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 wasted a lot of time and went through a lot of heartache trying to make a window out of what's really a box.

Image by KobraSoft

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 there was no freedom for me, the limits were quickly found. 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.

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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 less 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 it’s intended for want and doesn't fall short at all. As I said before, Zorin OS hits the bull’s eye!

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.

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This is a guest post by Steven Abeyta, which won the 4th prize in the joint Zorin OS contest.