Windows 10 Refugees Flock To Linux as Zorin OS Claims 'Biggest Launch Ever' (neowin.net)
- Reference: 0179824658
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/10/18/1946208/windows-10-refugees-flock-to-linux-as-zorin-os-claims-biggest-launch-ever
- Source link: https://www.neowin.net/news/windows-10-refugees-flock-to-linux-in-what-devs-call-their-biggest-launch-ever/
> Of all the projects trying to poach Windows users, Zorin Group might be the most aggressive, [3]launching its biggest OS upgrade , Zorin OS 18, on the very day Windows 10 died. In [4]a recent post on X , Zorin Group celebrated the launch of version 18, claiming that it hit 100,000 downloads in "a little over 2 days". The company called it its "biggest launch ever" and claimed that over 72% of those downloads came from Windows...
>
> Zorin OS 18 now includes an updated version of WINE 10 for better support of Windows software. On top of that, there's also an expanded database that helps when it detects a Windows installer. The system checks the file and suggests the best way to run over 170 popular apps, whether that means installing a native Linux version, using the web-based alternative, or firing it up through WINE.
The article also notes LibreOffice's creators have been presenting Linux as a secure and cost-effective alternative [5]since June , and "We have also seen initiatives like The " [6]End of 10" Campaign by KDE , making the case for Linux and providing guides and info on how to switch."
[1] https://www.slashdot.org/~darwinmac
[2] https://www.neowin.net/news/windows-10-refugees-flock-to-linux-in-what-devs-call-their-biggest-launch-ever/
[3] https://www.neowin.net/news/zorin-os-18-eyes-your-windows-10-pc-as-microsoft-pulls-the-plug/
[4] https://x.com/ZorinOS/status/1978879214511129086
[5] https://www.neowin.net/news/2025-finally-the-year-of-linux-libreoffice-explains-real-costs-of-windows-11/
[6] https://www.neowin.net/news/a-linux-backed-project-shows-how-to-save-unsupported-windows-10-pcs-by-installing-linux/
Playing with toys doesn't count (Score:3)
Sustained user base counts. Let me know in 2 months how many people stayed with it, then I'll be impressed.
To be clear I hope to be impressed, but this isn't news, testing the waters alone isn't a success.
Re: (Score:2)
All with computers that don't run the recent Windows anymore. That's why Microsoft failed to push it to users.
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The problem is we have just read articles about record computer sales in recent memory driven by the same effect. While I'm an advocate for people using Linux, I am sceptical that these people will stick with it and not just go and buy a different machine in a month with Windows 11 on it.
We saw a similar experience with Netbooks. The Linux variants were overwhelming bought "by accident" and suffered an obscenely high non-fault related return rate. Linux has come a long way since then, so finger's crossed.
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> "To be clear I hope to be impressed, but this isn't news, testing the waters alone isn't a success."
Yes and no. It *is* a success if users are actually willing to understand they do have choices and Linux is one of them and then act on it. No doubt, some will not stay. But many will. 10 million trying Linux and only half staying is much better than 100,000 trying and 90% staying :)
I just hope they are trying something like Mint or Zorin or whatnot, and NOT a distro defaulting to Gnome!
I was shocked
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> Yes and no. It *is* a success if users are actually willing to understand they do have choices and Linux is one of them and then act on it.
In which case Linux should now have a huge market share since we've been through this with the Netbooks before. But what happened is that people ended up returning their Netbooks. This isn't a choice. It's a trial of a choice. A legitimate choice translates to long term use for many people, and while I hope that will happen this time, I've had this hope multiple times before and it never eventuated into a sustained market growth for Linux.
Lol (Score:1)
I have been hanging around this dumpster fire of a site for over 20 years and it is for shit like this. You guys need to stop measuring your worth based on the comings and goings of a public company who has been dunking on you the whole time.
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> I have been hanging around this dumpster fire of a site for over 20 years
Your 7 digit UID says otherwise, bruh.
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I had been reading Slashdot for a decade before I registered. Never felt the need to contribute to the conversation before that.
Re: Lol (Score:1)
Imagine being on a social site and not using the same login for 20 years. Iâ(TM)ve probably referred to you as a neck beard from one account or another a dozen times. Thereâ(TM)s no getting through to most of you so I havenâ(TM)t had much to say for most of my life here except to come and laugh.
Re: (Score:1)
To be fair he might have been a lurker. I lurked here for years and years because it didn't occur to me to sign up and comment. Honestly before everything in my life just kept going pear-shaped thanks to America's fucked up healthcare system and semi-annual economic collapses brought on by Wall Street deregulation I don't think I would have bothered constantly bitching on forums.
I don't think I signed up to vent. I can't remember what made me actually sign up. But it wasn't long until that was 99.9% of
And thenâ¦. (Score:2)
These newbies will make some minor change to their desktop, and everything will blow up. And they will be counseled to tweak this or that, but it will fail. And they will say WTF?
Re:And thenâ¦. (Score:4, Informative)
> "These newbies will make some minor change to their desktop, and everything will blow up. And they will be counseled to tweak this or that, but it will fail. And they will say WTF?"
When did you last use a Linux desktop? 20 years ago?
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>> "These newbies will make some minor change to their desktop, and everything will blow up. And they will be counseled to tweak this or that, but it will fail. And they will say WTF?"
> When did you last use a Linux desktop? 20 years ago?
Probably never - it's just a popular thing for the Windows uber alles crowd to chant.
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> These newbies will make some minor change to their desktop, and everything will blow up. And they will be counseled to tweak this or that, but it will fail. And they will say WTF?
2005 called. Look - It's all fun and games to make claims about Linux that were true20 years ago. I use Windows MacOS and Linux. Windows gives me 90 percent of computing problems. While using it the least. So these clueless people have no problems on The bestest, most popular, largest installed user base OS?
Bull Fucking Shit (Score:2)
Few, if any are leaving Windows for Linux.
FAR fewer still are choosing Zorin as their distro.
This story is a steaming pile of bull-fucking-shit.
Distributed Enterprise Workgroup Licenses (Score:1)
We created at least 25,000 jobs monthly on Win10 because of loose legacy TPL hardware... then we revised that to 0. Migrating to Zorin is likely to change all that.
Re: (Score:2)
> Few, if any are leaving Windows for Linux.
> FAR fewer still are choosing Zorin as their distro.
> This story is a steaming pile of bull-fucking-shit.
Can you show us on the doll where Linux hurt you? That's the first step in getting rid of your anger problems.
Practically, still have a month ... (Score:2)
I noticed that the Edge (not that I use it) and Virus Definition updates are still happening on my Windows 10 system, as well as updated for third-party software, so since the major Windows updates happen/ed on "Patch Tuesday" there's still a month until the next one on Nov 11 and Windows gets completely left behind, from a practical point anyway.
I've had my (more capable) Linux Mint 22.2 (Cinnamon) system up for a *while*, but am (still) being lazy about moving all my files over to it. I've sync'ed my
While I agree with the linux switch... (Score:3)
Windows 10 users with a MS account still have another year worth of updates on their older machines so...really?
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Still another year's worth of converts to come then. :)
spyware (Score:1)
Not paying money for Russian Linux... Or even use it free. Yikes..
I jumped ship, but hard sell for non-techies (Score:2)
How could I sell Linux to a non-techie when before you can even install an app you have to choose a flatpak, an appimage or a system package, or a .deb file, or ... Official comparisons within the distribution are lackluster/non-existent, and then there are bugs in the software center descriptions and thumbnails, looking at you Kate.
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"How could I sell Linux to a non-techie when before you can even install an app you have to choose a flatpak, an appimage or a system package, or a .deb file"
By steering them to a friendly distro like Mint, maybe? It will use native apps for most everything important. Non-techies will usually just browse the software installer and see what is available and install stuff from there. And it will work. And Mint is "store" and "SNAP"-free, so they won't encounter that mess.
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Well I *was* talking about Mint/Cinnamon... Software Manager does offer sometimes separate entries for flatpak/system or sometimes it allows you to select one.
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> "How could I sell Linux to a non-techie when before you can even install an app you have to choose a flatpak, an appimage or a system package, or a .deb file"
> By steering them to a friendly distro like Mint, maybe? It will use native apps for most everything important. Non-techies will usually just browse the software installer and see what is available and install stuff from there. And it will work. And Mint is "store" and "SNAP"-free, so they won't encounter that mess.
The people who have the woeful tales of "Linux is too hard!" must never have used Mint. If Mint is too hard, all computing is too hard. Have them get a smartphone, then when they have problems they can go to the store they bought it at.
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> How could I sell Linux to a non-techie when before you can even install an app you have to choose a flatpak, an appimage or a system package, or a .deb file, or ... Official comparisons within the distribution are lackluster/non-existent, and then there are bugs in the software center descriptions and thumbnails, looking at you Kate.
You tell them to go to AT&T, or Verizon. and get a SmartPhone. Eternal September lives on, and if they are too stupid to use Linux, they will have the same problems or worse with Windows.
Linux still can't run Fortnite, thanks Epic! (Score:2)
Not even on RedHat, Sweeny thinks Linux would open his game up to cheaters. As if Fortnite's not already overrun by cheaters. This from a guy who went to war with Apple cause they wouldn't let him gouge his customers without sharing it with other gougers. Not to even mention how epicly unfair the matchmaking is.
Linux is cool now (Score:3, Interesting)
The biggest shift I've noticed in conversations around desktop Linux is when someone says something like this:
"Is Linux really good enough to do $x? Such and such didn't work, OMG LOL."
Maybe they want to run photoshop, or some game, whatever.
In 2010, this would be met by a bunch of advocates basically begging that person to use Linux, or trying to shame them to get good, and everyone would just sort of get smug and walk away. The original person who started the conversation says something like "This is why you jobless neckbeards can't use real operating systems" or something silly.
In 2025, the conversation often goes "so don't run Linux, it's cool, Linux doesn't need you, the growth is happening with or without you." And the original poster says something like "no no, I still want to, I'm cool too." Because running Windows, is just not cool at this point. If you're like a PC building gamer, it's not something to be proud of. Upgrading from 10 -> 11 when PewDiePie is upgrading from 10 -> Arch, just isn't something to make noise about.
The tone has totally changed, go check out like /r/linuxquestions on Reddit or similar, countless YouTube channels. The community's with Linux switchers younger than the /. crowd are night and day.
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However, Linux desktop UI have been going off the deep end for years. I recently loaded Gnome and it won't even let me have desktop icons. Deeply, disturbingly anti-user mindset.
gnome is the worst (Score:1)
The organization is almost completely broke due to mismanagement, and so Framework (the laptop company) offered to give them money, since Framework uses Gnome. GNOME TURNED IT DOWN BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T LIKE THE POLITICAL VIEWS OF OTHER SOFTWARE FRAMEWORK DONATED TO. Like Christ on a pogo stick, the snake has eaten itself. The world would really be better off with Gnome. Doesn't even work on FreeBSD anymore because Gnome has decided that systemd is now an essential part of Unix.
Re: Linux is cool now (Score:2)
Definitely true for gnome (and their increasingly forced client side decorations). Fortunately there are other desktop environments and programs. Any program which forces those awful inconsistent title bars (which don't even show if the window is focused) ends up getting uninstalled. We solved these UI problems decades ago, gnome seems determined to cause them all over again.
Re:Linux is cool now (Score:5, Informative)
> However, Linux desktop UI have been going off the deep end for years. I recently loaded Gnome and it won't even let me have desktop icons. Deeply, disturbingly anti-user mindset.
Try [1]Mate [wikipedia.org] or [2]Cinnamon [wikipedia.org], based on GNOME 2 and 3 respectively, preferably on Mint. I'm using Mint 22.2 (Cinnamon).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MATE_(desktop_environment)
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinnamon_(desktop_environment)
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I like minimalist PixeL (default with PiOS), but having Gnome being default on so many distributions is insane and holding Linux adoption back. I was recently re-exposed to Gnome when I installed Debian 13 with all defaults. I was really shocked how bad it was (Gnome, not Debian). WTF.
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> "However, Linux desktop UI have been going off the deep end for years. I recently loaded Gnome"
Um, Linux doesn't have "a" "desktop UI". And Gnome is probably the worst in many people's opinion. I would never set up a new user with Gnome. It would likely be Mint running Cinnamon or MATE, or KDE. Linux has lots of choices for desktops, and most are quite nice.
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> Um, Linux doesn't have "a" "desktop UI".
While technically you are correct, do you think people attempting to migrate from Windows would care about this? Whatever default is, they will install, look at the UI, correctly decide that these people lost their minds and never give Linux another chance.
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> However, Linux desktop UI have been going off the deep end for years. I recently loaded Gnome and it won't even let me have desktop icons. Deeply, disturbingly anti-user mindset.
Gnome has always been a lost cause.
[1]https://kde.org/ [kde.org]
[1] https://kde.org/
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The problem is the big distributions persist at promoting GNOME as the default option despite a long history of questionable UI decisions. The constant support enables this sort of decision making at GNOME.
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> Comparing OSes is still measured in neckbeards when coding notes are proudly written in Klingon.
i just checked and pewdiepie has 110m followers. his arch linux video has 6.9m views and 28k comments and is his most viewed video of all 2025 (couldn't be bothered to check further) by some margin (only matched by the one where he announces that he's done with youtube (but somehow kept uploading videos)).
either the klingon neckbeard population has exploded or you're not keeping up, anycase it's an obvious sign that linux has become usable by complete idiots of any sort.
Is this finally... (Score:2)
Is this finally the year of Linux on the desktop?
Is anyone here old enough to remember that joke?
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Hey, I'm still waiting for the year of the LAN and the paperless office to arrive. Linux on the desktop... that's a long way off (says the guy who's been using Linux as his go-to OS for nearly 20 years and has no regrets.
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> In 2025, the conversation often goes "so don't run Linux, it's cool, Linux doesn't need you, the growth is happening with or without you."
This isn't a good thing. This is just a reflection of toxicity in the community, it's not promoting growth, its making it out to be a club full of stuck up self absorbed arseholes.
Please stop having these conversations.
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> In 2025, the conversation often goes "so don't run Linux, it's cool, Linux doesn't need you, the growth is happening with or without you." .
And it has been that way for a lot of us for a long time. To put it bluntly, I don't care. I don't use an operating system based on popularity. I do have 1 program that I need to use that runs on Windows only. When I need to use it, I pull out the laptop it is on, use it, turn it off and it sits until the next time. Then I go back to MacOS or Linux and have a week or more of problem free computing.
You have to use Windows and cannot use anything else? I feel badly for ya. That and a dollar will get you a