Zorin 0S 18: 100,000+ Windows 10 Users Can’t Be Wrong

With performance boosts and seamless cloud connections, Zorin OS 18 is quickly becoming the top gateway for Windows refugees.

The FOSS Force Distro of the Week — Zorin OS 18

A funny thing happened on the way to the closing of Windows 10. According to Bobby Borisov at Linuxiac, over 100,000 Zorin 18 downloads were recorded by the distro over 48 hours at mid-month, with 70 percent of them being former Windows users.

As Borisov pointed out, releasing Zorin OS 18 on October 14 — the day Microsoft stopped supporting Windows 10 — was either a coincidence or a well-timed marketing coup by the Irish distro. Either way, Zorin seems to have benefited from Microsoft’s decision to drop support for Windows 10 for those with less than thoroughly modern hardware, in a world where desktop Linux rarely gains from Redmond’s moves.

According to the distro’s website, Zorin OS 18 “reimagines your PC experience with a fresh design, powerful new features, and seamless compatibility with even more of the tools you rely on.” The distro comes in three levels — Core, which is the basic Zorin OS; Education, which features educational software; and Zorin OS Pro, which includes additional bells and whistles and is available at a $47.99 price tag.

There is a Lite edition which comes with the Xfce desktop, but it has yet to be made available in the Zorin OS 18 lineup.

Nevertheless, we’re focusing on the Core version for this review.

The distro’s minimum system requirements are a 1 GHz dual-core Intel/AMD 64-bit processor, 2 GB RAM, 15 GB storage for the Core version (32 GB for Education version and 40 GB for the Pro version), and a 800×600 or higher display resolution.

Installing Zorin

The ISO is an average 3.5 GB, which downloads relatively quickly. Because it’s based on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, the installer resembles Canonical’s Ubiquity, which in addition to asking for your needed keyboard layout, asks if you want to install updates with the download (that’s a “yes”), whether you want to partition your disk or erase it and put Zorin on the whole thing. Next, you’re asked for your location, your vitals (like name and password), and off you go.

Because Zorin OS considers itself a stepping stone between the Windows and Linux worlds, the ISO offers much. To its credit, it includes a significant amount of software installed by default in a very clean desktop presentation. LibreOffice is present, as well as the email client Evolution. Rather than opt for the Firefox browser, the distro has chosen Brave instead.

The last two are interesting choices. Given Zorin’s mandate to accommodate new Linux users coming from Windows, Evolution was probably chosen because it’s the only major FOSS email client that fully supports Microsoft Exchange — including Exchange Web Services, EWS, and modern authentication — out of the box. Also, with the evolution-ews plugin, Evolution provides direct integration with Exchange calendars, contacts, and mailboxes, and supports OAuth2 for Office 365 accounts.

As for Brave instead of Firefox: personally speaking, the Brave web browser is growing on me, and Evolution rivals Thunderbird as an e-mail client.

Kicking the Tires

After updating the distro — the first thing to do after an install – we put Zorin OS 18 through its paces.

For many users migrating from Windows, being able to access files stored in the cloud is key. To accommodate this, Zorin OS 18 adds OneDrive file integration to the built-in Online Accounts feature.

Also as a stepping stone from Windows to Linux, one of the more interesting tools provided by Zorin OS 18 is called WebApps. This tool lets you turn any website into a desktop app through an easily accessible interface, and gives the user the option of seamless access to run popular apps like Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Teams, Google Docs, Google Drive, and Adobe Photoshop from your desktop. Using WebApps to transfer photos to Google Drive worked like a charm.

So did using the distro for everyday tasks. The windows in the Gnome desktop are curved at the corners, which is a nice touch. Although I prefer — and installed — the VLC media player, the default player, Rhythmbox, worked fine; choosing VLC is simply a matter of preference. The distro multitasked effortlessly. Apps loaded instantly, with no noticeable lag.

All of which is to say that Zorin OS 18’s performance optimizations, which are evident throughout the system, are put to good use. The distro is simply as nimble as it is quick.

Final Thoughts

As a distro that touts itself as a gateway from the drudgery of Windows, Zorin OS 18 Core is remarkably useful for newbies getting their feet wet in the wide world of Linux. That said, it could offer more in the way of tools and other software for more experienced users, but then again, if they did that what would we need the Gnome Software app for?

Also, while it’s not exactly rare, in my experience it’s unusual for a distro to provide the “Holy Trinity” of software in its default installation: that is, providing an adequate web browser — and Brave fits the bill — along with Evolution for e-mail and the pièce de résistance, LibreOffice.

Add to this the fact that Zorin OS 18, thanks to its Ubuntu LTS core, will be supported with software updates, security patches, and driver updates at least until June 2029, and you have a well-rounded distro ready to roll.

Zorin OS 18 Core hits all the marks. It combines powerful desktop technology with a remarkably friendly user design. It is a good looking distro, which handles each and every request with an ease that some distros lack. It would be hard to beat this distro when introducing a Windows user as a gateway to Linux.

Want to give it a try? Download one of the three Zorin OS 18 versions on the project’s download page.

Do you have a distro you think would make a great feature for FOSS Force’s Distro of the Week? Don’t be shy—let us know! Offer your suggestions in the comments below (or use the “contact us” link under our masthead) and we’ll make an effort to make it so… No suggestion is too mainstream or too niche—let us know what you’d like to see!

Hey, R.E.M. wants to make a dedication…