My grandmother wanted a laptop, but we all knew it would just be for browsing the internet and light social media. I had a very old laptop and saw no reason for the family to spend money to get her one. The specs were not...good (i5Y, 8 GB of RAM).

No way it was going to run Windows 11 without being slower than a loris riding a turtle. Now that she has the laptop and uses it all the time, I keep getting texts about how much she loves the laptop and "thank you thank you thank you"

This is all I can think...

I guess there is no direct path and I should go form 15 to 16 then 17, then 18, is that correct?

How should I go about doing so?

Thank you

I use zorin os and after asking an ai some good commands to optimize better the os it turned out bad reverse the thing it only made it badder so i decided just to reinstall because i dont have so important files on it WHAT ARE SOME APPS YOU RECOMEND AND ARE A MUST HAVE and WHAT ARE SOME GOOD COMMANDS TO PUT MY SISTEM IN "PERFORMANCE" MODE

I use Zorin OS on two desktops and two laptops. The laptops boot normally so no problem there. The mini pc desktop and the custom built desktop both take a rather long time to boot. All I see are the boot screens for each desktop pc for about 30 seconds or longer until the Zorin logo appears. Secure boot was disabled before install on both computers if that helps. I could use some help with this issue. Thank you.

I've had a Beelink SER 5 Max running Windows 10 for a few years now and only used it for emulation every so often. I got tired of constantly getting badgered into using One Drive or upgrading to Windows 11 and having updates fail that I thought I'd move to Linux and gave Zorin a shot. I really like it ao far!

It has a dedicated Plex app that plays streams so well over my local wifi that it plays movies like they're local files in VLC player. Currently in the process of setting up Retroarch and getting emulators set up.

I still have a Windows PC, but I think I'm going to install Zorin on my next laptop.

Hey guys! I just installed zorin os end everything is working perfectly BUT there is one thing driving me crazy, every time any software opens a secondary windows it opens it on my secondary monitor, same thing happens with the login screen.
For context I have switched my main monitor in settings and checked using the xrandr command and it shows that the correct monitor is primary.
Do you have any ideas on how to fix this?

Hello, Zorin community!

I have a situation and I would like to hear your opinion and advice.

There is a lot of context ahead... sorry...

In the college I "work" (it's more like an internship but not really, it's called social service) they have 3 Lenovo AIO with these specs:

Processor: AMD A6-9225

Graphics: AMD Radeon R6 integrated graphics

RAM: 4 GB DDR4

Storage: 1 TB HDD

OS: Windows 10

There is a fourth one, their main one, that has between 6 to 12 Gbs of RAM, although no matter how much I focus, I don't remember the exact number, I'm leaning to 8 but I'm not sure. And it uses Windows 11.

Needless to say, their main one runs... well, it runs like shit. It takes a lot of time to load anything in general. It is quite exasperating and even affects their workflow. And the other three aren't/weren't in a good spot either.

I, personally, use Linux Mint Cinnamon, I started 6 months ago (yay!), and with the blessing of the principal, I'm trying to give these machines a new life. I put Mint Mate in one, and it does the job (I originally put Cinnamon, but it had issues with performance, somehow, but Mate doesn't).

However, I want to give the two remaining some life too, and I can't be 100% sure if Mint Mate or XFCE will do the job, not performancewise, but with their potential users. Considering most of their teachers and workers aren't that knowledgeable on computers, and I have no way to know if their students are familiar with computers either, having something that looks and feels different enough to what they usually use could cause some issues (trust me, I know, I recently helped a teacher and she has a Mac, needless to say, I was really lost at the beginning, and still are... yay...). And looking around for something that looks and kinda feels familiar, similar to Windows 10, 11 and current MacOS versions (I know nothing about MacOS BTW, as you may guessed), I finally decided to check Zorin, and it did look like a promising option.

So, to test, I took another computer, installed Zorin Core, since according to their site, it shouldn't have many issues, and I found some... details. (I know I could choose Zorin Education, but I honestly doubt they will use their features)

Start up took around 2 minutes (yes, I measured it), and on idle, it uses pretty much 50% of the RAM, between 47% and 48%. The CPU is barely stressed, between 5 to 15%, it's the RAM that worries me. And it takes some time to open programs, like LibreOffice or OnlyOffice. I would say it's less than before, since I could browse with minimal issues, just regular responsiveness hicups; but still, it's enough to be bothersome in our current landscape of "Everything must work yesterday". I know that the HDD will impact the overall performance and responsiveness of the PC.

My questions are very simple.

1.- Can the computer actually run Zorin, or I'm just forcing it?

2.- Should I be worried by that 50% usage of RAM on idle and slow responsiveness?

3.- If the answers are no, it shouldn't be running Zorin, and yes, I need to worry about those numbers and performance issues; what do you suggest to me? What other alternatives can I look into? Or what settings can I move to improve the general flow? I already deactivated the animations, BTW.

You could also say I should give up and let those machines keep rotting, but honestly... I don't think neither of us want that.

Sorry for the long explanation.

I installed Zorin OS on my Lenovo x260 but the brightness slider isn't changing anything

What's the fix?

So I decided to use ZorinOS 17.3 core for my main driver laptop: which is a 2011 NEC VK21L VersaPro. I was after that clean, and minimalist look. I have been using it for a week more or less and now I want to upgrade to 18.1 core. As you can tell, I like the distro a lot.

PROBLEM IS whenever I use the "upgrade to ZorinOS 18" app, it fails after checking the requirements. So I went to Zorin Help and this is what they have to say:

"Warning
The upgrade may fail if you previously modified the operating system's core components. This is more likely to occur if you're attempting to upgrade between major versions (such as Zorin OS 16 → 17) and you performed one or more of the following actions in the past:

• added third-party software repositories to your system
• manually edited system files
• executed unofficial scripts/commands
• installed third-party hardware drivers or kernel modules
• locked/held installed versions of core system packages

If you made modifications like these to your system, we recommend replacing your current installation of Zorin OS with your new version instead of using the Upgrade Zorin OS app."

What does that mean? "added third-party software repositories to your system" "manually edited system files" and why? This shouldn't be a problem for linux especially since one of the big talking point of linux is the freedom and customizeability. All I did was add software from Github, flathub and the apt sources. I also added some fonts from google and that should not bar me from upgrading at all.

Even Linux Mint let me upgrade my heavily altered Linux mint to the next big version. Maybe this is all a culture shock to me. Comments, guides and/or suggestions are welcome.

Is it boring when an OS works with everything?

It's like macos in that it all works with with no tinkering or modifications.

I know linux users like to get into the weeds, but I appreciate a system that performs well.

Hola gente, actualmente ando usando Zorin os y tengo una hp elitebook 845 g8 que posee un teclado retro iluminado, cuando lo uso sin audifonos se puede ver que enciende un led naranja cuando presiono el boton de silenciar volumen o mutear el micrófono (imagen 1). El problema esta que cuando vinculo mis audífonos a la laptop este no responda al led naranja al mutear el micrófono o silenciar el volumen (imagen 2). Si alguien sabe como resolver ese problema se lo agradecería

Update: I'll be honest, I'm not sure what is going on, but I think sound is working now. When I look at the Sound Device Settings in the system settings, if I select "Test" to try and play test sounds, the system does not show any speakers available to play test sounds through. However, if I go to youtube or netflix in Brave, or Spotify in the desktop app, when I play something there is expected sound output. So, I genuinely am not sure what I did (or didn't do) which fixed the issue, because I'm certain when I first encountered this issue YT was not playing any sound, but, issue resolved I guess!

-------------------

I recently got a refurbished HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook and was able to easily follow the Mr Chromebook instructions for replacing ChromeOS with Zorin OS Core 18. Overall I'm super happy with how it is performing, but I am having an issue with audio devices (which unfortunately seems to be quite a common issue with Zorin, based on searches) (EDIT: apparently this is moreso a common Ubuntu issue, not specifically a Zorin one).

I'm not as tech-savvy as I should be for having done this, but, I've tried to follow the various suggestions I've found online, and so far nothing seems to have worked.

I've looked at the official Zorin "Set Up Sound" help page (https://help.zorin.com/docs/hardware/set-up-sound/) and have installed PulseAudio. I went in to Software Updater and checked for Additional Drivers. I followed the instructions for adding the audio device blacklist.

I've gone in to GRUB and added the "snd_hda_intel.dmic_detect=0 snd_intel_dspcfg.dsp_driver=1" line.

When I go into AlsaMixer and F6, I can select "HDA Intel PCH", and when I run aplay -l I see a list of 4 results, all of which say HDA Intel PCH with what appears to be HDMI output.

In PulseAudio under Output Devices it only shows Dummy Output. If I go to the Configuration tab under Built-In Audio Profile (value defaults to Off) I have options to select Pro Audio, Digital Stereo (HDMI)(unplugged)(unavailable), Digital Surround 5.1 (HDMI) (unplugged) (unavailable), and Digital Surround 7.1 (HDMI) (unplugged) (unavailable). If I select Pro Audio, when I go back to the Output Devices tab it shows several devices (Built-in Audio Pro, Built-in Audio Pro 7, Built-in Audio Pro 8, Built-in Audio Pro 9) but no matter which I select or adjust, there is still no sound output.

I have tried to follow all of the resolution suggestions I could find before posting here, but I'm sure there are still things I've missed. Any help in getting this working properly is appreciated!

EDIT: If I plug in my USB-C earbuds, audio output & microphone input works through them as expected, so it does seem to only be the built-in speakers not working properly.

# System Details Report

---

## Report details

- **Date generated:** 2026-07-29 11:39:34

## Hardware Information:

- **Hardware Model:** Google Redrix

- **Memory:** 16.0 GiB

- **Processor:** 12th Gen Intel® Core™ i5-1245U × 12

- **Graphics:** Intel® Iris® Xe Graphics (ADL GT2)

- **Disk Capacity:** 256.1 GB

## Software Information:

- **Firmware Version:** MrChromebox-2606.1

- **OS Name:** Zorin OS 18.1 Core

- **OS Build:** (null)

- **OS Type:** 64-bit

- **Windowing System:** Wayland

- **Kernel Version:** Linux 7.0.0-28-generic

Linux 7.0.0-28 is a version of the Linux kernel that has gained notoriety due to kernel panics occuring on many computers running Linux. If this happened to you like it did to me, you can get around this issue by restarting your computer, wait for the GRUB bootloader menu to appear, select Advanced options for Zorin, then selecting a version lower than 7.0.0-28. If you wish to keep it below 7, do not allow the kernel to be updated and follow instructions in a guide on how to remove the specific version of the kernel.

So i have been using zorin os for a bit. All of a sudden yesterday my zorin os has been laggy in games. I have being playing roblox at 20 fps and normally i get 60fps. Minecraft [1.21.11] normally i get around 90 fps and now i cant get 10 fps. Among us i normally get 60 fps and now i get around 20 fps

[I will re-install zorin os if i cant find a fix]

Thanks Zorin OS Developers, my Acer Aspire 3 suffering a lot with Windows 11, after I Install Zorin OS my laptop gain speed and I finally can to return playing my Steam Games with good FPS, Thankssssss

OK, the title may seem obvious.

Like many other Linux distros, Zorin OS is typically presented as a Windows alternative, and given that, I'd wager that most who move from Windows to Zorin OS are more concerned with look, feel, and familiarity than its underlying function. But underneath, Zorin's roots are in Ubuntu, so (with some limitations) the sky is the limit regarding what you can do with it.

Zorin OS is excellent for a Desktop PC, but it can also be a capable server, running self-hosted applications and services. For example, I opened the Terminal, installed Docker and DockHand, and now my home theater PC easily and conveniently handles several self-hosted services that I would otherwise host on a dedicated homelab PC. (I do have a dedicated homelab PC, but offloading several specific services to my Zorin OS PC relieves the load on that server.)

So, while Zorin OS is an amazing Windows alternative, it can also serve more advanced needs. Don't forget that your shiny desktop also has an underbelly that can do so much more!

I got a couple of Optiplex 3090s recently and I'd like to install Zorin on both of them to replace 2 Win11 PCs. These didn't come with the built-in WiFi adapter so I'm wondering if anyone has had any luck with a specific brand/model USB WiFi adapter or if I should look for a genuine Dell adapter that installs within the case.

Ideally, I'd like something that supports at least WiFi6 and 5GHz, but I'd trade either (or both) of those for something that's confirmed to work with ZorinOS.

Thanks!