Zorin OS 6 Review - Spatry's Cup of Linux - Transcribed

Zorin OS 6: Linux for Beginners
Author:  LinuxSpatry (Spatry's Cup of Linux)
Source:   YouTube published on June 18, 2012
Transcribed by:  JJ on November 10, 2012


Alright! If you have never tried Linux and you are curious about checking it out, look no further than this next distribution. This is by far one of the easiest to use and one of the best Linux distributions for beginners and of course I am talking about Zorin OS 6.

We are looking at Zorin OS 6 and let me tell you what folks, this is a wonderful replacement for Windows 7, this is a magnificent distribution for beginners. The nice thing about this is, it is highly customizable and allows you to give it the look that you want. For instance, this uses the Zorin Look Changer which allows you to pretty much choose your experience:  Windows 7, Windows XP or GNOME2.

Something I would highly recommend is that if you can spare the 10 bucks (American), I highly recommend that you get the Zorin Ultimate Edition that is available, it is well worth the amount of money. I actually sent a donation in last year for Zorin OS 5 Ultimate and I thought it was really great. It has a bunch of additional features that are not included in the core, but the thing is you can get those additional features if you dig around on-line.

Now, this is a well thought out operating system but I noticed something that really kinda (you know) rubbed me the wrong way but I will get to that in a moment. At the bottom of the panel here, you will notice that this includes the Avant Window Navigator, one of the best panels that I have seen for a Linux distribution. You will notice that if you look at the top of my screen here that I actually have that running, it is very nice, it is highly customizable and you can make it your own. This also uses GnoMenu. GnoMenu has an appearance like the Windows Start Menu but you do not have to have that look if you do not want it. If you right click it and select preferences, then you can change its icon. You can change its icon set. You can even choose a different theme and there are a number of them that come pre-installed with this. So, if you go with a dark theme maybe this is how you would want your menu to look. There are so many different choices that you can use. I actually used this one for a short period of time. So, there are a number of choices of here.

Now something else I did not mention is when you do login you have a choice. You can log into a GNOME Classic Session that will give you Compiz or you can log into the Zorin Desktop and that is what we are looking at right now. I decided to log into the Zorin Desktop because I really like the appearance of this and I have kinda lost my flavor for the wobbly windows and the Compiz effects and that sort of thing but they are there if you want them.

Let's have a look at some of the applications you get with this. In Accessories, you have some standard tools that will allow you to get the most of your operating system. You get a few games that are pre-installed with this. There are some graphics tools. You get the GIMP and of course the Shotwell Photo Manager and a simple Image Viewer. You also get Google Chrome with this. There is also the Zorin Web Browser Manager and with this you can pretty much choose any web browser that you want. With the click of a button, you can select the web browser that you need. In Sound and Video; you get the Cheese Webcam Booth, you get a disc burner, a Movie Player, and the OpenShot Video Editor and this is what really rubbed me wrong on this one. To get the most out of OpenShot, you really need to have Blender and Inkscape installed – Inkscape for doing your titles and Blender for using the 3D video function for creating 3D titles and there are a number of them, so you might want to download and install the latest Blender and Inkscape. You also get Rhythmbox (a wonderful music player), a Sound Recorder and VLC which will play pretty much play just about anything that is out there right now. And then of course, you have a number of system tools including Ubuntu Tweak which will allow you to tweak your system and change some of the hidden settings. You also get Wine for running some of your Windows applications and games, it won't run all of them; and then of course the Software Center.

All-in-all, I am really liking Zorin OS. I highly recommend that you pay the small donation fee and get the ultimate version. If you have never used Linux before and you want to try it for the first time, Zorin is definitely a distribution you should try out.


YouTube video link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8cJWJJKlLg&feature=plcp