Zorin15 vs Feren

I have been with Zorin since Zorin 9 and I am now using Zorin 12.

I always thought that, after the support period ended that it was a big effort to upgrade Zorin to the next LTS.

Then, amongst others, along comes UK based Feren (based on Linux Mint) - which seemingly has an ongoing upgrade process.

I have tried dual booting Feren on my old Windows XP PC (on the backup drive) - and it looks good. I have set it up to look the way I want and have a bootable .iso of it ready to go on CD by using an old copy of Acronis.

What do I do when Zorin 12 support ends in 2021, as I understand it? Install Zorin 15 or Feren on my present, really good, laptop? Should I do it now?

I have looked on the Linux Mint support forum web page and find it large and intimidating, but helpful and (I think) American dominated. I have found the Zorin forum web page small, intimate, helpful and familiar, but multinational. I don't think that Feren even has a Forum, unfortunately.

I'm pretty well versed in how Mint works and so is Jeff. You can probably continue to find assistance here, as well as the Mint Forum. Swarf is familiar with Feren OS.

I think no one here can really give good sage advice on which O.S. to recommend... I just really comes down to what You Want.
Zorin O.S. has served you well... And if users shift away from Zorin in favor of a different environment, this will encourage Zorin to consider including other popular environments. I would strongly hope that in the near future, Zorin will consider a mate or Cinammon version as XFCE is going rogue with version 4.16.
What you should do is whatever you feel best about. And even if you are using Feren O.S. ---You have been a helpful contributor on this forum and I certainly hope you will feel inclined to stick around. Many Linux problems and solutions are not confined by distro boundaries.

I am someone who can give some insight into this, as I too started with Zorin OS 9, then Zorin OS 12, then went to Ferren OS for a year, and then came back to Zorin OS 12. So why did I come back to Zorin you ask? While I did feel that Ferren OS looked good, felt good, and did what I needed it to do most of the time, there was however one major issue.

After computer was running with Ferren OS, between 24-hours to 48-hours at a time, the computer would begin lagging. If I continued using my computer in this state, my computer would eventually have a hard crash. As it turned out, this was due to some kind of memory leak between my internet browser and my Nvidia driver. However, Linux is supposed to handle memory requests properly to prevent that from happening.

Sometimes it only took 8-hours and my computer would be bogging down. When I whiped the drive, and installed Zorin OS 12 back on it, and updated it to the latest version which is 12.4, I noticed that my computer was running way better. Although, while true that I do restart my computer each day, I don't notice any bogging down over the course of the day.

So, my humble opinion is based on my experience with these operating systems, and as such, my vote is to stick with Zorin OS. Additionally, I have my OS heavily customized right now, I am no longer using Gnome at all! I am running on the XFCE desktop, and I got it customized with Azenis theme everywhere. Highly recommended BTW.

FerenOS has changed (and I must admit, though early days) it's Plasma on KDE and comes with KDE connect and it also has Timeshift included. This is the spec of m'lady's rig that I put 64-bit Feren OS and it has a Compositor repair app that is very useful for old kit such as this:

For clarity, SoftMaker Office 2018 is not included; I picked that up on a special offer - 5 PC licence for Linux and Windows = 10 licences really.
Just to add, the Windows 10 like menu is so like the real thing - when I added Thunderbird and pinned it to the Start menu the icon doesnt show - just like Google Chrome at work on Windows 10 - a blank tile.
The only other comment I would make is that its' widtgets are naff in respect you have to be careful where you create them as you can't move or resize them, not like Cairo Dock. The wallpapers and users icons aren't as varied as Cinnamon either. What was nice to see is that Caps Lock/Shift indicator is already present in the panel - no need for an extension. Whilst not a notebook, the power app in Sys Tray picks up the charge level of the Logitech Solar Powered wireless keyboard - neat! I like Spectacle Screenshot app - it has extensive options, even more than shutter. Of interest is that 32-bit version comes up with a M$ warning notice that you should upgrade to 64-bit or buy new kit as 32-bit support is ending in 2023.

That highlights one of the more interesting, as well as perplexing, things about Linux: so many distros, so little time...The first decision to make is whether you want an LTS or a rolling distro. There is something to be said for both. With LTS, you install and forget about it (except for updates, of course). Because the base system doesn't change for 5 years, that usually means 5 years of reliable service. with a rolling distro, you get cutting edge, with the possibility that an update will break your system. So maybe it comes down to your hardware. On older equipment, I would stay with LTS. On state of the art equipment, rolling would be fine. for example, although my Linux system is old, it is 64 bit, with 6-8 GB ram and a fast CPU. but my video card recently broke, which put me back on the onboard graphics. Now Zorin Core won't work on it. The only Zorin (15) that will work is Lite 32 bit. Which means half of my ram is wasted. So I am now exploring other disros to use (in addition to Zorin; as long as Lite 32 works it's a keeper). Last night I put in Bodhi Linux 64 bit, and it works great. It's fast and has no problem with those old graphics. In general, I have been very impressed with Zorin 15. It is quite stable for a rolling distro, even after multiple updates. A lot of distros can't say that.

More information on advanced settings and graphics on Feren OS. You have the choice of 3 different rendering options. OPENGL 2, (default), xrender, or OPENGL 3.1. I chose xrender to get rid of tairs, reduced animation to none and smooth render.

Howdy y'all.... Finston, Aravisian is correct. You may ask opinions, but it's mainly up to your own interest, likes, tweaks that would decide which is better. Feren is an OS I really liked a lot for a while. Then out of nowhere I got a bunch of update issues, and also what star treker mentioned, it would bog down. It became too much like mint after a while in the sense that, when I've used Mint cinnamon would start to lag after a month or so, and just get worse. would take 30, 40 seconds to open a package. Internet, KMyMoney, Libreoffice, it didn't matter. I went to Feren because A) it was familiar to me (with my mint experience) but the bigger reason was B) Could install once and updates would just keep coming forever. I had been on mint long enough to experience the bad about linux updates, from 17.2 to 17.3. Although, I have to admit I wasn't on Linux too long until the easy upgrade methods came around. And until the aforementioned issues, I dug it a lot. After reading what Swarf said, maybe it's time for another look. Which btw....

Swarf, are you using the New-Ubuntu based Feren or the Feren-classic based off of Mint?

Oh, and Finston... You are correct about the forum comments. Mint has some really good helpful people like slipstick, Fabien, Pierre. But it's big, a lot of people comment, sometimes hard to follow along or find 1 thing that you are really looking for. Time consuming. On the other hand, Zorin has Aravi & Swarf. And these 2 are awesome, IMHO....

Howdy y'all.... Finston, Aravisian is correct. You may ask opinions, but it's mainly up to your own interest, likes, tweaks that would decide which is better. Feren is an OS I really liked a lot for a while. Then out of nowhere I got a bunch of update issues, and also what star treker mentioned, it would bog down. It became too much like mint after a while in the sense that, when I've used Mint cinnamon would start to lag after a month or so, and just get worse. would take 30, 40 seconds to open a package. Internet, KMyMoney, Libreoffice, it didn't matter. I went to Feren because A) it was familiar to me (with my mint experience) but the bigger reason was B) Could install once and updates would just keep coming forever. I had been on mint long enough to experience the bad about linux updates, from 17.2 to 17.3. Although, I have to admit I wasn't on Linux too long until the easy upgrade methods came around. And until the aforementioned issues, I dug it a lot. After reading what Swarf said, maybe it's time for another look. Which btw....

Swarf, are you using the New-Ubuntu based Feren or the Feren-classic based off of Mint?

Oh, and Finston... You are correct about the forum comments. Mint has some really good helpful people like slipstick, Fabien, Pierre. But it's big, a lot of people comment, sometimes hard to follow along or find 1 thing that you are really looking for. Time consuming. On the other hand, Zorin has Aravi & Swarf. And these 2 are awesome, IMHO....

It's the new FerenOS - the dev is eventually going to ditch the Cinnamon/Mint/Debian desktop in favour of Kubuntu. Installs well on old kit, on newer kit, the Calamares installer fails. What I did on family members PC which has an i7, 8 Gb Corsair RAM I had to use Zorin in live mode to use GParted to format the partitions thus:

https://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/topic/ ... nt=8325098

This is family members new desktop with main apps needed that were used on 7 - Spotify and Skype. Have installed one of the SoftMaker Office licences on it.

download/file.php?id=6793&mode=view

I've installed in on an old D830 without too many issues and it comes with KDE connect for Mobile phone connection and it works! (probably because I haven't set up the firewall yet on it! )

Glad to see that I wasn't the only one that this was happening to with Feren OS. Unfortunately, Feren wouldn't admit that there was a problem with his OS when I brought it up to him, back when I was still using Feren OS. Additionally, Feren claimed that he has the exact same notebook computer that I do, and that he wasn't having any issues as I was. I found that very hard to believe. Because he had no interest in fixing the issue, I decided it was time to jump ship back to Zorin OS. I didn't want to do that but I had no choice.

Also, you are correct about the difference between OS's that are created and maintained by one person, vs a group of people. Zorin OS has a team of at least a dozen people I think, which means you have enough people to both create the OS and properly maintain it as well. So your probably right to stick with distro's that are run by multiple folks. Cause at the end of the day, you want an OS that works, and works well. And what you certainly don't want, is an OS run by someone that won't admit that there is a problem, and refuses to fix it.

Also, you are correct about the difference between OS's that are created and maintained by one person, vs a group of people. Zorin OS has a team of at least a dozen people I think, which means you have enough people to both create the OS and properly maintain it as well. So your probably right to stick with distro's that are run by multiple folks. Cause at the end of the day, you want an OS that works, and works well. And what you certainly don't want, is an OS run by someone that won't admit that there is a problem, and refuses to fix it.

Actually... Zorin Team consists of Two people. Artyom and Kyrill Zorin.

I have seen Artyom in various forms and spoken to him a couple times. I know Kyrill is active in some manner... But I do not know what that manner is.
I notice that it can take Artyom a lengthy period of time to reply to a question. I have wondered if he was busy- or sleeps in a lot and spends the rest of the day golfing.

I have been trying out Mint for a couple weeks, with Cinnamon desktop. I like it more than I used to, though I am also noticing that it is starting to bog. Usually when I am making a theme and doing a lot with three .css files open and a few files open in GIMP, it bogs down a lot. And it gets slower the longer I work. I have only been trying it out a couple weeks. I started trying out Mint in order to find a workable alternative to XFCE given that XFCE's current Maintainers and developers have gone Bat-Guano and are bullheading forward to CSD in spite of massive feedback telling them that is a bad idea.
And while Mint is not too shabby in some ways- the performance is not up to Zorin Standards.

So, I have a buncha disks here- I am going to rattle off what they are:
SolydX and SolydK, Lubutnu, MX Linux, Mint, Manjara, Makulu, Sabayon, Antix, Deepin, LXLE and TED. Those are some of what I have tried. I got rid of several disks, already including Peppermint OS.
So if Mint is not working out- which is what I am starting to think...

I will end up doing what I have always ended up doing: Coming back to Zorin. Again. It happens every time.
What do Artyom and Kyrill do? I don't know... Magic?
Zorin O.S. seems to always perform better, faster and with more stability. Zorin just plain WORKS. It comes with less useless frills, but all the basics. You know Imagemajick utterly is broken on my copy of Mint 19 Tricia?
I think what I will do is install Cinnamon desktop on Zorin Lite- and run that for a while and see what happens.

Thank you Aravisian for your input, and confirming that you are facing the same issue as well. I have literally had my system crawl all the way until a hard crash before cause I pushed it for too many days running straight on Feren OS. Its a matter of where all your RAM gets eaten up, and none of it gets relinquished, which results in a system crash. Windows used to do the same thing back in the 90's, and you needed RAM programs to free your RAM manually. But around the time that Windows XP came out, that was all automated and free RAM programs were no longer needed. Its weird to run into modern Linux distro's that won't handle it automatically.

I would be interested in hearing about your findings regarding those distro's that you've listed. So please keep us updated, I'd appreciate it. Weather or not its magic, one thing is for certain, the Zorin teams is doing things right. At least with OS 12.4, I've been quite pleased with it, especially when I switched to XFCE desktop. I've been hearing mixed feelings about Zorin OS 15. But most of the positives for Zorin OS 15, seems to be centralized around Zorin Lite.

I think what I will do is install Cinnamon desktop on Zorin Lite- and run that for a while and see what happens.

Well, I went and did it. The Main Server wanted to give the Cinnamon 3.whatever, so I had to jump through a couple hoops and compile to get the latest Cinnamon on Zorin 15.
But I done did it, now.
I am also using gtk-3-nocsd. No O.S. install necessary.
Over-all, it worked out quite well. Then, I spent a couple hours trying to bog it down and failed. Fingers crossed...

Stacer readout of FerenOS with Vivaldi open with 11 tabs, Firefox with 3 tabs, Software Store, and Stacer running on D830 wtih 2-Core Centrino and 2 Gb RAM:

CPU Maxed out a couple of time then drops to 56%

Stacer looks interesting - what is it and where do you get it?

Stacer looks interesting - what is it and where do you get it?

https://github.com/oguzhaninan/Stacer

https://sourceforge.net/projects/stacer/

Stacer is a very good application for system monitoring.

I also included it and its source in the manual as one of the must haves - note that I have updated the manual on Friday just gone but only the .odt version. Still got to create the pdf.

Hey star treker, was this the message you kept getting on Feren OS (Cinnamon DE)?:

It's the only one I get (which I just ignore!). In my case I think it is because I tweaked the clock desklet to how I wanted it and where I wanted it!

Hello SWARF!

Actually no, I never got any error messages on Feren OS about an APP not loading.

However, I did have major issues with not being able to update Feren OS anymore as the update system got broken somehow. I've had that happen on Zorin OS because of something I did however, but I fixed it. I however never figured out how to fix Feren OS not being able to update the OS.

One of the major issues I faced on Feren OS was due to a memory leak that I was not able to trace and fix. The symptom would be that the all 16GB of my RAM would keep getting eaten up until the system crashed. If you know anything about SSD drives, then you know that you absolutely DO NOT, want the OS swap filing to them, so I remove swap filing partition on every OS install since I run an SSD drive. Which means, if the RAM gets all used up and not relinquished, then it cannot swap, and then the inevitable crash happens.

The good news is, since the latest install of Zorin OS 12.4 last year, I haven't had those kind of issues. I've literally had my computer running for at least 3-days straight of use without a restart, the computer never bogged down. So clearly the Zorin teams has got their act together in regards to that and I also thank them for that!

Thanks for the feedback - what the Dev did is that he made a script to auto install updates - this is my only bugbear of the system as it does not prevent the notifier telling you that there are updates to install - except you can't as the system is locked by another procedure - the script - the same thing is now happening on FerenOS - but I can live with that. What I have struggled with is flatpak .cache. - I just thing to h*** with flatpak and snap - they just don't work as they should do.

SYNAPTIC PACKAGE MANAGER - ROCKS AND RULES!

I'll add to the above- just 'cuz...
The last couple of days, I have been running Zorin 15 with Cinnamon Desktop and I have been working it hard. See, creating an Icon Set always bogs things down and it creates pocket hiccups you must reboot to solve. I have been creating an Icon set for the Empire theme - Vigrously and without Mercy nor regard to the computer- to see what would happen.
It has not bogged down, at all. Really. No errors, no hiccups, no anything. I have been GIMPing all over the place.

SWARF, I just remembered something. I totally forgot about the error message! Yes, just before the computer would hard crash, if I tried to load an APP, or load new tabs in the browser, or load a picture into GIMP, I would get an inability to open error. If I kept using the computer at that point, eventually the browser would freeze and stop surfing, then the computer would be dead requiring a hard reset, I totally forgot about the error message. I know I said earlier that I did not get one, but that was simply cause I forgot about the error message and I just remembered that it only crashed.

What made me remember you might ask? Aravisian did with his latest post here. When he talked about intentionally loading his computer up, and slamming gimp all over the place like a ****** night out, thats what made me remember. Anyways, to what Aravisian was saying, glad to hear that you were able to load the computer up, and it didn't bog down or crash. Its cause the Zorin Dev's have their act together. One thing is for sure, because you create themes, this is going to make your life easier.

Its cause the Zorin Dev's have their act together.

I admit- that seems to be the assumption. I mean... I cannot verify that and logic suggests that cannot be the case. I mean... What could two guys do that the whole Ubuntu team don't?
Honestly, running Xubuntu 18.04 and running Zorin 15 Lite is a very nearly identical experience. And yet... Undeniably, I see better and faster performance on Zorin 15. I wonder if the Zorin Team even knows what they do to cause it.
Zorin 15 sees more updates more often. Almost too often, sometimes...
Zorin 15 pushes a later release kernel which I have been vocally wary of- yet, it works. Not like my wariness means much, I am no expert.
But I really did figure that running Cinnamon on Zorin would still bog.
It's not as fast as Zorin Lite is and that may be due to more desktop animations. But running Linux Mint 19 vs. Zorin 15 loaded up with Cinnamon, Zorin wins hands down, hands up, hands inside out and backwards.
And we All Know Zorin Team did not do something specific to make sure Cinnamon runs fast and smooth on Zorin.

At this point, since you are doing testing on many distro's, including variations of Zorin itself, what are the memory requirements for all of these OS's? More specifically, how much memory is each distro using, out of your available RAM?

Currently, I'm running on Zorin 12.4 with XFCE desktop 4.12. I have two Chrome windows open, one window has two tabs opened, and the other has 7 tabs open. Three of the tabs have streaming sites loaded. With all of that, plus all my fancy Azenis delicious goodies of eye candy goodness, the OS is burning about 3GB of RAM out of my total 16GB. I am sure if I had all of my windows closed, I'd probably be sitting around 2GB of RAM use.

At this point, since you are doing testing on many distro's, including variations of Zorin itself, what are the memory requirements for all of these OS's? More specifically, how much memory is each distro using, out of your available RAM?

Currently, I'm running on Zorin 12.4 with XFCE desktop 4.12. I have two Chrome windows open, one window has two tabs opened, and the other has 7 tabs open. Three of the tabs have streaming sites loaded. With all of that, plus all my fancy Azenis delicious goodies of eye candy goodness, the OS is burning about 3GB of RAM out of my total 16GB. I am sure if I had all of my windows closed, I'd probably be sitting around 2GB of RAM use.

ATM, 5.84 but I am doing some very heavy stuff and I have much more than 7 tabs goin...'
I have a LOT of image files going at once and a lot of saving going in batches, too.
I'd have to look at all the spec lists to say what all the RAM requirements are.

Believe it or not, I've used up 6GB of RAM out of my 16GB really easily by having lots of image files opened up into GIMP at once. Plus, if I am rendering HD video content, especially 4K content, the memory use can easily go up to 12GB. I decided to take a snapshot from Stacer just to show how my system is doing with the two windows and many tabs opened up at once.

PS: I assume you have 16GB of RAM as well, I wouldn't be worried at all with using 5GB of it. But once you start hitting 14GB of RAM out of your 16GB, then I would think about upgrading your RAM to 32GB. Of course, I am using an older notebook computer, and mine is maxed out at 16GB, so there is no upgrading it further.

Hello SWARF!

However, I did have major issues with not being able to update Feren OS anymore as the update system got broken somehow.

Ahhh, unfond memories...lol And at the time I thought it was mainly me and something I did wrong. It feels good to know I'm not the only one. I also recall reading something at the time, about issues that could happen if using too many PPA's. It wasn't just with 'Trust' issues, but could cause system issues as well?? Or I could be completely wrong. Well, anyhoo, I guess there's no sense in trying Feren any time soon. I am intrigued about what Aravi was saying. Did I understand that correctly, Cinnamon on Lite 15? I better go back and re-read those post. Most likely got my thoughts mixed up.... Cause I was also thinking LXDE, I thought would be very good when Aravi was listing names...

Zorin Lite 15. Is there anything better? Anything as close? Who knows, but why even bother trying to figure out if there is... Smooth sailing is what Lite 15 gives you...

Hello Jeff! Welcome back to the lunacy that is my mind.

You can install different desktops in an OS. Most people who are using Zorin OS, are using the Zorin desktop as well. Aravisian is testing Cinnamon desktop on Zorin OS 15 with great success. I am using XFCE desktop with Zorin OS 12.4 with great success.

I hate to say it but, the old Feren OS has more looks then practicality, where functionality is down the crapper. I've never tested the new Feren OS that SWARF talks about, so I have no clue as to weather or not things stay out of the crapper.

I've run into issues updating after adding sources that were just not properly setup for updating. It probably had something to do with the fact that the sources added, were just not being maintained properly. So I had to remove the sources in order to get the system to update again.

Sometimes stuff has to be installed by PPA, like Stacer for example. You won't find Stacer in the repository, at least not on my end. So the only choice I had was to install via PPA after I added the source. Here's hoping that source is maintained though so that my OS can continue updating.

You don't need a PPA for stacer. All different package managers/installers catered for.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/stacer/files/v1.1.0/

I've been using Stacer on all my pc's. Mainly to just clean since I don't work my pc's like you fella's. Which reminds me, what if any anti-virus do you guys use. I could continue to do searches like I have in the past, but would rather ask people who I know opinions. Also being how we use basically the same OS I would be looking for something that works well with Zorin. And, if this makes you guys feel better, I really do value your thoughts more than a complete strangers....lmao...

I believe from past read's, Swarf, you use Comodo? Or maybe you were helping someone with install issues. I was thinking of using ClamTK. Your thoughts...

Just came across Aravi's Ubuntu Cleaner test results. Was Stacer in the mix?

OK, I'm now in Feren Classic from 2018 and my memory usage is 5.0 Gb.

Open I have Vivaldi Browser with 40 tabs open, Firefox with two tabs open, Opera with 4 tabs Open, GIMP open, Shutter waiting to work, Thunderbird Mail client open, two accounts logged in, SM Player playing some Example track, System Monitor open, File Explorer Open:

Just came across Aravi's Ubuntu Cleaner test results. Was Stacer in the mix?

It was not- that test was looking for Ease of Use and Minimalism.
One thing I notice is that many computers tend to have a lot of redundancy. When I first used Stacer, I noticed that it did not offer anything that I did not already have and while it may be its selling point that it is a One-Stop-Shop, it also had all the complications that came with it, as well.
Stacer may be considered a Wal-Mart, but if I already need to stop at Ace Hardware, Kroger Grocery and Ross Dress For Less, anyway, then I do not need the Bulk of Wal-Mart, too.
For a person coming from the Other O$, then simplicity and lightweight was the aim I was going for.

I think its obvious that I use Stacer because of the screenshot I posted lol. I like Stacer because (A) it provides all the necessary monitoring information I require. (B) Stacer has a cleaner tool that comes with it, that makes it very easy to clean the useless files from the drive in 1 click. And (C) the app looks good with a level of eye candy that I approve of lol. And if you saw my PSA Warning thread about Windows virus's on Linux, you would also obviously know that I use Clam TK

Don't forget to us chkrootkit and rkhunter ... for rootkits - these are OS Agnostic!

Swarf, you still use the Lynis? And Thanks to Aravi & treker for your feedback too.... It was what I was looking for.

Your welcome Jeff! As always, I am happy to help.

Cool, cause I'm a firm believer that when knowledge is shared, everyone benefits.

Forgot about Lynis - been busy!

One issue that I have had with Feren (which I have dual booted with my Windows Desktop on two different drives - one Windows, one Feren) is that when I shut down from Feren, it does not shut down the hard drive or usb peripherals. I guess this is because I select the Feren drive manually on start up after pressing F8 during normal windows start up.

I've never tried the Feren alternates to shut down - although I guess that I suspend Zorin when I close my laptop lid.

I suppose that this is because I don't know how you would restart Feren when I don't have a lid to open.

What would be a more satisfactory way of my getting out of a Feren session? At the moment I press the desktop power button for a warm restart into Windows and select power off after Windows has fully started (some time delay on shutdown to say the least).

Hi Finston - it isn't an issue for me as I have Feren on a separate drive. Because this Mobo is built for Windows 8 and above I have to hit Delete every time I want to boot to a different Linux install to choose the drive I want to boot to. I know I should use EasyBCD but it has 7 on the hot-bay which at some point I want to backup then scrub Windows drive to enable different Linux and put 7 in a VM with Guest Additions if I can get it to work that is.

Thanks for the reply, Swarf.

It seems like you also have to interfere with the machine BIOS to get Feren started from the appropriate drive, similar to me.

It still begs the question (I think) - how do you get out of Feren so that Feren powers down your device?

Also how do restart Feren if you suspend a session?

OK, let's be clear. I'm aware that you have a Kratos notebook. I don't use suspend just the lock. I just move the mouse or touch the space bar. To power down I just use the Power Button. In the Kubuntu version when you select the Power Button to turn off you are then presented with Windows 10-like avatar buttons with the power off highlighted for confirmation. With the old Cinnamon version on the desktop PC it is similar to Zorin. For me I've created a Win 10 theme using themes that were once available in the Feren Store but no more - suspect a cease and desist order from M$.

download/file.php?id=5981&mode=view

Kratos, never heard of that brand, sounds Klingon.

I went to Kronos to pickup a few Kratos computers. But when I went to load the OS, it said access denied, contact the leader of the high council Galron. I hate talking to that guy, his eyes, my God his eyes, they burn!

Kratos, never heard of that brand, sounds Klingon.

I went to Kronos to pickup a few Kratos computers. But when I went to load the OS, it said access denied, contact the leader of the high council Galron. I hate talking to that guy, his eyes, my God his eyes, they burn!

shouldpicardhavediedpart2.0102.jpg

For your edification star treker:

https://www.entroware.com/store/laptops/kratos

Yes, Swarf I am still running my Kratos laptop with Zorin12.4. Apart from battery life, it has been an excellent machine from a Linux specialist supplier.

Sorry about my query - I thought you had Feren on a Dual boot Windows desktop PC, similar to me.

The laptop that I may put Feren/Zorin 15 on is a mid spec Toshiba from about five years ago.

If you intend to install FerenOS (not Classic = Cinnamon DE) then on older machines it will install. On newer rigs that have EFI BIOS the Calamares installer will not work. You have to use GParted (either it's own live CD or a Distro that has it, such as Zorin 12/15) and format your partitions first:

1. EFI/ESP partition - format to FAT32 - 50 Mb
2. '/' root file system formatted to Ext4 of 50 Gb
3. Extended partition (logical) - at end - double the amount of Physical Ram for linuxswap
4. Everything in front of linux swap, format to Ext4 and mark as '/home'

It's what I had to do on family members rig running i7 with 8 Gb RAM to replace Windows 7 64-bit - which is now a VM on Feren OS and runs better (including PowerLine network connection) better than the HDD install of 7!

After some lockdown deliberation, over the last four months, I have decided on a way forward for my Zorin 9 and Zorin12 laptops:


On the old Toshiba laptop (Z9), I will install Feren O/S and see how it goes, using it as my backup, but current and safe, laptop.

On my newer Entroware laptop (Z12), I will install Zorin 15 - probably the Ultimate sersion and continue to use this as my main laptop.

I have already installed Feren O/S as a dual boot set up on my even older Windows XP machine, which can now be put out to grass (the attic).


NOW

This is where it gets interesting.

After installing the Feren O/S on the old desktop, I set it up to have all the apps and programmes that I had on my Zorin 12 laptop (or as near as possible e.g libre office in stead of open office) - I had the same wallpapers and icons etc.etc.


I dug out an old disk version of Acronis and did a full 500 Gb disk clone (onto an external hard disk drive) of the 500Gb Toshiba disk containing he Feren O/S in the XP desktop.


I am intending to use the Acronis disc running on my old Toshiba laptop to install the disk clone on my Toshiba's 500Gb disk drive.


WHAT can possibly go wrong? Any tips, in advance, to stop it going wrong?

After some lockdown deliberation, over the last four months, I have decided on a way forward for my Zorin 9 and Zorin12 laptops:


On the old Toshiba laptop (Z9), I will install Feren O/S and see how it goes, using it as my backup, but current and safe, laptop.

On my newer Entroware laptop (Z12), I will install Zorin 15 - probably the Ultimate sersion and continue to use this as my main laptop.

I have already installed Feren O/S as a dual boot set up on my even older Windows XP machine, which can now be put out to grass (the attic).


NOW

This is where it gets interesting.

After installing the Feren O/S on the old desktop, I set it up to have all the apps and programmes that I had on my Zorin 12 laptop (or as near as possible e.g libre office in stead of open office) - I had the same wallpapers and icons etc.etc.


I dug out an old disk version of Acronis and did a full 500 Gb disk clone (onto an external hard disk drive) of the 500Gb Toshiba disk containing he Feren O/S in the XP desktop.


I am intending to use the Acronis disc running on my old Toshiba laptop to install the disk clone on my Toshiba's 500Gb disk drive.


WHAT can possibly go wrong? Any tips, in advance, to stop it going wrong?

Don't use Acrons! Out of curiosity I tried to resurrect an old Ultimate Edition 2.9 that I had backed up using Acronis - it failed! Your best move would be to use Clonezilla. I had the Cinnamon version of FerenOS on a WD 500 Gb Black drive and I had a Hitachi Deskstar (DeathStar! ) 400 gb that was failing which had FerenOS 2020.04 on - I used clonezilla which went fine apart from the fact I should have disconnected my Zorin drive as it screwed the booting of that folloiwing 'update init ram fs' in cloning process - at least I think that is what may have caused it.

Thanks for the reply, Swarf.

I have the Clonezilla .iso, so I can try that if necessary. It is a shame that your using of it was not flawless and I don't know how intuitive it is to use.

My old computer Guru, from my business days (now happily retired and unavailable), swore by Acronis and had put it on my old XP machine to clone the hard disc to a backup one (now the Feren disk) on a weekly basis. When I had a look at things it had cloned once and then stopped! However he did give me a freestanding disc of Acronis (or I was able to create it - I forget), which I have found intuitive and claims it can clone as I wish. it cloned the Feren O/S ext4 files and drive perfectly, as far as I can tell.

My Toshiba laptop has had the UEFI and safe start inhibited, so it is as plain sailing to try Acronis. If this fails I have the Feren O/S on disc and I can recreate my set up from my notes - groan, I have forgotten what I did, but it worked out great.

Fingers crossed!!

Acronis is fine for Windows - but not it's latest version for Windows 10 - not like the old days when you could boot separately off media - I recently backed up eldests Windows 8.1 Pro using an old version (7 or 6 I think) using the media created from the install. Went flawlessly. It's odd really as it uses Linux (I know this because a long time ago when I was delving into the Windows registry I saw it had a cygwin entry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cygwin

Yes Swarf, you are right. Even though my version of Acronis was from 2009, it didn't want to know on my .ext4 zorin 9 laptop - could not find any hard drives (both the Toshiba internal and external clone drive were both there). I was surprised thinking that it was linux based and would work fine like a rescue disk.


Then I had a wobble reading about Feren KDE plasma as the main thrust and Feren Cinnamon (now Feren classic) with a doubtful support life expectancy.

This was resolved once I found out that Feren classic is supportd until 2023 (Ubuntu 18.02) and then will then have an upgrade path to KDE plasma.


But - what was this! I saw that I had used the Feren O/S for NVIDIA graphics on my XP desktop and my Toshiba laptop has Intel graphics.

Does this mean that the Clonezilla cloned Toshiba laptop will have graphical driver problems?


I have Clonezilla ready to go on a DVD and it seems simple enough (instructions copied).


Should I try clonezilla? - I have the non NVIDIA Feren cinnamon O/S on DVD, if it doesn't work out with Clonezilla.

Clonezilla should be fine - what I would do is just disable the nvidia graphics driver if enabled on the drive you are about to clone. Clonezilla has come on leaps and bounds since I last used it which asked me (old version) if I wanted to copy the mbr as well - it does all of that for you - the only thing it might ask is if you want to update init ramfs - just make sure there are no other drives other than the two you are cloning from and to.

Thanks Swarf.

Well my XP desktop does have two drives - the one with Feren O/S and the other with XP on it.

I know the Feren drive's serial no so I should be able to clone from the correct drive. What could potentially happen to the XP drive?

Also my copy of Clonezilla was downloaded in 2018 - would that be the latest version that you talk of?

I'm not sure as I only recently downloaded - always best to get the latest!

Now as this thread is Zorin15 vs FerenOS - I was disappointed with the Devs response to some feedback I gave about Simple Scan not working compared to Zorin after some recent updates. The response was "It's been working fine as far as I am aware". The strange thing is there is an application I installed that picks up the scanner, but the main ones you would use like Simple /Document Scanner and Xsane (yes Xsane now works in Zorin with my Canon TS8151 - have you had any success with Feren? (And I am talking KDE here not Cinnamon!). Perhaps I should have made that more clearer on the feedback!

I will try Feren with simple scan and my Canon TS8050 primter when I get time - I had no joy with simple scan and Zorin12.04.

I looked at the clonezilla releases and I am fairly confident in my version 2.5.2-31 (12-9-2017).


If I start seeing features that are not in my guide (I don't know the date of this guide - a typical Linux issue, I guess), I will bail out - if they are not obvious.

Hi Swarf,

Just an update on the thread generally.

I checked simple scan on my Feren O/S setup, dual booted with my old Windows XP desktop. It picked up the USB connected Epson printer straight away. I could not see any way of accessing a network attached printer such as our Canon TS 8050 connected via Wi-Fi through our router – perhaps it was me not seeing how to look for networked printers.

A setback followed with my Feren O/S. When running it and trying to use Synaptic Package Manager, I found the Dpkg front end locked by root, of all things. What a bind - just before cloning the set-up using Clonezilla!!!

I never saw anything like this in Zorin!

Some research on the internet offered some way forward using terminal.

This way I could find out who the culprit was - root - and how to remove the lock. Great!

However, by the time I had tried to open Synaptic and entered my password, root had locked the front end again! Cunning blighter!

Here is what Terminal showed as I tried fixes from the internet:

“ubuntu@ubuntu-pc:~$ sudo dpkg --configure -a
[sudo] password for ubuntu:
dpkg: error: dpkg frontend is locked by another process
ubuntu@ubuntu-pc:~$ sudo dpkg --configure -a
dpkg: error: dpkg frontend is locked by another process
ubuntu@ubuntu-pc:~$ sudo lsof /var/lib/dpkg/lock
lsof: WARNING: can't stat() fuse.gvfsd-fuse file system /run/user/1000/gvfs
Output information may be incomplete.
ubuntu@ubuntu-pc:~$ ls -ld /var/lib/dpkg/
drwxr-xr-x 7 root root 4096 Jul 17 11:52 /var/lib/dpkg/
ubuntu@ubuntu-pc:~$ sudo kill 4096
kill: (4096): No such process
ubuntu@ubuntu-pc:~$ ls -l /var/lib/dpkg/lock
-rw-r----- 1 root root 0 Jul 17 11:54 /var/lib/dpkg/lock
ubuntu@ubuntu-pc:~$ “

Well beyond my paygrade!

It seems as though the popular solution is to alter the settings in “software & upgrades” to anything but daily (starts immediately), but “ software & upgrades does not semm to exist in Feren.


Could this be the death-knell of Feren for me?

Hi Finston,

Feren has an annoying yet helpful lock on the system while it installs auto-updates - I suspect that is what was happening when you tried to clone the drive. If you see an orange notification in the panel that updates are available, only non-system critical updates will be allowed to be installed - any major system updates, only ferenos has control over (particularly in respect of Security and kernel updates). Just make sure that FerenOS is up-todate by refreshing update manager and if it is up-to-date ensure that you are not connected to your home network before cloning.

Having set up Feren, now updated to Feren OS Classic (latest standard) on my old dual boot desktop, I used clonezillza to clone the set up to my old Toshiba laptop (was Zorin9).

An early Booting issue was solved by the ubuntu boot rescue disc I had from a few years ago. It sorted the issue and recommended using gParted to create a small 1 Gig partition at the beginning of the main partition. The recue disk, in advanced mode, filled this with the Grub info which was previously well into main partition. Possibly not worth, it as still not a lightning start.

I am very impressed with Feren and find that the scaling of the various apps is consistent and I have never had a problem with too small fonts (I had put VLC 3.0 onto my Zorin 12 laptop and found the fonts on the HD screen unreadable). Feren ships with VLC 3.0 out of the box. It is a small community and Feren use a real time Discord thread for support as you go - quite good really, and personal. All updates occur automatically and now doesn't seem to interfere with anything I want to do. One of the best features I have found to date is that the touchpad is automatically disconnected when typing - this has caused me untold grief over the years in Zorin12.

I am writing this from my Zorin12 laptop. Can I go through installing Zorin 15 and reinstalling all my apps and data having just done this for Feren? At the moment the jury is out - as I count down to the end of support for Z15. I will start using the Toshiba as my main machine for a period to see what Gremlins, if any, emerge - and make my mind up then, I think. Come what may, I will keep coming to this site for inspiration and guidance on whatever I can help with.

Come what may, I will keep coming to this site for inspiration and guidance on whatever I can help with.

You Had Better.

grumpy.gif (1.61 KiB)

Hi Finston, my classic is mothballed. Simple Scan does not work on FerenOS - I think I was only able to get SimpleScan to work on Zorin by updating the latest backend from Github which made no difference and so a couple of uninstalls and reinstalls later, not only is Simple Scan working but XSane is also working too!

Hi Swarf, thanks for the help with Clonezilla etc.

If you want to get your mothballed Feren OS Classic up to date,

sudo apt-get -f install -y && sudo apt dist-upgrade -y && sudo update-initramfs -u -k all && reboot

did it for me.

Hi Finston, My Classic is backed up and I don't know where I can reinstall to!