“Bundled with alternatives to over $5,000 of professional software”
That sounds spammy and misleading to me. I’m assuming they’re just including open source alternatives and assuming the same value as commercial offerings.
>Zorin OS is built on the same Open Source software that powers the New York Stock Exchange and computers on the International Space Station.
>Thanks to the advanced security features of Linux, Zorin OS is resistant to PC viruses and malware
The whole landing page is full of those statements. It seems like they are targeting a demographics with low tech literacy, but I don't know how productive those statements are really.
> It seems like they are targeting a demographics with low tech literacy
True, and often overlooked in the world of Linux.
> but I don't know how productive those statements are really.
What it really means is that it comes with 20GB of so of preinstalled Flatpak apps for a whole bunch of use cases: graphic art, sound and music production, video and podcast editing, live streaming, etc.
Stuff you need domain-specific knowledge to find and install on Linux, and which on Windows costs real money and probably will get you a tonne of spyware, ad banners etc.
Nothing vastly demanding if you have the knowledge.
Rather than giving you an app store and leaving you to it to find it, learn it, navigate it, and find the apps you need and avoid anything dodgy, they take a whole catalogue of premium big-name FOSS apps and preload the lot.
It's big, and when I reviewed it, it filled my VM and then a real disk partition -- but in real life, you nuke Windows and dedicate a laptop to this, and then it's fine.
It's simultaneously too much and too little. If the reader is genuinely a tech layperson, eg, someone who grew up on iPad and nothing else, then "open source" and "Linux" are just confusing filler words and a better statement would be
"Zorin OS is built from the same software that powers the New York Stock Exchange and computers on the International Space Station.
Thanks to its advanced security features, Zorin OS is resistant to PC viruses and malware."
The root is that the writers are pushing Linux, and writing through that lens, instead of internalizing the ur-problem that the readers have of "needing to get off Windows" (for whatever reason) and writing content that addresses that.
Commented this above, but I've had freinds and family ask about alternatives to windows lately because of privacy concerns or just being unhappy with it. I've been sending them the link to the ZorinOS page, and it's been popular with them. It convinced my dad to try Zorin on a new laptop they were buying, and he's been happy with it.
I would think if somebody could figure out how to install an OS just being given a link to that page, they're probably savvy enough that they could figure out how to use something like Ubuntu. But really, in your case, the marketing copy on their site isn't really doing much, your family got there because of the word-of-mouth reference.
If somebody is navigating to a website for an OS, they already have some sort of clue that a new OS would be solving their problem, which indicates that they do have some level of understanding beyond what most people would. Really the average computer user today doesn't know that an OS is a separable part of their computer... most people think of computers as "Mac computers", or "Windows computers".
In the case of my dad's computer, I installed Zorin for him. However the website itself convinced him that Zorin was what he wanted instead of windows.
Those two statements rubbed me the wrong way (more than the $5000 statement). Reminds me of military-grade encryption, etc. Completely void of any meaning, but sounds great to laypeople.
My father has gotten distrustful of windows, and wanted an alternative. I sent him a link to the Zorin home page, and it convinced him to try it out on a new laptop they were buying (I installed it for them). They've been quite happy with it, and I expect they'll want to swap over their other PC as well.
So it seems to me that this homepage was very successful, at least in this case of a linux user being able to recommend it to a non-techie.
But for many, they wouldn't even know this was possible. Yes, when you look into it it will be all the usual software, but 95% of people don't even know there is a world beyond windows and macOS, so that might be something that gets them to look for a couple of minutes and consider they might be able to use this.
I would add - I don't mind them describing it like that, the questionable part is how the advertising heavily implies that to get access to that software you have to buy the "Pro" version. The software is of course free and available to install on the "non-pro" version, it just doesn't get installed during installation, and they're definitely betting on people not knowing this detail and buying "Pro" to get the listed software.
I don't think that's misleading. There are a lot of people out there who aren't aware that free software exists that provides a lot of the functionality of software that costs $999. They clearly say "alternatives to".
I was trying to make a point about how funny the parent post was, saying it isn't misleading while misunderstanding it and thinking that it means "paid-for software that would have cost $5,000". But perhapes I didn't understand the comment itself.
I personally think the messaging is fine, but the above comment was a clear example that some people could get it wrong.
But gimp doesn't provide the functionality of software that costs $999. That's why it's misleading. It's probably more like Affinity Photo which is £68.
Whole Affinity pack is 10% of Photoshop while providing more functionality (just Affinity Designer handles vectors like Illustrator while edits pixels as well).
Gimp finally has non-destructive editing, so is almost in same category as those two. And Krita is good for pixels as well.
I think that's mostly there to give people confidence that they'll have real, quality software available. A concern for new linux users is that they'll be missing software they need, that statement expresses that there will be a lot of software available, and that the quality is comparable to profession quality.
That sounds spammy and misleading to me. I’m assuming they’re just including open source alternatives and assuming the same value as commercial offerings.