Zorin OS 17 Released with Quick Settings Menu, Spatial Desktop Effects, and More

This release also introduces advanced window tiling, an updated software center, and performance improvements.
Marius Nestorby Marius Nestor0
Zorin OS 17

The Zorin OS team announced today the release and general availability of Zorin OS 17 as the latest stable version for this Ubuntu-based GNU/Linux distribution featuring long-term support and a beautiful desktop setup.

Highlights of Zorin OS 17 include an updated desktop environment based on GNOME 43 and featuring a Quick Settings menu, a new screenshot and screen recording experience, full GTK4 theming, new Power modes, an advanced window-tiling experience, as well as a refined Activities Overview feature.

There’s also a new multitasking feature called Spatial Desktop, which consists of two desktop effects namely Desktop Cube and Spatial Workspace Switcher. These new effects are optional and need to be enabled in the Zorin Appearance tool under Effects.

Desktop Cube effect in Zorin OS 17
“This is a huge leap forward that refines every level of the operating system: from how it looks to how it works. It’s packed with new exciting features and improvements that help you to get the most power out of your computer, so you can accomplish more than ever,” said the Zorin OS team.

Zorin OS 17 also features an updated Zorin applications menu that now features a universal search and a new “All Apps” category to browse through all your apps in an alphabetically sorted list. It also ships with remote desktop sharing with RDP, and a more streamlined pre-installed app selection in the Zorin OS Core edition.

For Pro users, Zorin OS 17 introduces two new layouts in Zorin Appearance that imitate the old GNOME 2 desktop environment or Google’s Chrome OS desktop. For all editions, the performance was improved to lower the minimum system memory required from 2 GB of RAM to only 1½ GB of RAM.

Last but not least, the Software Store has been refreshed and rebased on the latest GNOME Software release from the GNOME 45.2 stack. Users will be able to install apps from Ubuntu 22.04 LTS’s repositories via APT, from the Snap Store, as well as from Flathub as Flatpak packages. AppImage and DEB packages, and Windows software (.exe and .msi) can also be installed.

Under the hood, Zorin OS 17 is based on the Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish) operating system series, more specifically from the Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS point release. It is powered by the Linux 6.2 kernel and Mesa 23.0 graphics stacks from Ubuntu 22.04.3 to support newer hardware.

You can download Zorin OS 17 right now from the official website as Core, Lite, Education, and Pro editions. It will be supported with software and security patches, as well as driver updates until at least June 2027.

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Last updated 4 months ago

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