Zorin 10?

I'm loving Zorin 9. today I got both of my windows Desktop mails, Windows Mail and Windows Live Mail, operational in Thunderbird. Now I don't have to go back to Windows to check on them! I just discovered how to get a great blue color effect and now Zorin is more beautiful than ever. So...I see that Zorin 10 is out. I don't see any info about it, so anybody have any thoughts? Should I stay with 9 or go to 10? I'm sure it's not as drastic (and foolish) as going to Windows 10, but should I wait awhile?

Hi Zorin 10 is a 'developmental cycle' release like Ubuntu 15.04 on which it is based = support ends January 2016. Hopefully updates will feed back down through to the LTS of 9 which is supported until April 2019. You have a good stable install so don't fix what ain't broke friend!

Hi,

if you decide you do want to upgrade Z9 to Z10, you can follow this advice and keep your data intact (you will still have to re-install any apps you may want though!):

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4848

That said, please bear in mind what Swarf said about the support date of Z10!.

Hello!

Glad you were able to get your email transferred over to Zorin!

So far as Zorin 9 vs Zorin 10, I use both. My wife and I are both retired and don't really have anything we use our machines for in a professional sense. I have four main machines (an HP duel monitor desktop, an HP laptop, a Toshiba laptop, and my wife's traveller machine which is an older Gateway) and have Zorin on two of the four. On our main machine I have Zorin OS 9 Premium and Zorin OS 10 Core on the HP laptop. We use the desktop as our main machine in our home with it's main use of pictures, videos, personal documents and the such...all backed up to the cloud with each of us having our own user account. I like the idea that I installed it and can just forget about it. The LTS is the way to go for our main computer. Just run the updates when they spit out and away we go. The reliability has been outstanding and I really can't say enough about the 9 version. The HP laptop with 10 on it is my main machine while not in my home office. I use that for simple stuff like web surfing and emails. I use 10 on it just simply to have the latest version as I like screwing around with different distros and switch back and forth every couple weeks with another distro on a separate partition...just for fun type of deal. My wife has had a different distro with the Gnome Shell Desktop but she now wants 9 Premium on her Toshiba and our Gateway so life will be easy for me as the "computer guy" in the house.

I have also bought a handful of refurbished MacBook Air 13" models for kids and grandkids. Back to school gifts for the grandkids which will all have Zorin on them. I am leaning towards 9 as I want them all to have the reliability needed for school work. Love Apple products but hate the OS and would rather support Zorin on a few machines than pay for OS X long term support.

I will still hop around playing with other distros but will have Zorin as the main OS in the house. LTS for the machines I want to forget about and let them do their job and 10 for my laptop.

Sorry this was so long..... Good luck and hope Zorin works well for you!
Tim

Thanks crazyfunkman for such a detailed response. Zorin 9 continues to blow me away. It's actually addictive I think. If it weren't for the fact that my hobby is music composition, I would probably ditch Windows altogether. I do like Seven, but beyond that, I just don't like the direction Microsoft is going in, becoming ever more intrusive. I'm sure it's just about money in the end, but it feels like they want to control our computers. Forced updates, Cortana, games that come with ads, etc. At this point, the only thing I need Windows for is my music. I do that on another machine. My music software is Sonar, which only runs on Windows. There are DAW's that run on Linux, but none have the features I need. I may have to use that computer for the rest of my life. I don't go online with it often, so I probably could. But I'm hoping that someday I will be able to do my music on Linux. It's a race against time though, as I'm 63!

Just for the kicks and giggles of it, you should take a look at http://www.winehq.org to see if any of the Windows stuff you use is workable in Wine, which is installed on 9. Wine allows a user to install Windows apps within Linux. There is a Database on Wine's website that will give the skinny on what apps, their versions, and how well or successful they are running within Wine. Before I retired some of the needs of my professional life I was stuck with needing a couple Windows only apps but was able to run them within Wine without any hitches. Not all Windows apps will work that well but it may be worth checking out.

On the Wine website, there is an AppDB button on the top of the home page. Once there, on the left there is a Browse Apps link. Just click on that and use the filter to get to the app you're looking for to see the compatibility with Wine.

Good luck,
Tim

You may also want to take a look at a Debian based distro:

http://bandshed.net/AVLinux.html

It even has hp lip present in live mode so you can create and print music scores.

I am not sure if it has been updated since the glibc security issue - to find out which version is present on any distro from a terminal (Ctrl+ Alt+ T - usually) enter:

Code:

ldd --version

If 2.19 or greater then no issues!

You could then dual-boot Zorin with AVLinux!

I got to looking around a little in regards to the music stuff as I've been a drummer since for almost four decades so it peaked my interest. I found this forum post by google-ing Sonar music software on linux. The post is a little dated but has what might be some good info.

http://forum.cakewalk.com/DOES-SONAR-X2 ... 55623.aspx

Tim

Swarfendor437 wrote:Hi Zorin 10 is a 'developmental cycle' release like Ubuntu 15.04 on which it is based = support ends January 2016. Hopefully updates will feed back down through to the LTS of 9 which is supported until April 2019. You have a good stable install so don't fix what ain't broke friend!

I will take your advice. I was leaning that way anyway, based on the support cycle.

crazyfunkman wrote:I got to looking around a little in regards to the music stuff as I've been a drummer since for almost four decades so it peaked my interest. I found this forum post by google-ing Sonar music software on linux. The post is a little dated but has what might be some good info.

http://forum.cakewalk.com/DOES-SONAR-X2 ... 55623.aspx

Tim

Thanks very much, cfm. I may have seen this thread before, but I earmarked some of the links so I won't forget about it this time. I have looked into Ardour and Rosegarden. Ardour looks powerful, but it lacks a staff or notation view, essential for me as I read music and work with notes. Rosegarden does have notation and I intend to check it out thoroughly soon.

crazyfunkman wrote:Just for the kicks and giggles of it, you should take a look at http://www.winehq.org to see if any of the Windows stuff you use is workable in Wine, which is installed on 9. Wine allows a user to install Windows apps within Linux. There is a Database on Wine's website that will give the skinny on what apps, their versions, and how well or successful they are running within Wine. Before I retired some of the needs of my professional life I was stuck with needing a couple Windows only apps but was able to run them within Wine without any hitches. Not all Windows apps will work that well but it may be worth checking out.

On the Wine website, there is an AppDB button on the top of the home page. Once there, on the left there is a Browse Apps link. Just click on that and use the filter to get to the app you're looking for to see the compatibility with Wine.

Good luck,
Tim

So it looks like Reason DAW works in Wine. Unfortunately, it does not have a staff view. The new DAW Bitwig runs on anything, but also lacks a staff view. (there is a pattern here: most people who use DAWS don't read music, so most DAWS don't bother with staff or notation). The one possibility is Reaper, which at some point will have a staff or notation view. And Reaper has potential to run in Linux from what I've heard.

Swarfendor437 wrote:You may also want to take a look at a Debian based distro:

http://bandshed.net/AVLinux.html

It even has hp lip present in live mode so you can create and print music scores.

I am not sure if it has been updated since the glibc security issue - to find out which version is present on any distro from a terminal (Ctrl+ Alt+ T - usually) enter:

Code:

ldd --version

If 2.19 or greater then no issues!

You could then dual-boot Zorin with AVLinux!

Thanks Swarf, I have heard about this but had not looked into it yet. Now I definitely will.

crazyfunkman wrote:I got to looking around a little in regards to the music stuff as I've been a drummer since for almost four decades so it peaked my interest. I found this forum post by google-ing Sonar music software on linux. The post is a little dated but has what might be some good info.

http://forum.cakewalk.com/DOES-SONAR-X2 ... 55623.aspx

Tim

Hi 'drummerman' ,

You may like to indulge in 'Hydrogen' - yes a drumbeat machine to create your very own drum tracks! There is even a track from the late great Mr. Pocaro from Toto - Georgy Porgy Demo track.

Open Synaptic Package Manager and enter in the search bar 'Hydrogen' .