Zorin is best I've used yet, but...

Greetings. Just tried Zorin this week on an old Athlon 64z2 3800+ HP SR1610NX
This machine generally ran like c*** with XP.
The great news is that it runs really acceptably with Zorin 6 LTS.
I am shocked that even the built in shared graphics are running well.
It only slowed down under heavy browser window loading on 2GB memory. I've since
added another 1GB and maybe that will give me enough margin.
I'm really impressed with that, as well as the operation and quality of Zorin.
I have been a fan of Puppy and EasyPeasy in the past, but I have not
run a machine "seriously" on linux before. I usually have had trouble with
some install/driver aspect of the mainstream linuxes and had to turn away.
With zorin, it isntalled, ran great. Its the first one that I had very little
trouble installing good apps on without glitches and snafus in the install process.
I'm not really particular about features of a UI. I spend time in applications and
mainly just launch items off of the desktop or task bar. So a Windows look
and feel works for me, So I really reather like your approach with the GUI.
Windows are MS Windows style, Settings are OSX style. Works for me.
There is SO much to be excited about here.
It looked good and worked good on first boot.

To be fair, my frustrating experience with the other mainstream Linux releases
have been on old machines with really weird hardware. This old machine
might be the newest and least obscure that I've used Linux on yet.
Still I am surprised that EVERYTHING worked right right from the get-go-
video, audio, installations, the works.

I did get myself into troubhe though messing around with look and feed settings.
I eventually had the icons go kind of crazy and the Task Manager no longer functioned.
First it had the UBUNTU Task manager logo, then later a sad face crashed Task Manger.
I scrambled around the settings trying to coerce it back to factory.
Very much like this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4789
The conclusion of that thread was that it since the user sorted it out the problem
is resolved. I disagree! The resolution would be preventing what was able to be
tangled up in that cenario and mine. its problems like this that have caused me to have to
move away from a Linux distribution. Because I feel I can't trust it. One wrong move and I'm hosed.
One of the other possible fixes offered (seems like a blanked fix) was this detailed update procedure:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2247
Oh My Gosh. Are you kidding? Who's going to put up with an easy to use GUI system that needs
that kind of digging under th hood to put right / keep right? This is precicely what hoped I would
not see with Zorin.

I tied some of that update procedure, but really didn't know what applied to me or what I was doing.
I ended up punting and resintalling Zoros. At this point, I hadn't gotting to far to be concened about the reload.
But as a solution, to me, its plain unacceptable to have to resort to that from a GUI snafu.

Besides preventing these problems from occuring, which probably requires more testing
than anyone can afford and careful documenting of the situation that cause the tangled GUI
facilities to misbehave, which few will diligent about... I suppose a
really comprehensive repair mechanism is needed. Every GUI should have one I guess.

So I ask, Is it possible that Zoros could have a script that at least returns the GUI to its
factory settings and does a really good job at fixing up inconsistancies that might
prevent the customization to ever work? Something llike "system restore" in Windows?
Seems to me an acceptable solution. For me, something went really wrong. A bug
in there of some sort. But such a tool would make it easy to just back out settings
that you tried but didn't like.

Now I figure I have to tread lightly and do not feel as free to explore as I first did.
That's a shame. I also makes me less confident to put this on peoples computers.

From a software development point of view, I guess no

So this distribution is pretty awesome. It is SO close to be ready for prime time.
The main problem is the age-old linux problem: things that go wrong take a Unix
knowlegeable person to fix and command line steps that too difficult that may
or may not actually fix any particular sitation. I could understand this if
a user botches some SUDO stuff under the hood that he shouldn't be doing.
But IMHO no user interface action of changing look and feel items should
EVER leave the system tangled up beyond hope other than the
under the hood Linux magic presented in those thread.
Agree?

I had a similar experience with ZorinOS. I had 5 old PCs to format on which I've tried to run Ubuntu, PClinuxOS,Fedora and many other distributions and versions of Microslop Windblows but non of them worked! Trying Zorin OS Lite, the resultswer smashing! All 5 PCs work like a charm! no problems to report!! Many thx Zorin OS team

Hi,

short answer to your problem is down to what Ubuntu put out there, if they (Ubuntu) don't have a GUI fix available, the only way to fix things is to use the terminal, thats the long and short of it!.

There are several easy terminal command fixes for things, you just need to be specific about the problem at the time when asking a question.

Regards Wolfman

It should be possible to script - I was impressed with Qelitu which is based on Lubuntu like Zorin - that has a 'post-install' shortcut which runs the 'sudo apt-get update' thing by itself if memory serves me correctly. The difficulty is, is that GNU/Linux does not have access to proprietary software for proprietary hardware - that is the vendors fault - NOT GNU/Linux!

Thank you... thought maybe that was the case, that truly fixing the GUI bug that led to the tangle was only fixable by Ubuntu.
But how is that different than waiting for Microsoft to fix something? I mean I thought there was more freedom in the Linux world for fixes to be done non-centrally.

I expect that a script would be the way to implement something that restores the GUI to default and to clean up whatever mess happens to the configuration
in the case I described. That would be more than acceptable!

Do you think what is happening as I described to be a proprietary hardware/driver issue? I didn't think so, can you help me see how?

Sorry for posting this in the wrong place, I see now this probably should have been in the feedback forum.

Hi,

if you have an Nvidia card, only use the recommended drivers (nvidia-current) as per my suggestion in the Nvidia thread, did you do a full update after installing the drivers?.

Regards Wolfman

Hi,

as a footnote, if you installed any other drivers other than the recommended "nvidia-current", you will have to remove them first, which drivers did you install?.

Regards Wolfman

Wolfman:
Hi I installed just the stock software and did not do the "full" update.
I did not touch the video driver software. I didn't even change display properties. NOTHING.
If I did not install any drivers, do I have to do the "full" update to have a stable system?
Will the installation be improved so that the "full update" procedure is not necessary under any circumstance?
I think that's what you should be shooting for, yes?

Did you ensure that 'Update to latest version of Ubuntu' is set to 'Never'?

Uh Oh. No. Where's that and why is that not turned off by default if its not recommend?

In the windows 'search' bar of the menu, enter 'synaptic' - when you launch 'Synaptic Package Manager' you will be asked for your password. Click on 'Settings' then on 'Repositories' - next click on the 'Updates' tab - then next to 'Notify me of a new Ubuntu Version' - use the drop-down and select 'Never'.