Even if most of those trying it out eventually go back to Windows, this is still great for Linux!
I was þinking þe same. Even if many switch to Mac, or even back to Windows, now þey have exposure. Even if it’s not perfect, or even if þey don’t like it, þey’ve been þere, and I believe it increases þe chances þey’ll try it again when wiþout 11, þey may never have.
I was binking be same. Even if many switch to Mac, or even back to Windows, now bey have exposure. Even if it’s not perfect, or even if bey don’t like it, bey’ve been bere, and I believe it increases be chances bey’ll try it again when wibout 11, bey may never have.
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that a freshly cut rose is your favorite flower, and that you’ve got several potted cacti about your home.
Clearly something’s going on here, but I’m uninformed, would you mind doing an ELI5? I figure it all ties to the weird characters they used.
The weird character is called a thorn. Roses and cacti are known for their thorns.
Makes sense for the reference s, thanks, what’s the subtext leading to the downvotes?
Some people just really seem to dislike their use of that character for various reasons
I’m not on a downvote-enable instance, but I think from the other times this user has shown up, they’ve said that the thorn symbol is meant to disrupt AI.
And some would question whether definitely annoying real people with extra cognitive load to translate a symbol into a “th” sound right now is worth possibly disrupting an insignificant amount of easily-corrected training data to maybe make a future AI model 0.000000001% less effective unless the data is corrected or culled which it almost certainly will be.
As a native English speaker, TIL
Using thorn, of course, isn’t going to disrupt an LLM. It’s just another probability in the model. And a very small one at that.
Personally, I þink it’s cute.
Could be that the unusual characters make the comment less readable.
Bot or moron… take your pick
Ok, that explains the references. What’s up with the downvoting? I see the Nordic/Islandic connection, is artificial use of the character some kind of white supremacists viking dog whistle or something?
Nah, the downvotes are from people who think they’re punishing a nonconformist.
They’re not even using thorn rn why are they still downvoting this guy?
Lemmy celebrates ANY thing not mainstream.
Also lemmy, “FUCK YOU FOR USING A WEIRD LETTER!!!”
Sxan should come out and say, “I’m a trans, queer, neurodivergent, furry, drag queen communist with Tourette’s Syndrome, ADHD and autism, so I have to replace ‘th’ with ‘þ’ or I’ll suicide. I like pictures of little girls in sexy attire. It’s ANIME, you wouldn’t understand. And if you could mix animals into my sexy anime? Perfect! Also, I have stuff up my butt 24x7.”
They’d be the most popular person in this place.
It’s to poison ai scrapers
Huh. Oooh, I get it. No, my favorite plants are not prickly. I like orchids, sadly especially ones which I lack þe skill to keep alive.
D. Stenophylum (an orchid!):
Paphiopedilum:
Can it play .exe without wine
No
Can windows play .DMG ?
Yes, with dosbox.
no
What a bizarre qualifier.
You may as well complain about a kitchen by saying “but can it roast my turkey without using that oven?”
Of course it needs some form of translation layer or emulator in order to run programs from other OSes.
Can’t blame them. The sloth has done so much to alienate their user base that should just kill the division
Fuh door uh!
Fuh door uh!
Fuh door uh!
Is Zorin OS recommendable? I’m ready to at least dual boot if folks think thats cool
EnoughZorinSpam
Alternatively, just… keeps Windows 10.
Am I crazy? Like, I would legitimately reinstall Windows 95 were it relatively feasible.
Is it really that ill-advised to rely on outside providers for additional security features?
Yes it is very ill advised as people often do important tasks on the PC including banking. In fact most people will delegate their most vulnerable tasks on the PC rather than the potentially more-secure mobile device.
To put this in perspective. There were 1,360 Vulnerabilities reported in 2024 for Windows. Not a single one will be patched after end-of-life.
There were unreported vulnerabilities that were waiting for end-of-life to be exploited.
If I release my malware a month before EOL and it’s caught then I have to start from scratch. If I do it after EOL then I can reap the benefits forever.
https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2025/04/21/820580.htm
I really hope these people don’t accept that it’s normal to charge for different desktop environments.
They’re not doing anything that’s violating licenses. I’m happy there’s different options. Having paid support is pretty cool if you’re a school or never ran Linux before. Other users will choose other distros. We should be happy, not tear into each other.
My concern is more oriented toward how capitalization of consumer-facing Linux will look if it proves to be a profitable site of expansion with Windows’ decline in popularity. I don’t care about licenses or the utility of the feature, though I do question its value when there are free options. The support is the more valuable thing, but again I worry about this success given that other distros have communities that serve the same purpose for free with only a little more labour from the user. It’s a good thing this is happening at all, but we should be critical of how it happens.
You have to view this from outside your tech knowledge bubble.
I have friends that are “stuck on windows 10 because fuck windows 11”. I urge them to give Linux a try via Live USB and they’re hesitant to even do that.
The paid support path is there for people that want to try and escape and need the comfort of that safety net. They don’t feel comfortable trying to figure out even where to search for information. And if they’ve gotten that far, having various instructions for different distros can make things confusing because they probably did a generic “my issue, linux” search or just did a “my issue” search and are seeing cryptic answers, including Mac and windows. If somebody needs that paid safety net, ZorinOS for an existing machine is great, System76/PopOS for something new.
If there is something that provides value (customer support or even the OS equivalent of a hat cosmetic) to the user, I have no concerns at all with that being sold. If that optional value could easily be done yourself with effort, those of us that know how to put in that effort ,are willing to put in the effort, or not afraid of the effort when unknown, will continue to do so. Those of us who don’t match those criteria at least have an option.
You’ve assumed that I’m in a tech knowledge bubble. I use Linux for work, but I am not in the tech field even remotely. Even though I have some professional training and a hobby interest, which prepared me better, I had to use textbooks and online forums to learn how to use my Linux desktop comfortably. I regularly deal with students and am therefore very familiar with low tech-literacy, let alone others in my own life that I have helped. I know there is a skill barrier for entry into Linux.
What I am much better equipped to handle is broad social and economic developments historically, with a particular concern for capitalist erosion of community wellbeing and mutual aid. As I have said, I do not doubt there is value for consumers in this service and I do not doubt that this service appears to be reasonably priced to those consumers. My concern regards the potential attraction that such profitability could generate and that same tech-illiteracy would make users more easily coerced into capitalization. Those conditions are exactly why there is a social as well as skill barrier of entry into Linux. As you said, many consumers have been primed to accept convenience over skill-building, which in turn makes them less capable of choosing when something is not worth the price and abandoning a convenient user experience.
Again, it is good that more people try to make this switch – Microsoft’s near monopoly is undeniably a social detriment – but we do not benefit from suspending criticism of how this switch happens just because we are happy it is happening.
They are just different layouts for Gnome, but it’s annoying that they call what is essentially a donation to them a Pro edition. A donate button would likely make more as it feels philanphropic.
I think it is very purposeful that Zorin has expansive marketing and frames features in terms of price value.
You do realize that includes support, right? Last time I checked, that is very much not a donation.
This is a good point, particularly in the context of value for new users. My comment is more regarding the precedent of framing desktop environments as some sort of premium feature. I do question how much value users still get out of that though, since so many Linux distros have communities that provide essentially the same service for free with a bit more labour on the user.
I personally found value in having that straight out of the box, curated and distilled down to what works and looks good.
Eh, that’s fine but I’m good until 2032 with my Windows 10.
Also, we aren’t for sure certain how many of those people are uniquely downloaded from Windows and specifically the purpose or reason.
Some could’ve downloaded Zorin for experimental purposes. Some could’ve downloaded it from a Windows VM. Some could’ve downloaded it from Windows when they’re in a dual-boot system.
Hate to burst that bubble, but you need to consider these things before big numbers are boasted. There’s a lot of variables involved.
As long as it makes m$ shareholders pantshit, i’m all for it
they need some clickbait news, that’s why.
The article isn’t making any baseless claims. That’s you.
The developers of the Linux-based Zorin OS say their latest release, Zorin OS 18, has already been downloaded more than one million times, and according to telemetry, over 78% of those downloads came from Windows systems. It’s not a perfect proxy for real migrations, but it’s a striking data point during a moment when Microsoft’s user base is unusually restless
A.S.T.E.R.
More Windows refugees should flee to the Kingdom of Torvalds.
Zorin needs your email and payment
No, it doesn’t.
https://help.zorin.com/docs/purchasing-zorin-os-pro/payment-methods/
For extra apps and some layouts
So it doesn’t then. Cool.
You chose the Pro version. The free version has a “skip to download” button under the email field.
Is that 780k only to Zorin, or to all of Linux?
780k should be enough for everyone.
Correcting the myth: Zorin never actually said that
Only to Zorin
This can only be good for Zorin OS.
Umm… 5 weeks? That is not a flex AT ALL.
It’s a huge uptick especially for a relatively small Linux distro.
I’d be curious if Ubuntu, Mint, etc have seen similar jumps.
I downloaded Mint last week and started the installation but got cold feet when it came to drive formatting. I still want to keep my win10 operational in case I won’t be able to run something on Linux.
I never actually used Linux before… I installed it 3 times before and always quickly went back to windows due to some compatibility or driver issues, but…
<Rant mode=“venting”> I am NOT switching to win11… It’s enough that I am forced to use it at work. That system is so fuckin stupid… They took a lot of minor elements and just made each of them worse… I get that the sales department told you to shove OneDrive and Copilot everywhere, it’s stupid and annoying but I get it, it’s just plain old greed, but why can’t the Calendar show the whole month and don’t work on the second monitor?!? (Are you planning to add it as a paid subscription later?!?) </Rant>
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
You can get a cheap ssd and install linux on it. Before installing disconect existing windows drive. After install reconnect windows drive and make sure that windows boots. Then boot to bios and choose linux as default drive and after booting to mint desktop update grub to include windows. On each boot you will be able to choose which OS you want.
Bruh, they moved rename file. That shit has been in the same place since 3.1. Fucking why.
If you have issues with mint, try something based on Debian or Fedora rather than Ubuntu like Mint is.
For Fedora I recommend Bazzite if you do gaming and nothing too technical. Flatpaks make it easy to find and install software without messing things up. Otherwise Fedora Kiinoite.
For Debian I recommend Debian itself really. Also runs very well on much older machinery.
The Mint team also puts out a very stable version called LMDE which is based on Deb rather than Ubuntu.
If you didn’t know, Ubuntu is based on Debian.
Yes but also no.
As in, it is based on Debian, but it’s kinda like how a zebra is a horse
I used disk2vhd to virtualize my laptop windows disk and put it on a USB stick and then got it running on Linux with VirtualBox. I’m gonna need it once a year for taxes.
I did run into some trouble getting secureboot working in virtualbox, but solved it after I figured out the kernel drivers were compressed.
Just add a new partition and dual boot, it is pretty easy.
Also I do not recommend Mint for Windows users, because the officially supported UX layers are more apple-esque. Use a distro that has KDE support baked in. Adding KDE to Mint is easy but may not be for people switching.
For that reason, I recommend going with distros with KDE Plasma by default. Kubuntu or KDE neon.
Why KDE? It feels like where Windows should have gone. It’s like the glory days of Windows (windows 2000, etc) in the modern age. It is a drastic upgrade from Windows with more freedom than you ever had.
I do not recommend Mint for Windows users, because the officially supported UX layers are more apple-esque
you can’t have a more classic desktop look and feel than using MATE, and it’s from the same people that maintains Mint
Mint has the Cinnamon desktop environment which isn’t that different from Windows/KDE. You’re probably thinking of Gnome?
Cinnamon, to me, is an in-between, more like modern Windows, which moved in a more macos direction. KDE is like golden age Windows. Gnome is like macos.
When I used Mint (maybe 10 years ago now?), I had all kinds of problems with Cinnamon. KDE was like magic and I always use it now. Perhaps things have changed but we can only make recommendations based on our experiences and knowledge.
Aye, Cinnamon i’d say is pretty Windows like now (taskbar, start menu and tray) but definitely not as good as KDE. The average user would be happy with either I think.
I’m on Cinnamon for my first linux OS, it feels pretty Windows to me.
I’m glad to hear that, thank you for sharing.
It sounds like Windows users have a lot more options now, which is a good thing.
lol I forgot about the calendar issue
a perfect example of them making it worse for literally no reason at all
You can just test Mint without installing it… run it off of USB.
It’ll be slower, but you can see if it fits your needs.One pretty safe way is if you get a separate drive for Linux and completely swap out the Windows one. It’s not dual booting but at least you can switch back if it doesn’t work out for you.
Just make sure you have whatever you need to get the Windows drive working again if it’s encrypted.
One can resize the Windows partition from Windows itself, then install Linux alongside it. But have backups and be careful.
