Zorin, a Linux distro that positioned itself as a familiar and accessible entry point for users leaving Windows, continues to move with growing confidence toward reaching a broader user base. I say this because the most recently published information on the subject is impressive.
Following the release of Zorin OS 18 on October 14, the project recorded more than 100,000 downloads within the first 48 hours. In just one month, that figure climbed to 1 million. Now, Zorin OS has reached another milestone.
According to a post on the distribution’s official X account, Zorin OS 18 has reached 2 million downloads in less than 3 months since release, marking the fastest adoption in the project’s history. But what’s even more interesting is the fact that more than three-quarters of those downloads came from Windows users.
I find it weird that I didn’t hear about Zorin before it suddenly got big. Maybe it was advertised to normies, maybe Linux communities are just massive circlejerks that don’t represent the userbase.
Just curious about how they came seemingly out of nowhere.
I installed Zorin Lite on my dad’s old computer back in 2022 because W10 wouldn’t run properly. They’ve been around for a while and advertised themselves as having a very Windows like ux.
It’s a perfectly serviceable OS, he has used it all these years without ever having to touch the terminal.
Their numbers are highly sus.
But if you’ve got a paid tier, it just makes business sense to make it sound like the next best thing.
Yeah it’s like fedora or Ubuntu. But it feels (particularly from the other reply to my comment) to be the result of guerilla marketing
When I was doing web searches for distro research just before Win 10 EOL (and before Zorin exploded), Zorin was one of the top recommendations that I repeatedly saw from users in Linux communities when people asked for distro recommendations.
Zorin was also the top recommendation given to me by distrochooser.de.
So I’m not surprised that many people leaving Windows ended up there.
I made a short list of distros to try and Zorin was very buggy for me (possibly because they just did a major release at that time) and I don’t like GNOME, so I ultimately ended up on CachyOS.
Yeah a lot of the weird new Debian based distros like popOS seem to have issues.
I guess you were looking for a windows looking UI though in surprised mint was suggested more (even if it has Qualcomm WiFi driver issues)
Feels like guerilla marketing, maybe I’ll try and research down that rabbit hole one day.