Announcing the winners of the Zorin OS contest

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Around one month ago The Zorin OS Team, DarkDuck and Linuxaria started a contest to find the best story about Zorin OS, or Linux in general. This competition has now come to a close and we would like to thank all of the contestants for a successful contest with many of you entering.

Although it was a difficult to choose the winners, we had a great time reading all of the wonderful entries. In the end, The Zorin OS Team, DarkDuck and Linuxaria managed to compile a list of the best works and here it is:

1. The DVD of Zorin OS 6 Ultimate (prize given by The Zorin OS Team) goes to Connie with his fantastic poem “In Praise of Zorin Linux”:

Linux is a wonderful OS.
It’s solid, safe, and fun in every way,
Nor was it made in haste or idleness,
Untiringly developed day by day,
Xpertly designed for work or play.

Zorin is of Linuxes the best,
Or, at the least, contender for that prize.
Reliably it passes every test
In ease of use, a pleasure for the eye,
Nimbly over other distros flies.

2. $15 bonus at Desura (or alternative) (prize given by Linuxaria) goes to Ken Cominsky who wrote “The Story of Zorin: A Modern Day (computing) Fairy Tale”:

Based on a true story…

Once upon a time there lived a young squire (engineer) who learned to ride a seasoned horse (computer) with a trusted saddle (UNIX OS) for it was his job. While learning to ride, the squire learned to tweak the saddle (write scripts) to make the horse uniquely his. One day a saddle salesman named William came to the squire’s village (company) and told the village elders (IT department) that, for much gold ($$), he could sell them a new kind of saddle. One that could make the village’s horses do wonderful things. Never mind that the saddle was full of holes and had bugs for if they did not buy his new saddle, the village across the river would best them in tournament for they had already purchased his new saddle. The village elders were sold and soon all the old saddles, along with the squire’s saddle, were retired. Unfortunately the horses, with William’s new saddle, didn’t do all that William had promised. When asked about this, William replied “to make the new saddles work best you must spend more gold and buy new, more powerful horses.” The village elders were sold and soon the trusted horses were retired for new, more powerful ones.

Several years later, William returned and stated that he now had a better saddle, one that would make the village horses do even more wonderful things. It would just require additional gold. The village across the river had already purchased his new saddle and this village would be at a great disadvantage in tournament if they did not buy as well. The village elders were sold and soon all the old saddles were retired. Once again, after the new saddles were received and used, the horses didn’t do all that William had promised. When asked about this, William once more replied “To make the new saddles work best you must buy even newer, more powerful horses.” The village elders were sold and soon the new horses were retired for even newer, more powerful horses.

After this had occurred three or four more times, the young squire, now a knight (Senior Engineer) saw that something wasn’t right. It was during the retirement of his current horse that the knight declared “No more! I do not want to pay more gold for a new horse and a new saddle when there is nothing wrong with my old ones. There must be something better.” So, when looking for a different saddle for his horse, he came across a saddle called Zorin. This Zorin looked and acted like William’s saddles but did not require gold and could make his horse do the same amazing tricks. Also, the knight found that he could tweak the Zorin saddle, once again making the horse uniquely his. It took only one ride on his old horse with the new Zorin saddle to convince the knight that he had made the right choice. The knight vowed to spread the word of Zorin to all his fellow knights; what it was and how it could help them.

And so, to this day, the knight continues his quest while William, from behind the walls of his silicon fortress, looks on with venom in his eyes.

3. £10 voucher for Amazon.co.uk (prize given by BuyLinuxCDs) goes to Gary Newell who wrote “I started using LINUX because I didn’t want to wait 20 minutes to find out the weather forecast”:

At the beginning of the century I moved away from my home in Southern England to the North East of Scotland. My job however remained in Southern England. Fortunately I wasn’t required to commute a 1400 mile a day round trip. Instead I was able to work from home.

As a software developer I was able to work on projects remotely with just the odd visit to England once every two months. However sometimes you need to get the latest source code from the company’s servers to update it. Now in the year 2000 we did not have Broadband. To be honest we barely had 56k modems. The upshot of this was that to update all the files on a branch it could take an hour or so to run.

So what does a geek do when his work’s laptop is out of commission because it is downloading source code? He reads. He reads a lot. One of the things I read about was LINUX and how it was going to be the beating of Microsoft.

Now personally at the time I didn’t realise that I had a problem with Microsoft but because I had a lot of time on my hands waiting for updates I thought hey, why not give it a go.

At the time downloading a distribution was not an option, largely because my internet connection was busy copying source files or because somebody would telephone the house and the download would stop. There were programs at the time that would enable downloads to restart when you connected again but unless you wanted to spend days downloading software you would have to find a better way. If only buylinuxcds.com was available at the time.

So one afternoon I was in my newsagent and there was a LINUX magazine with a copy of Mandrake linux on the front. I bought the magazine and rushed home to try it out. Now trying it out actually meant going through a fairly difficult installation and because I wanted to protect my Windows 98 (oh the irony) I went for a dual boot which wasn’t without its own set of difficulties.

My first foray into LINUX was therefore Mandrake LINUX. It actually went quite well in the sense it booted up and was useable. At this period in time I have to admit to having a number of peripherals such as a modem, printer and scanner and even an early Hauppauge TV Card. The first thing to do was to connect to the internet because even in the year 2000 there was a good community to help resolve things. Unfortunately I couldn’t get online and none of the peripherals worked.

Moving forward in time a few years and Broadband arrived in Aberdeenshire but despite the obvious advantages such as being able to download my source code quickly from work there were new problems. First of all Windows was now Windows XP and this thing wants to update itself all the time. Anti virus software was also more important as it is a lot easier to catch a virus over a broadband link than over a 56k modem (purely because you download more frequently). You now also needed a firewall.

So between Windows XP taking 5 minutes to boot, then a further amount of time downloading updates and then the antivirus software downloading updates and the firewall software downloading updates, java required updates, flash joined the scene and required updates, QuickTime required updates, adobe required updates. Actually at this point you are probably getting my point that to just read the weather forecast you could be sat waiting for your PC to boot for 20 minutes. On top of this fact simply reading the weather could leave you with 50 popups on the screen.

In the mid 2000s eBay was still new and incredibly popular and it was whilst browsing eBay that I found someone selling 20 disks with different versions of LINUX on them. It had been a while since I had tried LINUX and the total price of these 20 CDs was just £3. What a bargain. Oh the 20 disks for £3 was a bargain but the fact that this lead me to the place I am now where I am completely Windowless at home has made this one of my best purchases ever.

When the disks arrived there were a number of distributions that I had read up about but that I had never actually tried. Amongst others there was Debian, OpenSuse, Mandriva, Gentoo and Slackware.

Having read that Mandriva had spawned from Mandrake I figured that this would be the best disk to start with. Unlike my previous attempt I had a dedicated machine to try this out on and the installation was smooth. In addition to this my printer worked straight away as did my scanner and I was able to connect to the internet. Total boot time just 5 minutes and this was on a very old machine I had been given by my father in law.

Knowing that Mandriva had worked so well and could always be relied upon I tried all the other distributions in turn and I ended up settling with OpenSuse. It was the one that looked the best and probably the KDE desktop looked more Windowsy and so made me feel more comfortable.

I kept OpenSuse for quite a while until I heard of a distribution called Ubuntu. We are now in the late noughties and Ubuntu 8.04 was released. I downloaded a copy and burned it to disk and gave it a go. My internet was now wireless. I was now using a laptop rather than a desktop and even my printer was wireless.

Say what you like about Ubuntu but for people who just want to use their computer and not fiddle it really does work.

Nowadays I try different distributions every few months. Currently I am running MINT 12 on one laptop, Ubuntu 10.04 on another and on my netbook I am running Bodhi.

So what does this have to do with Zorin LINUX you might ask? Well recently I have been distro hopping especially on my netbook. I tried Fedora 16 for a month and I have to admit to liking Gnome Shell 3 but I had issues with Yum.

With a much faster internet connection (7.5mb) I can now download distributions easily and I do, all the time. In the latest batch of downloads I created USB disks using UNetBootin for Bodhi, Zorin and OpenSuse.

I wanted to look at OpenSuse again for nostalgia reasons. I wanted to try Bodhi because I’d heard good things about the speed and the enlightenment desktop that it uses and I wanted to try Zorin because I was told that it was the closest thing to Windows.

OpenSuse is solid. For me it always has been. If I wanted a dependable version of LINUX then this is what I would call old faithful. Bodhi on the other hand is like a formula one car speeding round the tracks but with a few steering issues.

I can’t believe it took so much effort to get music playing on my netbook with Bodhi using Rhythmbox and Banshee. I read thread after thread about getting MP3s to play. Nothing seemed to work. Then I was given the suggestion to install an extension that allows long filenames. Suddenly music started playing. Unbelievable. I can’t believe I’m the only person to suffer this problem. Everyone using Bodhi must fall into this trap mustn’t they.

When I tried Zorin out I was impressed in the sense that it looks so familiar. If Zorin had been around when I first started looking at LINUX then it would have been must easier for me to transition across. So for me it is a great distribution because for Windows users that are tempted but aren’t quite sure it is an obvious distribution to recommend. Now as a LINUX user of some years this is where of course it also falls down.

The desktop and menu system is much like Vista’s which is of course the idea but having to use Vista and Windows 7 for a number of years at work I much prefer the gnome desktop (even with the shell).

I have to admit to being a little bit taken with the enlightenment desktop used by Bodhi. Now I know there is the alternative view which makes Zorin look like a MAC but again if I wanted a MAC desktop I could just by a MAC.

So Zorin is both beautiful and ugly at the same time. For tempting users into the world of LINUX it is great but I liken it to a train station pub. With a train station pub you are tempted in by the fact that it looks like a pub and it serves beer like a pub but really it isn’t a pub and only serves to tempt you to go and find a pub that is a pub. I can see Zorin gaining and losing users at a similar rate.

New users will come from Windows (especially if Windows 8 sucks) but will lose other users that are tempted to go for other distributions now that they have dipped their toes in the water.

4. CD with any Linux Distribution of his choice (prize given by Linux Notes from DarkDuck) goes to Steven Abeyta and his “Discovering Zorin OS”:

It was due to having Agoraphobia that I spent most my time gathering as many tips and tweaks that I could find to make my system run as lightweight as possible while having only 1gb of RAM. I waisted a lot of time and went through a lot of heartache trying to make a window out of what’s really a box. I’m talking about Windows that is. In my opinion Windows is just that. A window you can look through but it is locked onto a house that you cannot truly make your own and be the master of your own domain. You can only see as far and wide as ‘they’ want you to see which after looking a bit harder you see it is actually an illusion on the wall, tricking the eyes of the masses into thinking they’re using the best of the best, the top-of-the-line OS when you’re really boxed in. I was in the dumps with my situation as their was no freedom for me, the limits were quickly found and I had hit a wall. I was to sit with a laptop that I knew had power and strengths; that deserved to shine but couldn’t be unlocked to its potential. Only in my dreams, I thought.

It wasn’t until I had major computer trouble that I ended up with half of the memory I was used to, 512MB on a much older laptop than my previous one. Again, I tried even the littlest, stripped down versions of Windows I could find. To no avail, I accepted that my passion for writing short stories and editing videos was now without a doubt over. There was nothing I could do. No change I could make. Somehow I stumbled upon a Linux distro which led to another, then another, then it was back to the first, then back to the last one and back all around again. I tried well over a dozen. Juggling them, burning them off, surrounding myself with unlabeled burned CDs not knowing which was which, which had that particular problem and which one I would just have to settle with. It was a frantic frenzy. I had been familiar with Linux for a while but I wondered if Linux was just freedom much like in the Matrix code. Something I just couldn’t bring myself to comprehend. I was stuck with one foot out of the window while the other tip toed around the complexities of Linux. What was I to do? I finally discovered the key was with LXDE but the distros I tried were still too beefy and bloated, still with that complicated Linux experience. Then I found the door to balance with Zorin OS 6 Lite.

It’s my favorite color, Blue, first of all. It’s simple, easy, sleek, smooth and speedy! It’s bundled with fewer programs than other LXDE distros. I don’t need to waste time uninstalling things I won’t use. The menu is very simple and very well laid out. I love to see that the lists have only what I use and not the more complex customization tools I will never use and are found in other distros. Something really worth mentioning is that as LXDE distros are meant to be lightweight and take up little RAM, that hasn’t been quite the case with what I have tried. I’ve actually screwed up my Linux system several times over trying to milk as much performance as possible by ridding the system of extra processes which I didn’t need but they were strangely vital to the core system. So there was some extra bloat and baggage I did not like whatsoever. In Zorin OS, I don’t need to bother risking a major mess up from uninstalling processes I don’t need. It just works and does its job. The performance is the fastest I’ve come across. It is very easy to use, get around and do what you need to do when you need to do it. It promises what other distros say they offer but fall short of, in one way or the other. Zorin OS is truly out-of-the-box. It grasps what lightweight enthusiasts and those its intended for want and doesn’t fall short at all. As I said before Zorin OS hits the bullseye! Having also tried the Core version it is simply a wet dream that flows wonderfully with such an awesome fluid feel. Zorin OS isn’t only an OS geared towards Windows users and neither is it another Linux distro. It is, in fact something entirely new, profound and groundbreaking. I am willing to bet that Zorin OS will become the next Ubuntu. It is a balance between Windows and Linux that shows continued growth into something bigger than them both. The day will come when It’s not just Windows and Mac, or Ubuntu, but a new age of OS’s that started from Zorin, the first honest OS for the world. I found a home with Zorin and the voyage has just begun. It has set my visions further out where they need to be, surely where I will follow and find myself someday. Thank you, Zorin brothers and team.

5. 1GB USB stick (prize given by Linux Notes from DarkDuck) goes to Joe Chang who wrote “I always come back to Zorin OS”:

I have been a Windows user for many many years, going back to Windows 3.1. I always shunned Apple because of the ridiculous cost, and frankly the elitist arrogance of its users. I always felt that Windows (ironically, because of its monopoly) left less chance of compatibility issues with other users, and more choices in terms of software. Over the years, I grew to dislike Microsoft as a company. Yet when it came down to it, Windows was my security blanket – a familiar place that I felt safe.

About seven years ago was my first experience with Linux, specifically Ubuntu. Through virtualization (VirtualBox always worked best for me) I was able to explore Ubuntu. My first impression was one of much confusion. Of course, it was a completely new element that was quite intimidating. The fact that so much was done through the command line really scared me. It didn’t take long for me to just forget about it and move on with Windows.

Through some life circumstances, I had to make a drastic career change, which ultimately lead me into the IT field. For almost two years, I was out of work. During this time, I went to school and acquired some certs. But I also became obsessed with Linux. It actually started with Ubuntu Studio 10.10. Being a musician and amateur recording engineer, I found it amazing that this capability was available for free. Again, it was somewhat intimidating, but at the same time, exciting. I learned so much about Linux from this experience. And I couldn’t get over the fact that it could do what I had spent so much money in software to do – FOR FREE! This snowballed into an unhealthy obsession of trying out every Linux distro that I could. I tried Ubuntu (and the official variants Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu), Zorin OS, Mint, Debian, Fedora, OpenSuse, Mandriva, etc. And no matter which ones I try, I always come back to Zorin OS. It’s not because it is the most Windows-like (which is nice), but it’s the fastest and most stable, and in my opinion, the best out of the box with its combination of features and apps.

Now that I have become free tech support for all of family and friends, I have replaced many infected/bloated/corrupted Windows systems with Zorin OS 5 Ultimate, and every one of them is so happy now. If I leave the default Windows 7 interface, the transition is so stupid simple for them. One such friend recently called because he could not get Netflix to work. I told him that he would have to go back to Windows. He flat-out refused, and was willing to cancel his Netflix instead. For a family member that has a bunch of snotty Mac-user friends/clients, I gave her Zorin OS 5 Ultimate with the Mac OS look, and even added the Mac OS X Lion theme/icons. Her friends/clients cannot believe it. It looks like a Mac, but says Toshiba on the outside. There are so many of these stories from all of my family and friends that I have converted to Linux.

I am now using Zorin OS 5 Ultimate as the OS on my personal laptop, as well as on my personal home file/print server. Although I still work in a Microsoft environment, I use a Dell laptop loaded with Zorin OS 5 Ultimate to do everything.

I cannot wait for Zorin OS 6 Ultimate. I will happily pay for the work that is put into such a fabulous distro.

The following are some runner-up articles chosen by The Zorin OS Team that we also found exceptional:

“My Zorin Story” by Kamran Mackey:

I am a user of Zorin OS since 3 years ago and when I switched to it, I thought it was Windows but it wasn’t. I loved the look and feel of it and how it reassembles Windows and it is so much faster than Windows. I shared Zorin OS with my friends and they love it a lot. I gave it to over 100 friends including my family and they all love it to pieces. Zorin OS is the best Linux operating system I have ever used since I started using Linux which was close to 5 years ago. I love the stability and security of the operating system a lot because I don’t get viruses. I would recommend this to everyone who is using Linux because it is so fantastic.

“Zorin OS Contest” by Sarjono:

As Indonesia promoted the Indonesia Goes Open Source in 2006, government institutions in Indonesia are requested to migrate to Linux. I am a staff at the Center for Nuclear Fuel Technology – Nuclear Energy Agency Indonesia and by that time was assigned to implement the migration of about 30 computers in the office which were installed with Windows copy. By that time I knew nothing about Linux, so I bought some installer CDs of linux distros, such as Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva, Open Suse and PCLinux OS. I started installing each distro and tried to learn how to make things like internet, office document editor, networking, etc. work as friendly as Windows XP had offered, and finally I chose Ubuntu as the distro for the migration implementation. The first Ubuntu was Ubuntu Desktop 6.0 and kept upgrading the distro for the X.04 releases (7.04,8.04, 9.04, 10.04, 11.04). Things just went “normal” with minor complaint from the users until the Ubuntu release with the Unity thing. As more people started to complain about the Unity, I tried to change the Unity with the Gnome Shell thing. Unfortunately, the Gnome Shell also still got complaints, and I tried some ubuntu based distros: Linux Mint and then Zorin OS. For sure I chose the zorin-os-5.2-core-32 with the Windows like desktop look and feel. And everybody is happy. As a matter of fact, many of the users still use Windows 7/XP for their home computer. They like most the Zorin’s Windows way of presenting the desktop layout, so theydon’t have to “switch” their mind-set to “This is Linux, not Windows” whenthey are using Linux. Now we are looking forward to upgrading to the Zorin 6.

“Short Story About Zorin OS” by Jeff Fernandes

Started my Linux experience way back in the day when by buying a Red Hat 5.1 CD was the only way to get my 386 to run well on the web. Now thanks to fast download speeds it is nothing to download Linux, burn a DVD and try different distributions. I wonder if Red Hat would have survived then if people could download as freely as now. The distribution that managed to stay on my computer in these times of plenty is Zorin. It is uses the Ubuntu/Debian base which is my favourite package manager format as everything works without having to worry about dependencies or having to tweak repositories to get multimedia codecs. The available software collection is very large and free, which is the reason most of us like Linux in the first place.The polished way Zorin has tweaked the Gnome desktop with flair but purpose. Not just eye candy as some distros are want to do.To say this distribution is for Window 7 users is really an understatement. As a long-term Linux user I would say Zorin works reliably and predictably compared to others where each new release requires major updates to eliminate bugs. Give Zorin a spin and you too may just have one distro on your computer.

Once again, we would like to thank all the participants of the Zorin OS contest for their hard work in writing their wonderful literature.