Zorin 5 v 6 & Upgrade

So two questions:

1. What is the difference between 5 and 6? If you have 5, then why should you go for 6?

2. Can you just upgrade Zorin 5 to 6, or does it have to be a new install?


Zorin 5 works for what I need it for. There are some "issues" but I think that is Linux not Zorin. It would be nice to maybe have those fixed, but it is not worth the trouble of moving all of the files off of the partition just for a new OS version.

Hi Julian,

Z5 will not be supported for much longer so yes!; it would be good for you to upgrade to Z6, you can backup (make copies) of your files and install Z6.

I would recommend a complete clean install but if you like taking risks, you might want to try simply try upgrading Z5 with Z6 by adding the CD to your software sources and do an upgrade like you would under Ubuntu.

See the CD-ROM/DVD section here:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Repositories/Ubuntu

Regards Wolfman

Thanks for the response. I suppose I am more concerned with features or stability.

I really won't upgrade unless I have to and support doesn't seem that big of a deal. Z5 is on a 1.5TB hard dive. We went with Linux for its safety features. That is, we had a virus on windows that caused massive damage. 500+GB of photos, music, videos, etc were lost. I had to use Linux to recover the files, but probably only got 80% of them. So to prevent that problem, or just reduce its chances, we went with Linux. Decided on Z5 because it would be easier to use for my wife.

I suppose if there is a chance of losing things by trying to upgrade, we will just keep Z5. It does what we need it to. If we get a new HD one day, we will install something more up to date.

It's a terrible shame to see the end of Zorin 5.2 because it is without a doubt the most dependable distro I've ever used. I never have a single
problem with it. Everything just works flawlessly and I use it for everything. I tried Zorin 6 and it was awful. I just tried 6.1 and it isn't even in the
same league. It's horrible. I love Zorin and I really hope they work it out but as it stands right now (in my opinion) it has gone from perfection to
barely usable and not worth the trouble solving all of the bugs. That seems to be the biggest problem with Linux in general. Every time the devs
get something working flawlessly, they think they have to change it, and they always screw it up. Kde did it with kde 4 and then gnome did it with
gnome 3.

Julian wrote:So two questions:

1. What is the difference between 5 and 6? If you have 5, then why should you go for 6?

2. Can you just upgrade Zorin 5 to 6, or does it have to be a new install?


Zorin 5 works for what I need it for. There are some "issues" but I think that is Linux not Zorin. It would be nice to maybe have those fixed, but it is not worth the trouble of moving all of the files off of the partition just for a new OS version.

You can't upgrade Zorin 5 to 6, until you change the repos, that is, only the Ubuntu repos to Precise. There is no need to change the Zorin packages. You can find this in Synaptic and by using sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list, and you can manually change the Ubuntu repo name to Precise, and then update and upgrade.

Nothing damaging would happen to your installation, except now you'd be in Precise repos, of course your Zorin packages would be intact.

If you are worried that something might go wrong, install Zorin OS 5 (or 5.2) to a free partition and do the above mentioned.
If you get a problem of connecting to the internet after upgrading, do sudo dhclient eth0 and you'd be in the Internet.

Actually, Zorin 5 and the update 5.2 is good, much better than 6. (My opinion only!) Hmmm...this gives me an itch to try to upgrade 5.2 to Raring.
Yes, I might just do that!
Can't help it, this is one of my hobbies...

BubbaBlues wrote:It's a terrible shame to see the end of Zorin 5.2 because it is without a doubt the most dependable distro I've ever used. I never have a single
problem with it. Everything just works flawlessly and I use it for everything. I tried Zorin 6 and it was awful. I just tried 6.1 and it isn't even in the
same league. It's horrible. I love Zorin and I really hope they work it out but as it stands right now (in my opinion) it has gone from perfection to
barely usable and not worth the trouble solving all of the bugs. That seems to be the biggest problem with Linux in general. Every time the devs
get something working flawlessly, they think they have to change it, and they always screw it up. Kde did it with kde 4 and then gnome did it with
gnome 3.

That Ubuntu base was good, better than the later ones!
New base doesn't mean it would be better. Old is gold!

Hi Julian and All.
Sometime back I also asked similar questions and made similar conclusions, here:
http://zoringroup.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=3193
Both your thread and mine are quite old now, but as I haven't visited here for a while I wanted to see what has been happening (And I am very sad to see that Wolfman has been ill).

Julian wrote:Thanks for the response. I suppose I am more concerned with features or stability.
I really won't upgrade unless I have to and support doesn't seem that big of a deal. Z5 is on a 1.5TB hard dive. We went with Linux for its safety features. That is, we had a virus on windows that caused massive damage. 500+GB of photos, music, videos, etc were lost. I had to use Linux to recover the files, but probably only got 80% of them. So to prevent that problem, or just reduce its chances, we went with Linux. Decided on Z5 because it would be easier to use for my wife.
I suppose if there is a chance of losing things by trying to upgrade, we will just keep Z5. It does what we need it to. If we get a new HD one day, we will install something more up to date.

For me, after trying Z6 a bit, I also tried Ubuntu 12.04LTS and installed LXDE with it - and though I still have ZorinOS installed a couple of times, when I am working towards full-time Linux use (I'm not there yet...) it is the 12.04/LXDE which gets booted up.

Swarfendor437 added GREAT wisdom when he said:

I agree entirely (as I am sure Linus does too - that's why he uses xfce at present as his preferred Desktop Environment. It really aggravates me that people in the OpenSource field are trying too be as 'cocky' as M$ - we don't need swank - we just need a workable (and understandable) OS!

Stability, reliability, familiarity and user-friendliness are VERY critically important, and it looks like lately too many distros have forgotten these things while trying to grab users from the veester/sebben/ache crowd - a mistake.
I quit the idea of ANY/ALL new mikro$oft O$ after XP; that is my stopping point with M$; from there on it'll be Linux with XP used via P2V in a VM, which is very easy with the correct tools...

Best Wishes to All !!!

Greetings to you Mr. Swarfendor437, always a pleasure to converse with you.
I also send along my Best Wishes to You for a Happy, Healthy year !!!

A bit of a funny for you:

Check out my How-to get GnoMenu functionality back like it used to be in earlier versions of Zorin - you won't be disappointed! Take a look at my Vimeo Video how-to here:
https://vimeo.com/user15592214/videos

I read your write-up of that before I posted to this thread; very impressive.

Truthfully I am quite satisfied with what I finally landed upon, and though I find the ZorinOS to be of interest, IMO it moved into an undesirable path as so many other distros did lately, and too many flashy/glitzy things were stuffed into v6 for my liking & comfort.

Were it not for the force applied via incompatible devices/drivers for good, old win2k pro - I'd stay with it forever JUST because it is so incredibly stable, reliable & familiar.
Sadly, that is not an option with newer h/w, and so I moved to XP and neutered it's uglier parts so it is more civilised (like win2k pro, only with newer drivers...).
Sadder still - now that XP is going the way of the dinosaurs, and it'll also become problematic with newer h/w, my best option is a very fast, light Linux distro running underneath an XP VM so that I can still use my customary & needed applications as I wish to.

*IF* Foxmail, Atlantis and Ultra Recall ever all make Linux versions=> that might make me switch to Linux 100% - but for now I'm in good shape just as I am, and I check in here just to see if anything really, greatly, happily surprising has come along.

As of today, I must observe that the Zorin devs are still pursuing the same path that pushed me to get 12.04/LXDE=> and that's OK; but does not in any way lure me to use ZOS 6 and beyond.

Thanks.

Hello Again Mr. Swarfendor437.

Thanks for the pointers to Lemote.
I think is it very neat to have a desktop PC be as small as a DVD drive.
Searching around a bit it seems as if you likely have an easier time getting their stuff in Atlantis than I would here in Vermont !!!

Anyhow, I like my desktop to have 4gb of RAM and since Linux handles the h/w aspects for my VM usage this altogether gives me the bonus of a fast CPU, plenty of RAM and good stability.
When using Linux I have ALOT less h/w concerns than I've ever had with ween-doze, that's for sure.

I looked at Trisquel and perhaps when I try loading a few more distros sometime I'll try it out.
There was no obvious mention of their bootloader, but suffice it to say that I've come to dislike GRUB enough to try a few alternatives...GRUB is just nasty, IMO.

On a related note, because of the link you provided I browsed around Techradar a bit and found this article:
http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/24-things-we-d-change-about-linux-906017
Wherein it says:

10. Remove Grub
If you've ever seen a dual-booting Mac, you'll have seen the smart, easy to use OS selection screen. So why is Grub so ugly? It's hardly a great advert for Linux when you see eight different Linux options when you boot up – four kernel versions as you've upgraded over the months, plus those same four with an additional "failsafe" option.

Indeed, for some time now:

I do hope you are using DuckDuckGo as your primary search engine by the way!

And strongly suggested it for others too - but most are too pigheaded to care that when they 'google' something they are being tracked and/or recorded...too bad for them, I guess.

OK, time to send this along and consider being done for this day...Best Wishes to You !!!

LILO ?!?
The ONLY thing WORSE than GRUB.
Bleah.

Actually I found I liked BURG a whole lot better, and easier to clean up so it only reflects what is actually there in the boot-time menu.

There's at least 1/2 dozen other boot managers I have stashed away as well that are 100% free, and can do a good job with multi-OS systems.
(Linux is quite easy when it comes to getting it to boot compared with picky/fussy weendooze.)

Ache (8) ??? Not for this guy; too painfully lobotomized, thanks.
Sebben (7) is almost as brainlessly bad.
Veester...? (ME-II.) Not even worth the time wasted looking at it.
'Apple' ??? Oh yes, you mean those re-badged PCs with the huge price tags...no thanks.
(Apple - the REAL one - meant it was built on Motorola chips and NOT intel-based; but that era is long dead & gone.)

The only real way 'out' from under the dominance of the wintel cartel is Linux.
(With the unfortunate exceptions being those distros which aim to emulate the lobotomized OSs...)
The only trouble with doing it is that to make it a comfortable fit takes ALOT of time, learning & effort.

I'm getting there though, even if it's taking me a while to do it....

Hello Sir Swarf.
Yes, it is a play on letters/words - and also burg is ALOT nicer IMO.

After hearing about it, I searched:
"replace GRUB with BURG" ubuntu
And the journey began...

It got better & better too,
For anyone curious, see these:
http://www.sourceslist.eu/blog/linux-bl ... tallation/

http://www.sourceslist.eu/burg-2/burg-m ... ger-1-1-0/

http://www.unixmen.com/how-to-install-burg-in-ubuntu/

http://www.unixmen.com/grub-customizer- ... interface/

It is funny to me when I see so many folks so often commenting about how important 'eye candy' is, but for some reason it seems these same folks put up with an ugly mess for a boot manager when it can so easily be replaced with something much kinder on the eyes.

Speaking as a man closer to his 60th year than the 50th one - not having to look at messy, tiny print in grub is just alot nicer IMO.