First boot! Wow!
Let's summarize my first impression: 90% of this desktop looks good. The remaining 10% is the problem, that big fat Computer icon on the top-left. Why did you made it so big? Without that the desktop it simple and elegant. Our friend, the red button is still here, this time on the right-bottom, but from the design point of view is not a problem. This is Gnome 2 with a Windows 7 style theme. There is nothing wrong with that but the big computer icon leads you to another disappointment. As a Windows user you may think that using the computer icon you can access your computer content, your desktop settings, your device settings and other administration tools. Especially with such a big computer icon! There is no such thing here. By clicking on the Computer you will get this:
Who is the target audience of Zorin OS? Windows users? "lost+found"? What is the reason of putting the root in the users face? What is the purpose of this icon? It is like putting a big System32 icon on the Windows 7 desktop. Maybe with a right click we will have more luck. In Windows 7 we have the "Properties" and "Manage Computer" menus from where almost everything is accessible.
Victory! We have Properties but we also have "Restore Icon's Original Size" which is very confusing again, because gives you an impression that the size is not the original, but in the same time this your first boot, so somewhere somebody must have made the modification, which sounds strange. I did not tried the Compress and "Send To" menus and I cannot image the consequences of clicking on one of these. Back to the original plan, let's access our computer's properties. Click Properties:
Holy crap! The wonderful world of Linux! I think this is where the new user starts looking for his Windows 7 CD. Why did you put this useless, ugly, big Computer icon here? Anyway you have the Home icon under which is almost the same but at least opens the user's folders, where is possible to save or copy something. Contents: 3 items, totalling 0 bytes. At least make it normal size. Yes, I know the answer: Linux is not Windows. But in this case Linux wants to be Windows, and some logic is needed anyway.
If Windows 7 then Start Menu. Zorin OS gives it's best in this area:
Yes, basically they wanted to copy the Windows 7 user interface, and the idea itself is not so bad but the execution is. The Zorin start menu does not have all the features of Windows 7, it feels different but the biggest problem is the bug which represents the quality of Zorin OS and in some ways the current state of the Linux desktop. The bug: after clicking a few times on the Zorin start menu, it starts to show the icon list twice or more. On the screenshot you can clearly see this. This bug appears every time I boot, this was a long test, now the system is up-to-date but the bug is still present. Honestly: this is unacceptable!
Meanwhile I wanted to change the screen resolution, so I have searched for "screen" and "resolution" in the start menu:
Nothing! You must use the word "monitor" and nothing else brings you good results. Again: Zorin OS failed.
At this point I have updated the system. Another gift from Zorin: a cryptic error message. That means that while the Zorin OS team is remastering the upstream Ubuntu, in the same time they are creating new bugs because I have never seen this error on Ubuntu. Bad, because maybe this is the single case where the Linux desktop is better than Windows, the easy way you update the whole system. Zorin cannot handle this correctly.
Oh, and did somebody noticed the "Welcome to Ubuntu" text? Very nice and integrated.
...to be continued
Just a quick comment... who pissed in your Corn Flakes when you wrote this piece?
ReplyDeleteI've been using Zorin for months now, and I think it's brilliant (not perfect, but not all that far). Any Linux distro is better than any version of WinBlows you can come up with. So enough about the "Computer" icon size... this is all just knit-picking.
Zorin is totally free, so if you don't care for it, it didn't cost you anything but your time (unlike Windows which gobbles up all of your time with eradicating spyware and viruses). Zorin Lite (which I've installed on an old Pentium III) is great even on faster computers.
Sure, it's targeted towards Windows users, but that approach is a losing battle in my opinion. Instead of trying to be LIKE Windows, sometimes it's better to NOT BE like Windows.
There are a lot of users who can never adapt to anything new and different, unless it's another iteration of Microsoft's O/S. (Yeah, they can adapt when Microsoft changes something, but when they're presented with a different desktop environment in Linux, they never fail to say they can't understand the layout. Dumb.)
Anyway, try to say something nice about Zorin or move on.
so sick of you elitist Linux guys bashing windows, both Linux and Windows have there strengths. I tried Zorin for a while last night but it way a little too buggy with my wifi cards so I'm reinstalling BT, I wish I could make BT act and look like win7. I and a lot of others are too familiar with windows to change now. I mean I can actually get so much work done in windows where it would take me ages to do in Linux. It's not that Linux is bad in anyway it's just that i'm too familiar with windows.
ReplyDeleteI will try Zorin again in the future or if someone in Linux land can create some themes, start menu etc, I would love to use them on a Linux distro of my choice. I can't belive even after this long this hasn't been done. So many Linux users bash Windows and tell us to ADAPT and use Linux but why can't Linux be ADAPTED to us? I mean we are the majority aren't we?
Anyway I can't see myself changing to Linux in 2013 and that's not only because of the familiarity, its the support from the industry that Linux doesn't have. Like Gamming and my favourite apps and the easy way around the os.
Can't wait to be using crisis, battlefield, etc, MS office (ok maybe not that one), Adobe, Symantec Endpoint, The beautiful GUI on a stable updated os like Linux.
I say well done to Zorin for making this OS and I hope to try it again in the near future.
also seeing as steam has been released on Linux hopefully NVidia and Amd start getting behind it keep there drivers up to date and bug free,
And to all the Windows bashers get a life And stop being so closed minded especially if you want to attract more users to Linux
devidude: unlike Windows which gobbles up all of your time with eradicating spyware and viruses). Zorin Lite (which I've installed on an old Pentium III) is great even on faster computers.
what are you on about yeah there is malware more on windows and that's because it's so damn popular compared to any other os on the planet, but you seem to think that we windows users get viruses like every hour or something. if you stick to downloading safe stuff from safe sites, like your beloved Linux does we would never get any malware. I download pretty much everything from anyway and in maybe 10 years have never been infected, I have seen my virus scanner pick up on a couple of things through out the year but again it stopped them and they were dodgy files to say the least.
And for what windows provides it runs great. especially win 8 or 7
Do Linux users never get that many windows don't pay for windows - Win 7 is either pre-instaled or if not it's free on Piratebay like everything else - so cost is never an issue - Windows and Linux both cost the same - nothing, so it's a straight contest.
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