Thanks for the heads-up about the obscured window, and WINE.
[Edit] Okay, so I tried Ubuntu 13.10 last night, and my reaction from
a Windows user looking to defect: still not as good as Zorin.
Here's why:
(1) What's with the "taskbar" being on the left-hand side of the desktop?
Yuck! Humans read side-to-side, so this is just a gigantic eyesore and a
big distraction when reading. So I tried to move it... but no dice. Set it
to autohide unless the mouse goes to the left edge, but it didn't appear
very often. Absolutely horrible. Why not at the bottom like Windows or
Apple? Seems to be different just for the sake of being different.
(2) Further, I can't even lock my own documents or folder to it, like I can
with the Windows taskbar. This is a massive dealbreaker for me, as I want
quick access to specific documents and folders all the time. Zorin does it.
(3) WINE is not included by default (as you said), so I had to install it
manually with the Software Center. That was simple. But then, a lot of the
Windows games I mentioned in the first post wouldn't run in fullscreen mode,
as they kept clashing and flickering with the mega-ugly left-hand side taskbar.
I had to compromise by running them in a window, which made them small.
Zorin plays them all in fullscreen immediately, with no taskbar clashing.
(4) Speaking of WINE, even though installed, I couldn't just double-click the
Windows executables to run them (unlike Zorin). I had to manually edit a
MIME file to include them as a default handler.
(5) The overall size and speed of Ubuntu's desktop. All the text is so large
and ugly, like Windows running at 800x600 resolution. Couldn't find any way
to make the text smaller (for window captions, messages, etc). And it all
seemed a lot slower than Zorin to do everything, due to the eye candy.
(6) Menus of apps always at the TOP OF THE DESKTOP, like a Mac!
Yuck, man. I always hated that with Macs, and Ubuntu has followed it.
(7) RhythmBox kept crashing when trying to play my MP3s, which is no
good. Tried Audacious but it doesn't handle Winamp skins as well as I've
been led to believe. The UI was corrupt with my favorite skins, and its
window size is too damn small to use, with no way of resizing it.
(8) And lastly, just while using Ubuntu in general, I got this a lot:
That was pretty much the final straw.
And yes, I applied all updates.
With Zorin, the move from Windows was totally painless and everything
worked immediately. I know you're a big Ubuntu fan, and that's great,
but I'm not convinced that Ubuntu is right for ME.
[Edit] Added one more:
(9) Close/min/max buttons on the left side of windows instead of right.
Sure, the OS has a right to be different to Windows, but still... why piss
off users looking to switch?
Final thought: Some people will obviously tell me to "do this" and "do that"
to fix the problems above... but that's the entire point: I DON'T WANT TO.
That's why Zorin has won me over, because I don't HAVE to start mucking
around with the internals of the OS just to get things working correctly.
Don't lose sight of that, as it's vitally important when converting users.
