 Today, I'm going to be taking a look at the latest release of Zorin OS. Zorin OS is an Ubuntu-based desktop Linux distribution. It is a highly customized desktop experience. It's basically GNOME, but it doesn't really resemble GNOME. They've really themed it in such a way that the look and feel of it almost resembles Windows in a lot of respects, and it's designed for new to Linux users coming over from Windows. It's really a Linux distribution designed to make Windows users comfortable in making that transition. It even ships with wine and bottles out of the box, which are programs that allow certain Windows applications to run on top of Linux. So Zorin just released version 17.1 just a couple of days ago. I'm going to go ahead and download the latest version of Zorin. Now if you're new to Zorin OS, they have a few different editions. They have the core edition, which is free for download. I'm going to download the core edition. They also have a paid version, Zorin Pro, which comes with some extra tools and extra theming. You can download that for $48. I'm going to go ahead and grab the core ISO, and I'm going to spin up a quick virtual machine. And I'm just going to take a look at Zorin OS core inside the live environment inside a VM. So this is Zorin 17.1, and initial impressions, it's a very pretty desktop environment. We have a very traditional Windows 7, Windows 10 kind of look and feel. As far as we have a panel at the bottom and a traditional kind of start menu, I've got to say I love the theming as far as especially the icon set. So they have their own icon set, and they've really worked hard to make sure that it's a very full and complete icon set that supports a ton of different applications that you may or may not install, as well as different file types if I open the file manager. And of course, being it's a GNOME based desktop environment, even though it doesn't look very GNOME like, this is the Nautilus file manager. If I go to about files, you can see this is files 42.6. Of course, files has the generic name for GNOME's file manager, but the actual program name, the executable binary, is Nautilus. So this is the Nautilus file manager. If I do control H to show all files, including the hidden files, you can see some of the icons for just plain type files. Really gorgeous theming. I like the blue highlights as far as the, you know, for a light theme. I'm a dark theme kind of guy, but for a light theme, this is really pretty sexy. I'm going to go ahead and close the file manager. Let me open up the quick launcher here for their software center. And of course, this is the GNOME software center. Let's go to the hamburger menu about software. Yeah. So this is GNOME's software 45.3. Software 45.3. And the software center is pretty simple to use, pretty intuitive. If I click installed, this is a list of all the programs that are currently installed. If I go to updates, we can update the system right now. There's a couple of updates, including an update to Firefox. If I was installing this on physical hardware, take that update because the browser update, those are important updates, right? For security reasons. If you want to search for something you can explore. When you click the explore tab, you can go through the categories or you can click the little search menu here and then search for an application. And just as a test, I wonder if I can get proprietary software, popular proprietary software programs like Discord, for example, which is not going to be in your standard Ubuntu repos or Debian repos. I'm just wondering, do they offer it at all? We do have Discord here. Let's see if I click on that. It didn't have an icon, but it will install it as a flat pack. That's what I wanted. I wanted to see if we had any kind of snap or flat pack integration for those proprietary applications, especially since this is going to be a new user-friendly distribution, especially for users coming over from Windows. They expect to be able to install some of these proprietary applications like Discord or Spotify and things like that. And it's nice that they have that flat hub integration already baked into the software center. Now, one of the things that Zorn really tries to be is it really tries to be a gateway to Linux from Windows. And because of that, they do have things like Wine installed. If I start searching for Wine or actually Windows app support, let's see. It was that wine. Well, no, but it does launch the software center says run Windows apps and Zorn with wine and bottles. So what it does is it has a link to install wine and bottles if you need it. That's nice. I'm glad it's not installed out of the box, because honestly, most Linux users are not going to need wine or bottles, because honestly, wine and bottles, this Windows emulation layer that is wine, it's a little flaky. You know, some of your applications will work in wine, but some Windows applications don't work in wine. So it's kind of hit or miss most Linux users. When you switch to an operating system, a new operating system, you should just use native applications for that operating system. You shouldn't be trying to emulate another operating system that you're coming from. So again, since most Zorn OS users probably don't need wine, it makes sense not to have it installed out of the box, but it's good. They have that link there to install it just in case you need it. If we go through the menu system just to take a quick look at some of the applications that are installed with Zorn OS core edition. We have just your standard GNOME applications, really. GNOME clocks, the file manager, Nautilus, which we've already seen. We have a GNOME weather and the text editor, which I'm assuming is G-Edit. So yeah, this is GNOME's G-Edit. If I go to about text editor, this is G-Edit, 41.0 G-Edit. It's a small, lightweight text editor for the GNOME desktop environment. It's a plain text editor, you know, but it's actually a pretty good plain text editor. It actually does have some extensions and plug-ins. G-Edit, it's not the worst plain text editor. Under the graphics category, we have our image viewer, we have our photo manager, LibreOfficeDraw, really not much to see in the graphics category. Under internet, we really don't have anything here other than Firefox is the web browser. Let's see what version of Firefox they are on. As far as are they using the ESR version, the extended support release version of Firefox, if I go to help and about Firefox, they are using Mozilla Firefox 123 and they are using the Flatpak version. So it's installed as a Flatpak. I think that makes sense as far as for keeping the browser up-to-date because Flatpaks, of course, will automatically update. Also, under the internet category, you had Remina, which is a remote desktop application. That's not something that most Linux users, most desktop Linux users are going to need. It's kind of a nerdy kind of application for people trying to SSH into other machines and things like that. Under the office category, we have the full LibreOffice suite, and I believe they are installing one of the latest versions of LibreOffice. If I open LibreOfficeRider here, well, LibreOfficeRider looks a little funny here, since it's not the LibreOffice on my Arco Linux machine. What is the interface here? This is a very strange looking interface. I'm not sure what is going on with that. Let's go to about LibreOffice. This is LibreOffice version 24.2.1.2. Go ahead and close that. Under the sound and video category, we have Bracero, which is a disk-burning utility. It's part of the GNOME suite of software. Although most people don't burn disks these days, we have Cheese, which is a webcam application. Rhythmbox, which is a really fantastic audio player, really just general multimedia player, but it's specifically designed to play audio. If I go to about Rhythmbox, Rhythmbox 3.4.4 Music Management and Playback software for the GNOME desktop. Also under sound and video, we had the GNOME video player as well. Then we have our system tools, which for the most part is your standard system tools for GNOME as far as the settings manager and software center and things like that. Although we do have some interesting Zorn centric applications as well, such as Zorn Appearance. Let's go ahead and click on that because I am interested as far as the layouts. So right now we're on this first layout. If I switch to the second one, it's different as far as the taskbar. The taskbar has the name of the application, the icon, and it's underlined. I kind of like that as well. If I go to this one, this is much more Windows 10, where the taskbar is simply icons and they are centered on the panel. So that's your Windows 10 layout. And then this one here is, I'm assuming, more of a Mac OS kind of layout. I'm assuming it was supposed to give us a dock there, although I don't see a dock. Yeah, so not really sure what's going on there. But for me, I think I'm just going to go back to the default layout. The default layout looks pretty sexy in my eyes. Also, under the system tools category, we had Zorn Connect, which I'm assuming is for syncing devices like your mobile device. Yeah, one final thing I want to do is just quickly check out the wallpaper pack for this edition of Zorn to see if it's anything different. So if I right click on the desktop and I choose Change Background, let's go ahead and check out some of the wallpapers. Yeah, I really like this wallpaper. A dark wallpaper really makes sense for a light theme because of the contrast. So that really dark mountain scape really works against this light silvery theme. I really like this nature photography here. We've got some desert landscapes as well, because this is a really white background. You know, this would work against a dark theme. I actually should check and see if we have a dark theme. If I go down here to the SysTrade, we do have, well, let me move my head so you can see I go to the SysTrade and click on the SysTrade here. We have Dark Mode. Turn Dark Mode on. But Dark Mode defaults to the dark wallpaper. So this is one of the things I've never understood why so many desktop Linux distributions get this wrong. You don't choose a dark wallpaper with a dark theme. You don't choose a light wallpaper with a light theme. You've got to mix and match just for the contrast. So for me, I think it makes much more sense to have a dark theme and a light wallpaper. Doesn't that look so much better? It does to me for my eyes. That's a would be a much better combination for the dark theme. And since I've got the dark theme enabled, some of these other lighter colored wallpapers, this one here would look really nice as well. So with this one, since it's got a lot of white in it, this picture of this tree branch with the flowers, very sexy. Yeah, really a beautiful wallpaper pack. I'm going to go back to this desert one because for me, I think that's the best bang for your buck there. Overall, every time I take a look at Zoran OS, I am impressed just by the aesthetics, the look and feel, the theming as far as the GTK theme. That icon set is absolutely gorgeous. The wallpaper pack is absolutely gorgeous. I can understand why so many people are fans of Zoran OS. Now, before I go, I need to thank a few special people. I need to thank the producers of this episode. Game, James, Matt, Paul, Steve, Wes, Arkotic, Armor, Dragon, Commander, Angry, Darloff, George, Lee, Matthew, Matthew, Matthew, Nate, Ariane, Paul, Peace, Archon, Fedora, Realities for Less Red Prophet, Roland, Solaus, Retien, Wren, Touls, Devler, Vorgento and Ubuntu and Willie. These guys, they're my highest tiered patrons over on Patreon. Without these guys, this quick look at Zoran OS 17.1 would not have been possible. The show is also brought to you by each and every one of these fine ladies and gentlemen, all these names you're seeing on the screen right now. These are all my supporters over on Patreon. I don't have any corporate sponsors. I'm sponsored by you guys, the community. If you like my work, want to see more videos about Linux and free and open source software, subscribe to DistroTube over on Patreon. Peace, guys.