Rustmilian

I looked more into it, and You should be able to use APT pinning so that only specific packages are allowed to upgrade from the external repo and everything else stays from Debian.

Something like :

1. Add the external repo normally.
2. Create: /etc/apt/preferences.d/99-external-pin

sudo tee /etc/apt/preferences.d/99-external-pin >/dev/null <<'EOF'
Package: *
Pin: release o=EXTERNAL_ORIGIN
Pin-Priority: 1

Package: pkg1 pkg2
Pin: release o=EXTERNAL_ORIGIN
Pin-Priority: 500
EOF

Replace EXTERNAL_ORIGIN with the external repo’s o= value, and pkg1 pkg2 with the exact package names.

3. Verify:

apt-cache policy pkg1 pkg2

Refer to Debian Manual Page “apt_preferences” for more information. I can’t help much regarding this area, as I’ve never done anything like this on Debian specifically, only really Fedora using dnf versionlock, priorities, and exclude features.

Doesn’t seem to be available directly in the standard Debian repositories but in theory you should be able to add the Zorin repo install them with apt-get, or download them from the Zorin repo and install them manually. Just be careful as to not fall into dependency hell.

Sure, but I’d pay $50 at this point. I like that Linux is free, but supporting them through a one time paid model is a good thing.

There’s usually a donation or merchandise model that’s relied on to support FLOSS devs, as well a gaining corporate sponsorships.

SaaS though, that shit can fuuck right off.

As a consumer model I 100% agree, software as a service is horrible. Fuck Adobe btw.
As for if corporations have to pay for it and consumers don’t, it works.

You can take just about any GNOME install and just do something like :

# apt-get install zorin-appearance
# apt-get install zorin-appearance-layouts-shell-core
# apt-get install zorin-appearance-layouts-support
# apt-get install zorin-auto-theme

It’s really not terribly hard to do. Say like fedora workstation for example, you could do it without too much trouble assuming the packages are available in some capacity.
It’s essentially just as System76’s Pop_OS! was prior to Cosmic DE.
The appeal is valid, it’s just that you can pretty easily reproduce it on a different distribution. That’s the real appeal of Linux, don’t you think.
It’s just something to consider before you pay $50 for ZorinOS Pro.

Yeah, Zorin Appearance gives you lots of other system desktop layouts and theming. Which is great, but Zorin OS Standard is essentially GNOME with added customization, so it is not a fundamentally new desktop environment. If you’re willing to install the relevant Zorin Appearance packages or install the right GNOME theme elements like icons, GTK and window manager themes, and a few extensions or docks, a similar look can often be recreated on other GNOME based distributions. The main difference is that Zorin bundles it preconfigured.

I never understand the thought process of giving a Linux newcomer some niche immutable Fedora derivative.

Just go with ***&@$#_##-$&##*** desktop. Pretty popular blah blah.

My point here is that your comment is a little judgmental, hostile, and isn’t very constructive.
I agree with the underlying concern, but the delivery is what makes it come off mean and unproductive.

For a first install, the key is picking a desktop and a setup that matches what they need day to day. Whether it’s a Ubuntu-based distro like Mint, Zorin, or something else. The questions are more like: will their work VPN work, will Nvidia drivers be painless, and will Office workflows be tolerable.

Just as long as it’s not

Totally understandable that you’d gravitate toward Zorin. It really can feel like a “ready-made desktop” experience, and for a lot of people that first impression is the whole game.

But if you are thinking in terms of what she will actually enjoy using day to day, I would shift the focus a bit. Since you are the one choosing for her, the win is not only picking the right distro, it is picking the desktop experience that fits her habits and taste.

As the Desktop Environment (DE) is going to be the primary way she’ll interact with the computer, and as any DE can be installed on any distro. It’s more important to figure that out first then find a distro that caters to that DE experience best while covering as many of her needs as possible. GNOME, KDE Plasma, COSMIC, Xfce, Cinnamon, Budgie, Deepin Desktop Environment,

I’ll install it on a BTRFS partition with automatic snapshots and grub-btrfs to recover from snapshots.

Take a look at Timeshift.

Maybe hardware wise?

You can use hw-probe to check if the hardware is working and if you need to take any further action to get things working, it’s a very good starting point.

Or anything to so with Snaps that could cause issues?

It maybe more preferable to use flatpak, so I’d suggest considering it.

Not everyone on the Internet knows that different temperature scales other than their home country standard exists unfortunately…
Just preventing the predictable “bUt tHaT’s ACtUAlLy arOunD FrEEzIng” comments.

°C

Their GitHub has everything you’d want to know.

This error is caused by a compatibility issue between Wine’s RandR (X11 display extension) implementation and the NVIDIA proprietary drivers.

a. Install winetricks and run winetricks orm=backbuffer glsl=disable This will configure Wine to use a different rendering method that is compatible with the NVIDIA drivers.

&/Or

b. Use a tool like Q4Wine to configure the Wine prefix and set the “UseRandR” option to “N” This will disable Wine’s use of the RandR extension and use a fallback method instead.

That should fix it.

What’s the WINE error message you get with the proprietary driver?

On KDE plasma the fractional scaling also plays a role in text rendering. Then there’s also the “Legacy Application Scaling” for X11 apps on the Wayland session.