One of the more widely used Ubuntu spinoffs, non-techie friendly Zorin has put out three editions of its latest version – Zorin OS 17.1 – and there are still more to come.
Zorin OS, like its Irish cousin Linux Mint, is not a distro intended to appeal to existing Linux users. Instead, it targets not-very-technical Windows users. For instance, as the Reg has covered in depth before, Windows 11 won’t run on a lot of existing PCs, many of which are still perfectly capable, well-specified kit. We suspect that there are also lots of people who, perfectly understandably, held off from the underwhelming Windows 8 or 8.1. For those still on Windows 7 or 8.x, the free Windows 10 upgrades have ended.
If you have a geriatric PC that, when it was new, ran Windows 7 reasonably well, then today it will run Zorin OS just fine. The fact that Zorin OS 17.1 is still based on the 2022 release of Ubuntu is a distinct advantage, in terms of support for older hardware.
Zorin is definitely not being aimed at the Linux pros or bleeding edge Linux users. This is probably a good thing as we do need more newbie-friendly Linux distros, and this one has been around for a while too, so is quite mature and ready to use.
And we are certainly seeing from the worldwide stats that Linux desktop use is picking up slowly. A 1% increase overall equates to an over 30% increase in actual Linux desktop users.