The people at Zorin OS were so nice in linking to my previous review of their Linux distro that I thought I would give another one of their distros a try. This time it’s the Zorin OS 4 Lite version intended for older computers or computers with limited resources.
Again the rules are the same. The computer I used to test this distro is my Asus EeePC 710 4G Surf model. That makes the first and most crucial requirement is that the distro needs to fit on a 4GB hard drive. Zorin OS Lite passed that test with flying colors as 800MB of space was left on the hard drive after installation.
Now I do have a slight complaint but it’s technically not about Zorin OS Lite but with the LXDE desktop. No matter which distro I use that has LXDE (Lubintu, Linux Mint LXDE, Peppermint, etc.) I can not remain logged in at all times. Every time I turn off the computer I have to log back in with my username and password. While great for security it can be inconvenient.
Other than that I loved this distro. It’s clean and fast and just plain works as they say. Like its big brother the Lite version also has a look changer but instead of Windows XP, Windows & and Gnome being the options this time it’s Windows 2000 and OSX. I didn’t care for the OSX toolbar due to the small screen of the EeePC so I went with the Windows 2000 option. I would have liked to have seen the XP option in the Lite version if it could be placed on the distro without compromising speed or performance.
The most amazing part about this distro is that my wife loves it. My wife prefers Windows due to the fact that Netflix can’t run on Linux natively. I entrusted her with the EEEpc because her Windows laptop went on the blink. Outside of not being able to run Netflix my wife loved Zorin Lite much better than Peppermint and even better than Linux Mint.
If you have a netbook with a small capacity hard drive (at least 3GB though) then I highly recommend Zorin OS 4 Lite.
The Trench Reynolds Report 