state of gaming on Linux in the present day, and in many ways it is somewhat easier than Windows with the way Linux handles software upgrades.
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I find protondb misleading because GTA V is supposedly "Gold" except Online does not work at all because of anti-cheat. Same goes for many other popular multiplayer games.
FYI: FydeOS[0] is ChromeOS without google services
[0]: https://fydeos.io/
I'm curious about whether FydeOS would get in the way of technical work or just be another Linux for most things?
I mean, while it technically supports Linux, it’s all in a VM just like normal Chrome OS. It’s not any better for technical work than chrome is in that sense.
I'm surprised to hear that about Linux Mint. I installed it on an ancient laptop for my octogenarian mother and she could get around in it just fine after I explained to her how to use their 'store' to install apps. The interface is quite intuitive, I felt.
My guess is if you are comfortable on Windows then Mint is perfect and works how you expect, if you come from macOS then perhaps Elementary would be better for you.
Zorin negates this worry entirely and allows you to install one OS for everyone and then just choose the Windows or Mac mode depending on the end-user.
I was under the impression that elementary had stopped being as good since the pandemic because of the founder leaving. Is that not true?
Something that I believe is dragging down “mass audience” sorts of distros like Zorin is that they’re only Windows-like in a vague sense, leaving them in an “uncanny valley” of sorts. One of these distros really needs to commit to the bit of Windows-like-ness so it’s a seamless drop-in to the greatest degree possible.
I don't know, when I installed a linux distro with xfce on her laptop after he hdd died it took my partner months to realize she wasn't using windows.
I mean she only figured out libreoffice was installed instead of the pirated copy of office she used to run and complained the menus were different. Little she knew that a more recent version of Office would too have different menus/items placement anyway.
This probably depends on the user. Someone leaning less technical might not catch on or care, but someone who’s even just technical enough to be able to get themselves in trouble probably will. The more technical one becomes, the more tuned into the details of their OS and the more likely it is for those details to become incorporated into their workflow. When those details change it’s then hard to miss.
So there’s some number of users who could probably just be switched over by PC vendors preinstalling Linux, but there’s other groups who’d benefit from something more truly Windows-like.
Aside from those groups, I think there’s a crowd that could be attracted by simply selling your distro as being like “Windows when it was still good, except this time you get to keep it forever”. I think there’s a decent number of people who’ve become fatigued with modern Windows but don’t care enough to switch who’d be pushed over the edge by a distro that’s a near perfect reproduction of XP, 7, etc. Nostalgia can be a powerful motivator.
Heh, I know people who are using a Windows PC for decades yet legitimately don't know what "Windows" is. They have a PC. They work in Word. They browse in Chrome. They have no knowledge whatsoever as to what Windows is.
How long ago was this? There hasn't been a "more recent version of Office" for quite some time, so I suspect that this happened a while ago. Things have changed a lot, let me count the ways...
The rise of smartphones has eliminated an entire class of computer users. People who just want to do some Google searches, chat on Facebook, etc. can just use phones, and they do. (Caveat: I think a lot of people in the 30-50 age group still prefer a PC, because that's what they're used to, but that cohort is a one-off and is slowly diminishing. Furthermore, I've observed that as people near retirement, they are less interested in sitting in front of a computer screen, which will diminish this cohort relatively soon).
So who still uses a computer? I think it's just PC gamers, highschool/college students, and white-collar professionals.
PC gamers are very satisfied with the state of Linux, because games are relatively simple applications, and the Linux ecosystem has been able to provide a great compatibility environment for Windows games.
Students and professionals are less likely to be satisfied with Linux, and it's not really Linux's fault, but a lot of software just doesn't work on Linux. And even if it did, small issues like case-sensitive filesystems could easily provide enough friction to prevent these users from switching. Lastly, these users are willing to spend a modest amount of money to save them time, and a Windows PC with the cost of the OS bundled isn't exactly expensive. Windows 10 was released over 10 years ago, and these users are likely to buy a new PC within that time, meaning they'll always get the latest Windows version, so upgrading their OS isn't really something they think about.
Keep in mind, I'm not saying any of this is good or correct or moral or non-cringe, I'm just saying that this is the real reason why Linux adoption is a more complex issue these days.
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> Zorin boasting about you being able to play "an enormous library of your favorite games"
This has nothing to do with “zorin”. Proton, wine, lutris, are available for all Linuxes
There is genuine value in having it all set up out of the box, and not having to figure it out yourself.
I have been using Linux since the '90s and haven't used anything else in at least a decade, but I struggled to understand what all the pieces were and what I was supposed to do with them when I wanted to play a Steam game with my kid several months ago. I'm still not sure I did it right; I think I probably did install Lutris, maybe, but I have no idea what problem it is meant to solve.
OOC, what were the frustrations about? I jumped ship as soon as Ubuntu started shipping with Unity. For me, as a moderate power-user, it's been pretty smooth sailing so far.
As someone that nowadays lives mostly on Windows, and uses Linux since kernel 1.0.9 days, Unity DE was so much better experience than GNOME will ever be again.
After Unity got removed from Ubuntu as default DE, I eventually adopted XFCE.
I also enjoyed Unity, we're in a minority.
But I've found Ubuntu with Gnome 46 and a few tweaks to offer most of what I like about Unity (and macOS).
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I think that's the issue, you're a moderate power user so feature discoverability is more natural to you. I guess the issues his family had were related to things not functioning how Windows or macOS does (although Mint is pretty Windows focused) hopefully Zorin is much more user-friendly to casual users.