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My experience so far.

SteveD

Fri Jun 27, 2014 3:45:18 pm

Zorin has cost me money but who cares? :)

Let me explain:

I was looking for a Windows alternative and in the past I've tried a couple of Linux distros but always hit a wall and gone back. This time I'm determined to stick it out but I needed something that my wife and FIL can use easily and research on the net led me to Zorin.

After a 4 hour download (our broadband isn't that broad) I installed Zorin OS on our old Dell Dimension. Everything worked! except the Go-flex NAS drive but everything else including a wireless HP Photosmart that I'd given up with under XP and plugged in via USB when I needed it. Wife and FIL were set up as users, signed into Chrome and were happy bunnies and I set about getting whatever software I thought I needed. First thing to do was get the NAS drive working which I managed to set up as CIF shares (Terminal was a scary place after a couple of years :))

Then my new dashcam arrived and things started to go wrong, play the file in Video Player and I had great video and no sound, VLC, which I use on my phone and windows laptop, gave me great sound but choppy video. Turns out the old girl just couldn't really handle HD 1080P video. Now had I still been on XP, and not so stubborn, it would probably have ended there and I just wouldn't have bothered, after all I could watch the vid on my laptop, but the upshot is the Dell went to the dump today and a new box will be delivered on Tuesday next week.

The new box is 64 bit so I thought I'd download the Zoirin 64 bit version ready, nearly twice the size of the original I was looking at a 9 or 10 hour download which was corrupted! Being a glutton for punishment I downloaded it again with the same result! Luckily I've got tethering on my mobile account so one Android wifi hotspot later I downloaded in about 30 mins.

Now I'm off to have a play with Zorin on the laptop. :)

SteveD

Sun Jul 06, 2014 6:52:05 pm

Update so far.

Well it's all installed on the new box and everything works which is a bonus :) All I need now is a decent internet connection.

SteveD

Wed Aug 10, 2016 10:42:18 am

About time for another update I reckon.

After 2 years of Zorin handling everything I've thrown at it (except for one windows app I use at work that I have to keep an old XP Toughbook for) I couldn't be happoer and I'm looking forward to the next LTS release :)

And I'm finally getting a decent (Satellite) internet connection next Monday thanks to the BDUK subsidy :)

MBMz10

Thu Aug 11, 2016 7:21:13 am

Hi SteveD, I am guessing you are using Zorin OS 9?
I couldn't agree more, it is one tuff OS (maybe it has 9 lives...) I think some people consider Zorin as Linux with training wheels but after trying many "Distro's" I have used Zorin for 2 or 3 years now and I just love it.
Functional and beautiful at the same time, with some bells and whistles thrown in for eye candy.

Well I thought I was clever getting Fibre Optic Internet to the home, but I think satellite out does me.
Yes, bring on OS 12 LTS.

SteveD

Fri Aug 12, 2016 4:45:36 am

I would love Fibre but unfortunately BT are so behind the times that we won't get FTTC until 2019 (I think is the planned date) and we are not in a cable area. Currently I'm using 4G which is a lot faster than BT's 5-600kbs attempt at (not so)broadband but limits us. I use a few simcards, 2 x Three sims that give us 15GB each we use for general browsing, these run at about 7-10mbs and an EE sim that is quicker (15-18mbs) but is no good for browsing as the DNS is so slow and can't be changed. The satellite system we are going with gives us 50GB a month but more importantly it's unlimited between midnight and 6am so that is "Download time" :)

Over the years I have tried various Linux distros but this is the first I found that I could have confidence in. It's also given me the confidence to build a NAS box running Openmediavault http://www.openmediavault.org/

MBMz10

Fri Aug 12, 2016 6:41:21 am

I am in Australia and guessing your in Britain so some of what you say is a little confusing for me. BT is British Telecom?
I got Fibre to the premises/home (FTTP or FTTH) what ever it is called here 13 months ago, awesome just awesome and I am on the slowest speed 12/1, thats 12Mbps download and 1Mbps upload, cost me about $60 AU a month and is unlimited usage, includes the home phone (fibre also). I am hearing you about Internet though, I was on ADSL2+ 8Mbps and lucky to get 800Kbps on a good day, drop outs etc etc, and I thought this was great after dial up...
The Fibre comes to a junction box on my house, then Fibre through the house to the NBN (national broadband network) 'boxes' about 1 metre from the router, this is in Melbourne, some country areas will be a mix of fibre, copper phone lines, wifi and satellite with some boomerang throwing as well!!!

What is FTTC?
All that shuffling of SIMs you could get a job in Vegas Casino...
I get 1.5 GB data a month on my mobile phone but it would cost way too much to use SIMs for Internet here!

I thought about converting an old PC into a NAS box but bought a 'Netgear' NAS and put 2 X 3TB WD Red HDD in 'mirroring'. It is nice and quiet and much smaller than the old PC and would use much less power to run, it is on 24/7. Zorin and Windows both talk to it no problems, also can stream movies etc to TV from it, yep they are a great little thing to have, you just using an old PC or some custom made box?
I uploaded (cloud) stuff like photos etc that can't be replaced so they are 'off site' if the house burns down or PC's/NAS stolen and the rest of it, well I can cope with that.
Also attached it (NAS), main PC, router, and whatever else to a UPS, power had not gone out here for as long as I could remember then started to fail about 4 or 5 times over a few months. Tired of being about 8 hours into a video conversion and having to start all over again because of brown or black out.

Zorin just does everything I want except for gaming so I use Windows for that but many more games are coming to Linux so we can only hope. I hadn't used Windows (didn't even have it installed) for a few years till I started to game recently. Windows 10 'updated' itself the other day and @#!%, now I need to get many things working again till it does it again. Zorin doesn't do that to me when it updates, well OS 12 will be a fresh install but then all good for 5 years I imagine.

SteveD

Fri Aug 12, 2016 7:00:58 am

Sorry, yes I am in England. BT = British Telecom and FTTC = Fibre to the cabinet.

Yes the NAS is purpose built using this case http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=42#CFI-A2060 2 WD Red 3TB drives in a Raid 1 and an SSD for the operating system

Swarfendor437

Fri Aug 12, 2016 9:46:30 am

SteveD wrote:Sorry, yes I am in England. BT = British Telecom and FTTC = Fibre to the cabinet.

Yes the NAS is purpose built using this case http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=42#CFI-A2060 2 WD Red 3TB drives in a Raid 1 and an SSD for the operating system


Hi, take a look here before going any further:

http://askubuntu.com/questions/470960/n ... -ssd-cache

Remember, Zorin does not provide a server release! ;) :D

SteveD

Sat Aug 13, 2016 12:06:38 pm

Sorry Swarfendor, I wasn't very clear, the NAS runs on Openmediavault :)

SteveD

Sat Nov 19, 2016 6:23:27 am

Well with the release of the next LTS (Zorin 12) it looks like it will soon be time to upgrade the OS.

I downloaded the 12 beta and tried to run that as a live session but for some reason* that only gave me a blank screen. The newly released 12 Core works fine as a live session though so I am at least one step closer :)

I also have /home on a separate partition, all backed up to my NAS so I'm hoping it will be relatively painless but I'm not going to rush it.

* I searched on the Ubuntu forum and found the reason for this but I didn't understand a word of it

ETA: The satellite internet is now up and running thanks to a neighbour that allowed me to trim a tall hedge in their garden and is giving us a nice stable connection

Swarfendor437

Sat Nov 19, 2016 1:37:24 pm

Hi SteveD,

I noticed you mentioned 3 - have you checked to see that your account has not been hacked? Heard on the news yesterday that the 3 network had been hacked - did not pickup on much details as to what has been taken if anything of user accounts. :(

SteveD

Wed Nov 23, 2016 5:32:52 am

Not a problem :)

All the Three accounts were closed.

SteveD

Sat Dec 17, 2016 8:16:33 am

And it's done. Zorin 12 is now up and running :)

MBMz10

Sat Dec 17, 2016 8:21:29 am

That balances me out as I'm about to blow mine away and start again.