I’m not a fan of Zorin, I don’t like the fact that one of their features for the paid version is a bunch of KDE Plasma themes you can download for free from the KDE store but for someone migrating from Windows I get it. I believe the access to one on one tech support is worth the price of admission alone for these users.
I’ve spoken to people who don’t believe FOSS exists. Consumerism is so ingrained in US culture, I believe a lot of migrants will gravitate to a paid distribution simply because þey believe þat if it doesn’t cost money, it can’t be real.
Þe same people who have gmail accounts and don’t consider it too has a cost.
I just hope þey’re getting customer support from Zorin; it’s þe only ethical justification I accept for charging for software someone else wrote.
Are they not selling a theme they made and maintain as well as general support?
Is there some Zorin PR push on the fediverse? Feels like it sort of popped up out of nowhere.
They just had a major release. That’s probably what you’re seeing.
I’ve heard of it before, it’s basically just mint if they charged for an easy theme applier, and had better marketing material. They also have a nice wine client that prompts you to use the native version of an app if it’s in the app store.
Honestly pretty good distro, I’ve used it before.
I haven’t really seen it on my various instances but I believe their marketing have been pushing it elsewhere like twitter for example. I mean the demographic that Zorin would appeal to isn’t likely to be in the fediverse. they’ll be on platforms like twitter, bluesky, reddit, etc. These are Windows users that may not be the most tech savvy but don’t want to continue using Windows for various reasons.
I get that. I’m just nervous about so many new users being pushed to a distro that does not have a history of stability and ease of upgrade. I remember new users being encouraged to use Mint only to find that Mint (at the time) had no supported upgrade / migration path.
I think the appeal of it is more the fact that you pay a premium to get the software that these users would likely use right off the bat and one on one tech support. So your valid point of stability and ease of upgrade really, at this point, wouldn’t be a concern for these users.
Like say for example you’re not that tech savvy and you want to switch just because you’ve seen posts online about how switching to Linux will get more life out of your laptop. Being that you’ve only ever known Windows would you rather deal with like a ubuntu stackoverflow or Arch forum or whatever for support or pay the premium to get one on one support for the OS? That’s their demographic.
I would say the vast majority of Zorin users want something that “just works” and for them Zorin provides that. I’ve said previously I’m by no means a fan of the OS as I don’t like the fact that some of the features that you can get for free on other distros are locked behind a paywall but at the end of the day I get it.
Nice more Linux adoption is always good.
