780,000 Windows Users Downloaded Linux Distro Zorin OS in the Last 5 Weeks (zorin.com)
- Reference: 0180175957
- News link: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/25/11/22/0746223/780000-windows-users-downloaded-linux-distro-zorin-os-in-the-last-5-weeks
- Source link: https://blog.zorin.com/2025/11/18/test-the-upgrade-from-zorin-os-17-to-18-and-celebrating-1-million-downloads-of-zorin-os-18/
And one month later, Zorin OS developers now claim that [2]780,000 people downloaded it from a Windows computer in the space of a month , according to the tech news site XDA Developers .
> In a post [3]on the Zorin blog , the developers of the operating system Zorin OS 18 announced that they've managed to accrue one million downloads of the operating system in a single month [since its launch on October 14]. While this is plenty impressive by itself, the developers go on to reveal that, out of that million, 78% of the downloads came from a Windows machine. That means that at least 780,000 people on Windows gave Zorin OS 18 a download...
>
> [I]t's easy to see why: the developers put a heavy emphasis on [4]making their system the perfect home for ex-Windows users .
[1] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/10/18/1946208/windows-10-refugees-flock-to-linux-as-zorin-os-claims-biggest-launch-ever
[2] https://www.xda-developers.com/780000-windows-users-downloaded-this-linux-distro-in-a-month/
[3] https://blog.zorin.com/2025/11/18/test-the-upgrade-from-zorin-os-17-to-18-and-celebrating-1-million-downloads-of-zorin-os-18/
[4] https://www.xda-developers.com/zorin-os-18-beta-release/
Look and feel (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't care about the look and feel. I need an OS that I can plug a sound card into, start up my machine and it installs the driver and starts working. I need my system administration routine down around 30 minutes per month. I want GUIs for all common tasks and I want it intuitive enough the I'm not spending hours looking up which command line options to use or installing package managers to install drivers to install features to install programs.
I'll try Linux, but it has failed me in this respect several times in the past, despite the insistence among lovers of Linux that it's actually just as low-maintenance as Windows.
Re: (Score:2)
> I want GUIs for all common tasks
A common task for you might not be for me...
Re: (Score:2)
are you trying to help or just be contrary...
Re: Look and feel (Score:2)
> I want GUIs for all common tasks
I'm curious, why is it so important? I like GUIs for certain things (email, web browsing) but not for others (batch file manipulation, batch image manipulation). Why is it so important to you to have gui for everything? I mean for some cases a GUI is clearly an inferior solution from my perspective.
Re: (Score:2)
Then it's most likely not a, keyword here, "common" task.
Re:Look and feel (Score:4, Informative)
> "I need an OS that I can plug a sound card into, start up my machine and it installs the driver and starts working"
Generally, that is Linux. I have installed various Linuxes over decades on hundreds of various machines. For the most part, modern Linux detects all the typical hardware and just configures and uses it. There is no need to "install drivers".
> "I want GUIs for all common tasks and I want it intuitive enough the I'm not spending hours looking up"
Again, that is generally the case with modern Linux. All the good distros can be completely managed through a GUI.
Could you end up with trying to install a not-so-great distro on a machine that has some unusual hardware? And have to take a dive into stuff? Sure. But that is the exception, not the rule, at least not in 2025.
Re: (Score:2)
>> "I need an OS that I can plug a sound card into, start up my machine and it installs the driver and starts working"
> Generally, that is Linux. I have installed various Linuxes over decades on hundreds of various machines. For the most part, modern Linux detects all the typical hardware and just configures and uses it. There is no need to "install drivers".
By the way I don't know if you've seen the post I made about my Emergency Digital RF communications or not, and how W11 is making a trainwreck out of the sound drivers. of which the whole thing falls apart. During Windows 7 days you set it, and it worked. No more.
Windows 10 had enough issues with Sound drivers already, then W11 came along and said "Hold my beer!"
Re: (Score:2)
> Could you end up with trying to install a not-so-great distro on a machine that has some unusual hardware? And have to take a dive into stuff? Sure. But that is the exception, not the rule, at least not in 2025.
And, to be fair, I've had friends and co-workers run into that sort of thing on Windows. Quite a lot.
Very HW Dependent (Score:2)
It's been ages, but Linux compatibility used to be terrible on relatively well selling HW. Dell, in particular, was terrible enough that I gave up trying.
Get a cheap-ish two year old T-series ThinkPad. It'll be fine.
Re: Look and feel (Score:1)
You have the newest model of Soundblaster? Are those still made?
Re: (Score:2)
I have an older SB card in my computer because when I first built the computer (in 2018?) the MSI MB was new enough it was barely supported and the sound chip on it wasn't, hence throwing in a SB sound card and moving on. If I took that card out, I'd *probably* find that the sound chip on the MB just worked, but since it's all working now why bother to change it. :)
Looks like Amazon still sells them for about $56 brand new.
Re: Look and feel (Score:2)
I read this a lot and then folks type into an Ai bot prompt. ðY
Re: (Score:3)
> I don't care about the look and feel. I need an OS that I can plug a sound card into, start up my machine and it installs the driver and starts working. I need my system administration routine down around 30 minutes per month. I want GUIs for all common tasks and I want it intuitive enough the I'm not spending hours looking up which command line options to use or installing package managers to install drivers to install features to install programs. I'll try Linux, but it has failed me in this respect several times in the past, despite the insistence among lovers of Linux that it's actually just as low-maintenance as Windows.
Windows 1 sucked too. I haven't had one driver problem with Linux for over a decade and a half. In fact, I've had many many more with Windows. They will kill drivers, while Linux allows the old drivers to work. My group has had so many problems with W11 drivers bin wrecked with updates.
Never install Linux without an internet connection. It runs out to the net and downloads and installs them.
And do not try to impose Windows mores on Linux. I've seen so many people try to do that.
You will have to learn a
Re: (Score:3)
What's an example of a common task? Copying files onto a USB stick? Formatting said USB stick? Editing a WAV file? Playing movies and MP3s? Ripping a CD? I think Linux and several other OSes have covered these particular common tasks for quite some time now.
Of course, if you're used to Windows or a Mac, the steps and names of the programs are going to be different on Linux/*BSD. But at a high level it's going to be a very similar process to complete any "common task".
Re: (Score:1)
Those are application tasks, I wasn't talking about those. I'm thinking set dark mode, power settings, network settings, add Japanese typing ability after OS install, TTS, change printer driver, update graphics driver, downgrade graphics driver, restore system to earlier configuration, user account configuration, stuff like that.
Re: (Score:3)
> I need an OS that I can plug a sound card into, start up my machine and it installs the driver and starts working
That's weird because these days I find that Ubuntu does that way better than Windows. If I just plug in some random device, it won't provide all of the bells and whistles but I often get the basic functionality with zero clicks. For many devices, that's enough for me.
> I need my system administration routine down around 30 minutes per month
That's possible with Windows Update? I've seen Windows
Re: (Score:2)
Linux on the desktop failed me years ago. I got tired of running Windows for Office and Linux for a csh and later bash prompt and gcc tools. I got tired of having to find some weird configuration file to make an otherwise mainstream piece of hardware work. Keep in mind, we're talking late 90's early 00's. OSX 10.0 came out (yes, I actually ran 10.0 during the brief period it was out) and they were both wrapped up into one computer. I still needed Windows for games, but I was usually otherwise on my Mac. Sin
Re: Look and feel (Score:2)
Get a Mac. You are one of their biggest target audiences.
Re: (Score:2)
> I need an OS that I can plug a sound card into, start up my machine and it installs the driver and starts working. I need my system administration routine down around 30 minutes per month.
nice try, 90s guy
Good for them (Score:2)
Even if all 1 million downloads turn into real OS installs, it's a drop in the bucket compared to Windows installs. However, after Microsoft's recent announcement [1]their own updates have broken their own system [slashdot.org] combined with no longer supporting W10, this can only lead to good things.
[1] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/11/21/1912228/microsoft-finally-admits-almost-all-major-windows-11-core-features-are-broken
Re: (Score:2)
> Even if all 1 million downloads turn into real OS installs, it's a drop in the bucket compared to Windows installs. However, after Microsoft's recent announcement [1]their own updates have broken their own system [slashdot.org] combined with no longer supporting W10, this can only lead to good things.
Yeah, my students are having a hellava time with their shiny new Windows 11 computers shitting the bed. I even switched over to the MacOS build of the software in order to know it works.
I've never been all that worried about market share or installed user base. More the opposite. I call it the VHS effect. VHS ruled the early camcorder and home recording market. It was also the worst technology among it's peers.
I guess the main difference is that Linux and MacOS aren't going away.
[1] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/11/21/1912228/microsoft-finally-admits-almost-all-major-windows-11-core-features-are-broken
Re: (Score:2)
VHS won in part because Sony wouldn't license pornographic film. It also won because VHS didn't have licensing fees in the first place.
Re: Good for them (Score:2)
I think VHS won when an executive at Sony said "This is awesome, you can record video onto magnetic tape! The only limit on how much you can record is how long the tape is in the cassette and we are setting the standard so we can make them any physical size we want! Let's design the cassettes to be quite small so that it will be a nightmare to try and extend the capacity later!"
Re: (Score:2)
> "Even if all 1 million downloads turn into real OS installs, it's a drop in the bucket compared to Windows installs."
True. But if even if a small number of those people then show someone else and that other person switches, and on, and on, awareness keeps spreading. That is a great thing.
Generally, I don't care what OS people use (as long as I don't have to support it), but I do care if they are unhappy. Having Linux as an option is really great and works fantastically for a large number of people wi
Windows 11 AI Enshiitification (Score:4, Insightful)
As the enshittification continues, more and more people will consider dumping Windows for something else.
Microsoft probably doesn't care much about home users. A milloin users leaving windows for Linux, so what? What they will care about is their enterprise users jumping ship.
The other thing to watch out for is open privacy-protecting web browsers getting shut out from major web sites. At some point these web sites won't support browsers with small market shares as it isn't worth the time and effort to support them. I think this will become a major issue in the next 2-3 years. You'll have to use Edge or Chrome to access important web sites for things like tax preparation, paying property taxes, car registration, and social security. So some form of "Sandboxing" might be required to run these privacy-abusing web browsers in there own padded cell.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not really about those home licenses. The thing is, the higher the percentage of home users the easier it is to build a Linux shop, the more people have a cousin who can tell them how to fix their computer, the more IT support companies have a Linux guy. It's a network effect.
Re: (Score:2)
Gentoo FTW! /s
Re: (Score:2)
Both solid choices. Debian is also a nice option that I fall back to.
Zorin is for people who want to pay Zorin instead of Canonical for nice installer and some roadmap for long-term hardware and security support. With Canonical and Red Hat being the stronger choices for the latter.
So what? (Score:2)
I've downloaded Linux many times in my career. Sometimes it was at work on corporate pcs, sometimes it was to fire up VMs, other times it was to make installation media to build servers at home. Every single time since the mid nineties I've completed the downloads on Windows boxes. I don't think I've ever downloaded Linux using Linux.
That 2% recently becoming 3% is a far more honest measure. You can conclude bugger all from this observation.
Re: (Score:2)
I usually download Linux on my Raspberry Pi and install it on a new x86-64 laptop. The RPi is my random tasks computer that is hooked up to one of the ports on my living room TV. The RPi comes in handy because it has some I/O ports I can use to hook up experiments. And I have some emulators installed. And I have a wacky arcade joystick hacked together and plugged into it.
If I were to install Windows today, I'd have to download the disk images from Microsoft using Firefox on a Linux computer. I think theoret
Re: (Score:2)
I mean come on. Linux will be ready for the desktop in 2 years. /s
Middle Click Paste (Score:2)
One of the deciding factors for loading Linux Mint or reinstalling Windows 11 on my niece's first computer, will be Middle Click Paste.
It will only confuse her, esp given how some laptops have a middle button on the trackpad and I worry about her ability to regulate her pressure on the scroll wheel.
I haven't found a simple way to turn it off entirely, even the option on the DE doesn't change the applications, as it's per application changes. I could disable the middle button entirely in the command line, bu
I would like to give Zorin a spin (Score:2)
I played with Zorin a few years back and ultimately went with Mint. Not because I didn't like Zorin but because I couldn't fully test it in a VM. I could not get Zorin to play nice in VirtualBox (graphics and drop down list issues) but Mint worked flawlessly. Given its new popularity I think I'll give it another try.
I'm one of them (Score:3)
And it's on a USB stick, and I have installed it on multiple machines already.
Re: (Score:2)
Out of curiosity, what made you choose Zorin over other similar popular choices e.g. Mint?
Re: I'm one of them (Score:5, Informative)
I saw that it existed and I wanted to try it and it was a good Windows substitute.
Marketing (Score:2)
Sounds like Zorin's success is primarily due to marketing. "Hey Windows Users, Come Here" worked.
Though, I will add, caring about work flows and little details, like serving up little things in ways that people actually use, is genuinely helpful. Mint started innovating like that in the beginning, but it has ossified and no one there cares about actual work flows.
But about 99% of what Zorin does, Mint does too. Just Mint doesn't draw flashy arrows around it. Marketing works.
Re: Marketing (Score:3)
I think that the best marketing comes from Microsoft rendering older fully functional hardware unusable and with the overreach by adding ads, requiring M$ account and forcing bitlocker just tipped the scale.
Zorin is based on Ubuntu too, and that means that if it works there it works with Zorin too.
Re: (Score:2)
I run Zorin on two machines, I went for it because they tweaked the UI a bit in a way that I thought might be nice. Overall happy but there are also things I wish they would change.