0:00

On this week's episode, we're going

0:02

to be interviewing RTM Zoran of

0:04

ZoranOS, who is right here. Yeah.

0:07

Hey, guys. Welcome

0:09

to Destination Linux, where we discuss

0:12

the latest news, hot topics, gaming,

0:14

mobile, and all things open source

0:16

in Linux. But today we

0:18

have a very special interview, yes,

0:21

once again, with RTM Zoran of

0:23

ZoranOS. My name is

0:25

Jill, and joining me are my

0:27

students who excel in their use

0:29

of negative space, Ryan and

0:31

Michael. I just knew

0:33

a teacher would get me one day, Jill, and

0:36

the fact that you're a professor and found something

0:38

good to say about my work, a

0:40

good use of negative space is really special

0:42

to me. Thank you, Jill. Well,

0:44

I actually do know how to use negative space.

0:46

This is not just a... But

0:52

yes, thanks, Jill. Thanks. Aw,

0:54

I love you too, Michael. And

0:57

we love you, RTM. Now

0:59

let's get the show on the road

1:02

to our Destination Linux. This

1:11

week, we would like to welcome

1:13

back to the show RTM Zoran,

1:16

the CEO and co-creator of ZoranOS.

1:19

RTM, thank you so much for joining

1:21

us today. It's so lovely

1:23

having you on. Yeah,

1:25

thanks so much for having me. It's always a pleasure. Yay.

1:30

Well, I think we're going to get

1:32

right into it. First off, in case

1:34

we have any new listeners to the

1:36

show, tell us a little

1:38

about yourself and how you got

1:40

involved in open source software. Yeah,

1:42

absolutely. I guess the best way to do that is

1:44

to go back all the way to the beginning summer

1:47

of 2008, back when I

1:49

was 12 and my brother, Carol, was

1:52

14. And that's when

1:54

we first started using Linux. We

1:57

just came across different videos of Ubuntu. and

2:00

some of the fancy effects that it

2:02

had. Some of the

2:04

old time members, I'm sure, would remember comp is.

2:08

And so like desktop cube and the

2:10

burning windows. So as kids not really

2:12

excited us, so we decided to start

2:14

using Linux on our computer, but then

2:16

we saw it was a lot more

2:18

than just those fancy effects and features.

2:21

It was also the big

2:23

advantages of, you know, how much more

2:25

secure it is than Windows, how much

2:28

faster it ran. Just

2:30

in general, the user experience was so much more

2:33

solid and seamless. And we kind of thought to

2:36

ourselves, why isn't this more

2:38

popular? Why aren't a lot

2:40

more people using Linux? So

2:43

we decided to show Ubuntu to

2:45

our dad, who was a regular

2:47

computer user, who was a translator

2:49

by trade. And we

2:52

got the answer pretty quickly why Linux

2:54

wasn't as popular. And we saw like

2:56

that, you know, a normal computer user

2:59

like him would struggle to, you know,

3:02

relearn the muscle memory

3:04

to use the desktop. You know, the fact

3:06

that the start menu and the taskbar is

3:08

not where it is

3:11

on most computers was kind of jarring.

3:13

And we saw that Linux didn't have

3:15

that level of user friendliness and, you

3:18

know, design finesse that it would really need to

3:20

have if it were to be a general

3:23

purpose operating system for the general

3:25

public. So we kind

3:27

of set ourselves the mission to bridge

3:30

that gap, if we could.

3:32

There was a science project competition

3:34

that was happening around that time.

3:36

And we thought, let's enter into

3:38

this competition

3:40

and as our project, let's try

3:43

to make a Linux distribution that

3:45

would be really user friendly and

3:47

seamless. And so

3:49

that was the beginning of Zornos. Very

3:52

nice. You know, it's interesting in your story,

3:54

like, that your dad was in the computers

3:56

because I was thinking, it's really young to

3:58

get into computers. young teenager and to be

4:01

like, Hey, I want to try this new thing, Linux.

4:03

And what was your influence to be

4:05

involved in technology at that

4:07

level back then? I

4:10

mean, like my brother and

4:12

I, we've always been interested in science

4:14

and technology, like growing up with watch,

4:16

you know, discovery channel documentaries, and we

4:18

were really fascinated by, um, just that

4:21

whole world and we kind of thought

4:23

to ourselves, it'll be cool to get

4:25

into that. Industry someday.

4:28

And the fact that our imagination was

4:30

captured by Linux and we were really

4:33

enthusiastic about it, that really

4:35

motivated us to start early and

4:37

focus on what we were really

4:39

interested in, which was, you know,

4:41

making Linux more accessible. Um,

4:44

and it was a great learning experience that we've

4:46

never programmed in our lives

4:48

before. And so we learned a

4:50

lot along the way. Um,

4:53

so that's 13, 14 year old, you

4:55

would be very proud of, uh, how

4:58

things turned out, that's pretty cool. Yeah.

5:01

Yeah. That's, that's pretty awesome. I got started in

5:03

tech early for the same kind. Like my siblings

5:06

were into tech and they got me into tech

5:08

and that sort of thing. So I kind of

5:10

feel like a similar vibe there, but let's, you're

5:12

talking about the Zornos and how it kind of

5:14

get, you were inspired to make it. So let's

5:16

talk about Zornos and who would you say it's

5:18

designed for? Like you talked about a little bit

5:21

with the, uh, you know, your

5:23

dad and the beginners and stuff like that. Is that the

5:25

main focal point? Yeah,

5:27

I'd say so. Like since the

5:29

very beginning, the main aim was about how

5:31

do we make a Linux environment

5:34

more user friendly and really

5:36

ready for, you know, the

5:39

general public, which by and

5:41

large are windows users. So how would

5:43

we make the system more familiar to

5:45

windows users? And since

5:47

the very first version of Zornos, like

5:50

the main focus is on,

5:53

you know, the desktop experience and

5:55

the design of it and just

5:58

making it as simple. and

6:01

intuitive to use for a

6:03

normal Windows user. And

6:05

that's always been sort of the North

6:07

Star that guided our decisions on how

6:09

we built ZornOS for

6:12

all those years since. Makes total

6:14

sense. I mean, we were talking

6:16

in the pre-show earlier about the fact

6:19

that I'm still utilizing ZornOS, which, Artyom

6:21

is a miracle, not because ZornOS or other

6:24

distros aren't great, but because I've stayed on

6:26

a distro for longer than three months. You

6:30

should feel massively accomplished, Artyom.

6:32

Yeah. In order for him

6:34

to stay on a system for any longer than

6:36

even a couple weeks is crazy. And

6:38

I think we're going on eight months or

6:40

so. At least. Yeah. Been

6:42

a while. Impressive, yeah. Yeah, and

6:45

one of the things that they tease me

6:47

about, Artyom, is that I never theme stuff

6:49

to the point where Michael tells the story

6:51

about coming to my home and I had

6:53

a base XFC install and I

6:55

kept it base default, never change anything but

6:57

the wallpaper. And what's great about ZornOS is

6:59

I don't have to be good at theming

7:01

because it does it all for me. And

7:03

I look like a professional. I look like

7:05

I've customized the heck out of my desktop

7:07

because ZornOS looks so good out of the

7:09

box. And so it kind of works out

7:11

that way. So I love that. You can

7:14

pretend to, thanks, thanks. I can pretend I

7:16

know what I'm doing. Yeah. Yeah.

7:18

Exactly. And ZornOS has the

7:21

best implementation of the XFCE desktop

7:23

with ZornOS Lite. It's

7:25

beautiful. Yeah. You

7:27

can make XFCE beautiful. You're doing something

7:29

really well. Yeah. Speaking of which,

7:32

we talked a little bit about the

7:35

aesthetics, but what do you think makes

7:37

ZornOS stand out against the giant distros

7:39

out there that, like

7:41

you said, even when you're younger, you came across Ubuntu

7:43

first. A lot of people's first distro might be Ubuntu

7:45

or Debian or one of those. What

7:48

is it about ZornOS that you think makes

7:50

it stand out from those? Yeah,

7:53

I think it's just our laser focus on

7:55

making it as user-friendly as

7:57

possible to that target audience, that...

8:00

I just mentioned and making

8:02

sure that we're always taking decisions

8:05

that support the user

8:08

base that we're

8:10

really focusing on.

8:13

We've been really fortunate that we've

8:15

been able to keep this project

8:17

running for over 15 years and

8:20

we can see that there are a lot of specific

8:24

ways on how we think about

8:27

how do we develop new features, how do we

8:29

design things that really resonate

8:31

with that audience. So it's just

8:33

making sure that you're totally focused

8:35

and you know exactly who you're

8:38

building the operating system for

8:41

and those

8:43

users will gravitate towards the

8:46

system that you're building. So

8:49

it really is sort of a symbiotic relationship.

8:51

We take a lot of ideas from the

8:54

suggestions we get from our users and

8:57

as well as that we make sure that if

9:00

there are any user

9:02

experience issues or paper

9:05

cuts you can kind of say

9:07

that make the system not as

9:09

user-friendly and pleasant to use as

9:11

it should be that we attend

9:13

to those issues and make

9:17

sure the operating system reflects the needs

9:19

and the wants of the users as

9:21

much as possible. That's

9:23

good. Nice. And I'm

9:26

very curious about one thing. You were talking

9:28

about how you had the beginner focus and

9:30

stuff like that and Ryan

9:33

was talking about how well it looks and

9:35

like the design is so great and

9:37

it just popped in my head. This

9:40

is based on gnome and looks

9:42

nothing like gnome in any way

9:45

and I have to ask why did

9:47

you choose gnome over the other desktops when you're

9:49

going to change so much. Yeah

9:52

it's a variety of reasons. I

9:54

think the fact that we're able to customize it

9:56

and change it around so much is.

10:00

a testament to how extensible

10:02

and extendable GNOME

10:04

is. I don't think it

10:07

gets enough credit for that. Like the extension ecosystem

10:10

is really vibrant. And the fact that

10:12

you're able to, you know, override

10:15

certain desktop elements

10:19

just through essentially JavaScript

10:21

extensions makes

10:24

it so flexible. And

10:26

even to a point where, you know,

10:28

a lot of other desktop environments might

10:31

not have that ability, you

10:33

know, to customize

10:36

the system so much. As

10:38

well as that, like GNOME is obviously

10:40

a very, you know, popular

10:43

project and it's very widely supported.

10:45

So if there are any new

10:47

hardware features, there's

10:49

a huge community around it that develops

10:52

to make sure that, you know, those

10:54

hardware features are supported. As

10:57

well as that, like there's a lot

10:59

of, there's a big emphasis on, you

11:01

know, making the design very intuitive and

11:03

user friendly and

11:06

taking, you know, new users into

11:09

account when making decisions. You

11:11

know, sometimes in open source software,

11:14

there's the temptation to, you know,

11:16

add a lot of features, a lot of toggles

11:19

to the point where, you know, it might

11:21

even get a bit overwhelming for new users.

11:23

And we find that like some of the

11:26

design decisions that the GNOME team and the

11:28

GNOME community make do

11:30

take new users into account to make sure

11:33

that, you know, the software that they're making

11:35

is designed to be as intuitive as

11:37

possible. We don't agree with

11:39

absolutely every decision that, you know,

11:41

the upstream GNOME developers make, but

11:44

the fact that it's such an

11:46

extensible desktop environment means that, you

11:48

know, we have the ability to

11:50

tailor the ZornOS desktop to the

11:52

needs of ZornOS users. And

11:54

that's a really exciting thing. Nice.

11:57

I mean, you're talking about how you're not necessarily agreeing

11:59

with me. everything. I think Ryan can appreciate

12:01

the fact that I thought educators pop my

12:03

mic immediately. Like why? Why? You know, but

12:06

they do make a lot of great decisions.

12:08

So I completely agree with you, especially from

12:10

a user interface. And I think it makes

12:12

sense what you're saying about hey, if we're

12:14

trying to make a new

12:17

user experience great. And let's say you

12:19

started with the basic KDE, which is

12:21

very flexible. There's lots of toggles. There's

12:23

lots of switches to change stuff. But

12:26

if you don't turn all that off, a new user is going to

12:28

get lost. They're going to be moving their panel in the middle of

12:30

the screen, not know how to get it back, all this type of

12:32

stuff where what's interesting, literally, I

12:35

didn't even think of what I

12:37

didn't think of is like the fact that GNOME

12:39

is flexible on the back end. Because

12:41

you know, it's not flexible. It's not super

12:44

customizable on the front. Not for users, really, what

12:46

you're able to do in the back end makes

12:48

it so that you can customize it without having

12:50

all those toggles or switches or put the things

12:52

in that you know your users want, such as

12:55

app indicators. Yeah, that's not something I thought of

12:57

before, like the back end part of it. Like

12:59

it, I know it's built on JavaScript. And that

13:01

would be a lot easier to manipulate

13:03

and stuff if you're familiar with that kind of

13:05

thing. And but in terms of

13:07

like the users, there's there's a quite a

13:09

few barriers to get to extensive, like to

13:11

just even install extensions, it's kind of a

13:13

there's a barrier for that. But

13:15

for someone who just wants to change

13:18

it and modify it to be a

13:20

certain way for the users to just

13:22

start using. Yep, it makes sense. Yeah,

13:24

thanks. Yeah. And I think you

13:26

had a really nice balance

13:28

of users coming from

13:30

Mac OS and Windows. You know, you

13:32

still have the bottom taskbar.

13:36

But you know, you can use a

13:38

dock. You can have like a Mac

13:40

like theme and a like theme. Exactly.

13:42

The other thing is you can change

13:45

the theming, which is you're

13:47

one of the best distros that does that. Definitely.

13:51

Yeah, without a doubt. So, RTM,

13:54

we when we did

13:56

our review of Zorin OS, our of

13:58

the latest release. just a few weeks

14:01

ago, we had

14:03

asked the community and

14:06

ourselves, how you

14:08

give back to the

14:10

larger ecosystem, and you

14:13

got back to us. RTM actually got back

14:15

to us and let us

14:17

know how you contribute to

14:19

Linux and the

14:22

Linux ecosystem, and all the things you do,

14:24

and we talked about it here on the

14:26

show. But just

14:28

maybe reiterate or tell

14:31

us again about- In your own words. Yeah,

14:34

in your own words. Yeah,

14:37

absolutely. So a lot of the work that

14:39

we do for building the

14:42

Zorn OS experience can end

14:44

up being quite useful to other

14:47

projects, other distributions. So say, for

14:49

example, back in 2016 was

14:52

when we started to switch over

14:54

from our own desktop environment to

14:56

a GNOME Shell based desktop environment.

15:00

We felt that the GNOME

15:02

Shell environment was quite mature

15:04

and had a lot of advantages

15:07

towards using it. Of

15:10

course, that extensible extension

15:12

ecosystem. But some

15:15

of the interface elements that we

15:17

really needed in Zorn OS just

15:19

weren't there. So we didn't

15:22

have a suitable taskbar start menu,

15:24

which are quite important, especially for

15:26

Windows users. That's what they're familiar

15:28

with. So that's

15:30

when we began developing

15:32

some of our own desktop extensions for

15:35

GNOME Shell, like the

15:37

Zorn menus, Zorn taskbar. That

15:40

ended up actually being a basis

15:42

for some pretty popular GNOME Shell

15:44

extensions like Dash to Panel and

15:46

the original source code behind Arc

15:49

menu, which we found some other

15:51

distributions also use. So

15:54

it's really cool to see that the work that

15:57

we're putting out there is also being

16:00

used and being loved

16:02

by users outside of Soren

16:04

ones. Even just more recently,

16:08

on a less glamorous note, there

16:10

was a regression with how Ubuntu

16:13

handled, I think it was the

16:15

Nvidia, the latest available

16:18

Nvidia drivers, unfortunately some GTK4

16:20

apps would not open, and

16:23

it was just a bug there. But we

16:25

helped the Ubuntu team to

16:27

find the source of the issue and

16:29

to resolve it. That of

16:32

course helped both our users, because ZornOS

16:34

is based on Ubuntu, but also all

16:37

of the Ubuntu 2204 users, that

16:39

patch made its way out to

16:41

them. So that was, I believe

16:43

it was around a month ago.

16:45

And it's cool to see that,

16:47

you know, on an open source

16:49

ecosystem like the Linux desktop, you're

16:51

able to see that cross-pollination of

16:53

work that is being done by

16:55

some project over here,

16:58

make its way out to a completely

17:00

different audience that the original developers might

17:02

not have thought of. And

17:05

that's only possible because of

17:07

the open source way. Yeah, so fundamentally you

17:10

feel like when we were talking on the

17:12

show, when we were talking about this in

17:14

general, that it is important that

17:16

distros, whether they base themselves

17:19

on another distro or whatnot, are giving back.

17:21

And you guys clearly are. But

17:23

is that something that you felt compelled early

17:25

on that you wanted to make sure ZornOS

17:27

was about? Is that a big part of

17:31

how you guys think and look at these projects? Yeah,

17:34

I think that the fact that we've

17:36

been able to stand on the shoulders of

17:39

giants and all of

17:41

the open source projects that came

17:43

before us, like the Linux kernel,

17:45

the Ubuntu project, GNOME, we

17:49

thought it was important to make our code out

17:52

and available to everyone else. So if anyone

17:54

else wants to start a new project, they

17:58

can build on our shoulders. and

18:00

make a new experience that

18:03

we hadn't even thought of. And I

18:05

think that's a really cool thing

18:07

that's just not possible with proprietary

18:10

systems and

18:12

proprietary software. It is uniquely

18:14

open source. I love that. That

18:16

is awesome. It's kind of a challenge

18:19

to get involved in certain kinds

18:21

of projects if you're not familiar with

18:23

certain things. But I'm curious, what

18:26

kind of challenges have you had with

18:28

ZorinOS just developing and in general? Have

18:30

you had any challenges that you've come

18:33

across that maybe helped

18:35

shape the development of it in the

18:37

future and design or anything for the

18:39

desktop? Yeah. If we go back to

18:41

the very beginning, I was 12 and

18:43

my brother was 14 when

18:45

we started developing ZorinOS. We had

18:47

no experience in programming at all.

18:50

So just those first few steps

18:52

were quite challenging. We had to

18:54

learn Python from the Python

18:56

for Dummies book and a few

18:59

YouTube tutorials. I

19:01

didn't realize it was going to go into the

19:03

point of what was the biggest challenge, that learning

19:05

to program. That's

19:07

a big step. I love it. The

19:12

very first step towards learning programming, at

19:14

least in our case, was setting ourselves

19:16

the challenge to make ZorinOS and make

19:18

all of the features that we wanted

19:21

to include in the system. So

19:24

we had to learn

19:28

the programming craft to get

19:30

ourselves to that level, rather

19:32

than the other way

19:34

around where if you go to

19:36

college, you'd learn the programming stuff first and

19:38

then you'd figure out what do I use

19:40

those skills for. But also

19:43

say, for example, those GNOME

19:45

Shell extensions. Back

19:47

in 2016, when we decided to switch

19:50

over to GNOME Shell Base and start

19:52

making those extensions, there wasn't

19:54

the level of documentation that there

19:56

is right now for GNOME Extension.

19:59

extension developers. So in many cases,

20:01

we had to sort of reverse

20:03

engineer, look at the source code

20:05

of GNOME Shell to see how

20:07

it worked and how we could

20:09

implement certain features in our extensions.

20:12

But, you know, even though

20:14

that there wasn't that level

20:16

of documentation back then, the fact that,

20:19

you know, GNOME Shell and obviously the

20:21

wider open source ecosystem, you

20:23

can see the source code behind it

20:25

means that anyone can see how it

20:27

works and anyone can build on top

20:29

of it. Again, something

20:31

that's uniquely open source only possible here.

20:34

So it was it was a really

20:36

cool way to learn about the system

20:38

and about the components and ultimately helped

20:40

us to understand all

20:43

of the inner workings of the desktop and how

20:47

the operating system works and allowed

20:49

us to develop even more features, you

20:53

know, in the future. That's awesome.

20:55

I mean, like the fact that you're you

20:58

started the project as a like a science

21:01

project as a kid and then you turn

21:03

into a business and you're developing the skills

21:05

to do it. And like that, that is

21:07

like the fundamental, I don't know, not poster

21:09

child or whatever, but like like

21:11

the great a great example of how open source

21:13

is so powerful because you don't you don't need

21:16

to have anything. There's no barrier to get started.

21:18

And you can take it as far as you

21:20

want to go, including making something like Zoran, which

21:22

is that's just awesome. Yeah,

21:24

it's amazing story. And I think

21:26

about all the young kids that

21:28

we meet when we do scale

21:30

and other conferences, Michael and Jill and

21:33

like the next Artyom is sitting in

21:36

that audience somewhere, right? That, you

21:38

know, gets inspired by this instead

21:40

of drooling over TikTok or YouTube

21:42

or Instagrams, they're over there building

21:44

a new OS, which is just

21:46

dope. Yeah, you need to

21:48

do the open source challenge, not the tide

21:50

pod challenge. Yeah, exactly.

21:53

Exactly. You

21:55

know, there is no shortage

21:57

of opinions in Linux. And

21:59

and open source. A lot of people

22:01

are very opinionated about things and

22:04

how things should work. And so I was

22:06

just curious, when you look at all the

22:08

feedback that comes your way, whether

22:11

it's on a new release or shows

22:14

or news or other thing, how

22:16

do you use that feedback in the development process?

22:18

How do you weed out, I'm

22:20

sure, you know, like anything else, when you get

22:23

big enough, you get some really negative harsh stuff,

22:25

you get some really kind stuff, you get a

22:27

mixture of everything in between. How

22:30

do you guys handle that feedback and how do you use

22:32

it effectively? Yeah, no,

22:34

like user feedback is a huge

22:36

factor in how we go about

22:38

developing ZornWes even further. So we

22:42

always strive to listen to what, you know,

22:45

people are saying about ZornWes,

22:48

their experiences, what they like and what they

22:50

don't like. And

22:53

just making sure that, you

22:56

know, as well, the feedback that we're

22:58

listening to can

23:01

be used in a constructive manner and

23:04

especially aligns with, you know, the

23:06

values that we abide by, but

23:08

also by the needs of the

23:10

users and the target demographic that

23:12

we're hoping to

23:15

develop ZornWes for. Sometimes

23:17

the features that some

23:19

people suggest are actually like

23:21

really useful and we do end up including them

23:24

and working on them. Sometimes it

23:26

might align more with a demographic

23:29

that might be better served by

23:31

other distributions, maybe more technical users.

23:35

But also one of the key ways

23:38

that we develop new features and figure

23:40

out how we can improve ZornWes is

23:42

actually looking at some of the, you

23:45

know, customer support queries that we get

23:48

and some of the, you know, issues

23:50

and challenges that people might be having.

23:52

Like say, for example, if a new

23:54

user tries to, you

23:56

know, install ZornWes on a computer that...

24:00

might not be fully compatible with all of the

24:02

drivers that are included in Zornwes. Say

24:05

for example like an Nvidia based computer a

24:08

few years ago, it was more

24:10

of a challenge to get started on. But

24:12

that gave us the idea of, hey

24:15

why don't we just include the Nvidia

24:17

drivers in the default ISO? And

24:20

that was one of the features that I believe

24:22

we introduced in Zornwes 15 that really

24:26

cut down on the issues that some new

24:28

users were having because all of those drivers

24:30

were available sort of out of the box.

24:33

So that's just one of the examples of

24:35

how we take user

24:37

feedback and develop it into

24:39

actual features that users see

24:42

in the next version of Zornwes.

24:44

Yeah, wow that's great. Wow.

24:47

So what's one feature in Zornwes

24:50

that you think deserves more attention

24:52

than it gets? The Nvidia

24:54

one was a pretty good one, Nvidia drivers.

24:58

Yeah, I guess another feature that sort of was

25:00

along the same lines as that Nvidia one was

25:05

the way that we handle what

25:07

happens when someone double clicks

25:09

on a Windows.exe or MSI

25:11

installer file. So we noticed

25:13

that there were a lot of

25:15

users who were very

25:17

new to Linux and Zornwes and

25:20

they were trying to get some of their favorite apps

25:22

working and they were struggling

25:24

because maybe

25:27

the Windows app support component, Wine, might not

25:29

be fully compatible with the app and when

25:31

they double clicked on it and tried to

25:34

install it with Wine, it might not have

25:36

worked well. But we also

25:38

noticed that some of those negative

25:41

experiences were when people

25:43

were trying to download the

25:45

Windows version of apps that

25:47

were actually cross-platform and natively

25:49

available for Linux. So we

25:51

thought to ourselves, how

25:53

can we sort of design the experience in

25:56

a way that guides the user to the

25:58

right way of installing it? So

26:01

say, for example, someone might download

26:03

the Windows installer for Slack or

26:06

Zoom or their

26:09

favorite web browser, Google Chrome. Instead

26:13

of prompting them to install

26:16

Wine or the Windows App

26:18

Support component, instead

26:20

it says, hey, I noticed that

26:22

you're trying to install this app

26:25

that's actually natively available on the

26:27

software store or from this web

26:29

page directly for Linux. And

26:32

if you do that, your experience will be better. So

26:35

that's one of the features that we implemented so

26:38

that users get steered towards

26:40

the right way of installing apps so

26:42

that as they go on their

26:44

Linux journey, they'll know, hey, instead

26:47

of downloading the Windows EXE, maybe let's

26:49

check the software store to see if

26:51

it's available there. And, you know, there

26:53

might be a native Linux version of

26:55

that app already there. And

26:58

so after implementing that, we saw that there

27:00

were, and it was a

27:03

lot easier for those new users to get

27:05

accustomed to, you know, how you

27:07

install apps in Linux and just

27:10

ultimately improve the user experience. That's

27:13

awesome. I mean, that's actually, you know, I've

27:15

always said that Zorin is in the top

27:17

five options for the, for like the beginner

27:20

distro. And with that feature, I'm

27:22

more leaning to number one, because that is

27:24

such a good feature, even if you don't

27:26

have the software to just tell them that

27:28

there's like, here's a thing you can do.

27:31

Here's another option you can get it from the

27:33

website or however, if you have it like specified,

27:35

specified for a particular application, do you have like

27:37

a database of that sort of thing that they

27:39

just like scans to see what they're trying to

27:41

install? Yeah, so like every copy of

27:44

Zorin was has this sort of

27:46

inbuilt database of some of the

27:48

common windows.exe installers, and it checks

27:50

against that to see, hey, you

27:53

know, you're double clicking on an exe

27:55

and it matches this app. Maybe

27:59

you should take a look at, you know, the installer in

28:01

the software store. I mean, it's

28:03

not a very like super glamorous

28:05

or technically impressive feature, but it

28:08

doesn't work through the user experience. Yeah, it's

28:11

a usability feature, which is sadly not the

28:13

most important to some people. And I think

28:15

it's great that you have that sort of

28:17

thing. Another thing that's also good for like

28:19

beginners is having compatibility of the hardware, like

28:22

you're talking about with Nvidia stuff like that.

28:24

But there's also the element of like the

28:26

kernel updates and that sort of stuff. And

28:28

the latest blog post of or the latest

28:30

release the blog post for that release of

28:33

17.2 it says that it has hardware compatibility

28:35

with the hardware and element from Ubuntu is

28:38

how does that work when it comes to

28:40

Zoran? Like how do you implement that? The

28:42

viewers might not know all of the background

28:44

about Zoran rights. It's based on Ubuntu

28:47

LTS releases, which means

28:49

that you know, the system gets

28:51

a lot more security updates

28:54

for a longer period of time,

28:56

and it gets more widely tested.

28:59

But at the same time, by default, you

29:01

know, the official Ubuntu

29:03

LTS release might be

29:05

stuck with the same kernel for many years

29:07

if you get the initial

29:10

release of that LTS version. However,

29:13

and do Ubuntu team also

29:15

release hardware enablement updates for

29:18

those LTS releases. So roughly

29:20

every six months, they

29:23

get you know, the kernel version as

29:25

well as some of the graphics hardware

29:27

stack from the

29:29

latest non LTS releases, which typically

29:32

come around every six months. And,

29:35

and so we've made

29:37

sure that you know, newer point releases

29:39

of Zoran OS, get

29:42

those hwe hardware enablement

29:44

packages, and

29:46

updates out of the box so that you

29:49

know, if you're using a newer piece of

29:51

hardware, maybe with a newer

29:53

CPU or graphics card, that it will

29:55

have much newer drivers that it will

29:58

be able to support that. out

30:00

of the box. And so we make

30:03

those point releases roughly every six months as

30:05

well. Because it sounds like you have so

30:07

much user feedback. Let's say they get a

30:09

new laptop, they get a new desktop, and

30:13

maybe it's the new Nvidia driver, maybe

30:15

it's the new AMD processor that wasn't

30:17

supported in the LTS. How

30:19

do you guys handle those

30:22

compatibilities? Because really my biggest issue, and

30:24

when I say issue, I mean, it's

30:27

the thing I would love to see you Ubuntu improve

30:30

on the most, which is their hardware compatibility. Because six

30:32

months is a long time in the hardware world. A

30:34

lot releases in six months. And

30:37

so you have a new user, which is OrnoS attracts,

30:39

they buy the new computer at Best Buy, they

30:41

come home, they didn't do their proper research,

30:44

let's say they try to install Zorin or

30:46

Ubuntu, and it doesn't work. Because even

30:48

though we have a kernel out there

30:50

that has that hardware enablement in

30:52

it, we're using an older kernel

30:55

in those versions. Do you guys try to

30:57

do something with those, or you just tell them

30:59

you'll have to wait, or it's not compatible? Or

31:01

how do you handle those situations where

31:04

there is newer hardware that's not compatible? So,

31:07

typically those newer hardware drivers

31:09

get released in newer kernel

31:12

versions, which the Ubuntu team

31:14

have been working to improve the

31:18

release cadence of them, especially

31:21

recently. It is a

31:23

thing, it is a factor where you have to

31:25

take into account the balance between the

31:27

latest features and hardware support, as

31:30

well as how well tested the kernel

31:32

is. Because if you release a brand

31:35

new version of a kernel to all

31:37

the existing users, there's always the risk

31:39

that there might be regression, and

31:44

sometimes the system might crash

31:46

because those ultra new

31:48

versions of the kernel might have

31:50

those kinds of issues that don't

31:53

get widely tested upon

31:55

release. So it is a balance

31:57

between those factors. looking

32:00

at ways on how to include newer drivers

32:02

out of the box. So is the Ubuntu

32:04

team. And you're

32:07

starting to see that a lot of

32:09

those hardware vendors that contribute their drivers

32:11

to the Linux kernel are starting to

32:13

do it earlier and earlier.

32:16

So say, for example, if Intel

32:18

is planning to release a new

32:20

CPU, they often

32:24

include those drivers in

32:28

versions in their patches

32:30

that they submit to the Linux kernel

32:32

team before the launch

32:34

date of those components.

32:38

So you're starting to see that

32:40

a lot of that hardware that might

32:43

get released immediately might

32:45

actually be supported in the latest version of

32:47

Xor and Miserable and Ubuntu out of the

32:49

box because they did it so early ahead

32:52

of time. So

32:55

security is a very hot topic on people's

32:57

minds a lot, especially since every day you

32:59

open the news and it's another day to

33:01

breach and another day to breach and more

33:04

of your information's out there. I guess

33:06

what, Ryan, there's another day to breach while you're talking. I

33:08

have no doubt. There's probably 50 day to

33:10

breach as well. I was talking and honestly, a

33:12

lot of people with

33:14

things like Windows releasing their, what

33:17

is it, Snapback, recall, recall, recall

33:19

features and things like that are

33:21

starting to come to Linux. You

33:23

know, I see them going

33:25

on Reddit forums asking about Linux. Hey, I'm not

33:28

happy with I don't want to switch from Windows

33:30

10, which I think loses

33:32

support this month or really soon. Next year, I

33:34

think actually. Is it next year? Yeah, it's soon.

33:38

And so people are really starting to inquire, wanting

33:40

to come over to Linux for the first time.

33:42

So talking about security, let's

33:44

talk about how Xor and OS does security.

33:46

How do you make sure

33:49

that the environment that you're setting up is

33:51

secure for your users above

33:53

and beyond what's already built

33:55

into the foundation? Yeah, absolutely.

33:57

I mean, one of

34:00

the really. important decisions that we took early on

34:02

in the project was, do we

34:04

build Zorn-Wes sort of as an

34:06

entirely independent Linux distribution or do

34:08

we base ourselves on another existing

34:10

one? And we ultimately decided that

34:13

for our use case Ubuntu was

34:15

actually a really good base. And

34:17

a lot of that does have to do with the fact

34:19

that the security patches

34:22

that fix vulnerabilities

34:25

are released very often, very quickly,

34:28

because it's such a large distribution that's

34:30

used in server, supercomputers,

34:32

IoT devices, sort of all over

34:34

the world by

34:36

so many different kinds of companies

34:39

and organizations that there is that

34:41

level of support

34:43

that they provide upstream

34:47

that if we were to

34:49

base Zorn-Wes on Ubuntu would make its way down

34:51

to Zorn-Wes users as well.

34:54

So that's why we decided to go

34:56

down that route and the Ubuntu team

34:59

have been doing a really great job to

35:01

make sure that those patches to fix vulnerabilities

35:03

do make their way out to all of

35:05

those users on a really timely

35:08

manner. And that helps

35:10

to make Zorn-Wes

35:13

really secure out of the box because

35:15

of all of the work that's being

35:17

done by not only the Ubuntu team,

35:20

but also the upstream developers on

35:22

the Linux team, on other open source

35:25

projects that are included

35:27

in the Ubuntu repositories.

35:31

So all of those patches also make

35:33

their way into Zorn-Wes. And

35:36

also, as you were mentioning about Windows

35:39

and some of the decisions that they've

35:41

been taking over the past

35:43

few months and years on a security standpoint,

35:46

it is definitely a factor that we

35:49

see is starting

35:52

to increase

35:54

the user base of Linux in

35:56

general. And of course, Zorn-Wes by

35:58

that part because users are starting

36:00

to see that, hey, I'm not so

36:03

certain that Microsoft has, you know, my intentions

36:06

in mind when they're, you

36:08

know, developing new features like

36:10

Windows recall. I think recall

36:12

is fantastic because it shows that they 100%

36:14

do not have their good intentions

36:17

behind them for the people. I

36:19

think it's not about bad intentions always

36:22

as it is to what Artyom is

36:24

saying is they're not thinking about the

36:26

end user because like

36:28

the idea of being able, if

36:30

you just look at it from

36:32

the, you know, high level superficial level, the

36:34

idea of being able to recall what you've worked

36:37

on all throughout the day actually sounds

36:39

kind of cool, right? Like I forgot what I was doing

36:41

over, you know, earlier there was a website I was looking

36:43

at and I can't remember what the URL is and I

36:45

can go back. When you care about

36:47

your users, you start thinking, hey, what

36:50

if a hacker got a hold of that? What

36:52

does that start to look like? How

36:54

do I make sure that this is not like, well,

36:57

maybe we shouldn't send it to our servers

36:59

and have everything that we have. Maybe we

37:01

shouldn't do these things. That's a good point.

37:03

Actually, when you were talking about, you know,

37:06

the way you were describing it, it made me think that with

37:08

a person who thought of this has

37:10

like massive ADHD like me and I would

37:12

forget things that I'm trying to work on

37:14

at that moment and then like, oh, that

37:16

would be great. But then I

37:18

thought, yeah, that would be great. And then everything

37:20

else beside it is awful. Yeah,

37:22

it's that looking deeper, is this the

37:25

best thing for the users even

37:27

though it's a cool feature to implement? And I

37:29

think there's a lot of that going on right

37:31

now with AI and things. And we'll get

37:33

to that in a later question because I'm

37:35

interested in your take on that where, you

37:37

know, we're looking at adding things without thinking

37:39

about what's the overall impact it's going to

37:42

have on people, society, whatever.

37:44

So very interesting. And you know, one

37:46

of the things I want to compliment

37:48

you on is the fact that throughout

37:50

this entire interview, you've just been giving

37:52

credit to all the projects that you

37:54

all work with, you know, and I

37:56

think that speaks a lot. projects

38:00

try kinda hide the fact that they're based

38:03

on something or that they work with other

38:05

teams to produce something where is your very

38:07

transparent and it sounds like a partnership which

38:09

is open source is supposed to be and

38:12

that makes me feel really great so

38:14

i love that you do that thanks like

38:16

it's only been possible. To make

38:18

so much because of those open source projects

38:20

out there so so we're enormously thankful for

38:23

for all the efforts that they put in

38:25

and. We're always happy

38:27

to support other projects where they

38:29

might want to use our code and you

38:32

know as an open source project ourselves

38:34

were really happy to see that you

38:36

know other projects are. Building

38:39

on top of what we're doing so

38:41

yeah it's all symbiotic ecosystem you can

38:43

go perfect timing for the new

38:45

venom movie symbiotic relationship. So

38:51

what about like this any stories

38:53

about users who have switched to

38:55

zornos and told you about their experience and

38:57

then we had like an impactful experience do

38:59

you have any examples of that. Yeah

39:02

i think like. Sort

39:04

of a surprising example that happened

39:06

a few years ago was there

39:08

was a city in italy called

39:10

vicenza it's a few kilometers west

39:12

of venice who actually decided to

39:14

switch over all of their municipal

39:16

computers from windows to zornos. I'm

39:19

like on an informal basis what happened

39:22

was it was an interesting story there

39:24

was a school in the

39:26

area and they were having issues with.

39:30

And you know the looming windows xp

39:32

end of life date and

39:35

they were left with the choice

39:37

of you know. Do

39:40

we have to buy a whole load

39:42

of new computers just to you know

39:44

run windows 10 so that you know

39:46

our it is still supported and up

39:48

to date. Which would

39:50

have been like really expensive for you

39:52

know a school with limited resources but

39:55

one of their parents in that school

39:58

and he knew about zornos. and

40:00

he thought that, you know, including,

40:02

you know, installing Zornos on the

40:04

existing computers could save them

40:06

from landfill and also save the school a

40:08

lot of money from having to buy load

40:11

of new computers. And

40:13

they switched over their computers to

40:15

Zornos and, you know, it

40:18

turned out to be, you know, a really great

40:21

boon to the school. And that city

40:23

municipality were having the same issue where

40:25

they had, I think it was like

40:28

over 700 computers across all of their

40:30

municipal offices running Windows XP that they

40:33

would have to buy new computers just

40:35

to run Windows 10. And, you

40:37

know, they saw that the school had a

40:40

great experience with Zornos and they just decided

40:42

to deploy Zornos on all of their computers.

40:44

And what was funny was that they just

40:46

emailed us, I think it was two weeks

40:48

before the deployment started, saying we're

40:51

about to switch our whole city over

40:53

to Zornos. We're panicking. Nothing like that

40:55

ever happened before. But

40:58

like, we're really happy to say that,

41:00

you know, the deployment went pretty smoothly.

41:03

There was a newspaper

41:05

that came back to them around a

41:07

year after the deployment and asked

41:10

them how it went and they were generally

41:12

quite happy with it. So, you

41:14

know, we were really surprised on the, you

41:18

know, the premise of whole

41:20

city switching over to our

41:22

system, sort of on an

41:24

informal basis, but we're really happy about that.

41:26

And we also want to give a bit

41:29

of a shout out to some of the

41:31

people that made it happen. So shout out

41:33

to Albano Battistala and the Vicenza Linux users

41:35

group that basically made that

41:38

deployment happen. I mean, that's

41:40

amazing. Talk about a huge impact they had

41:42

that kind of spread, you

41:45

know, the fact that they had that knowledge, they

41:47

suggested this, it starts with the school and moves

41:49

on from there. It really shows you

41:51

even if you want, you want to work, a lot of

41:53

people in Linux want to work in an environment where there's

41:56

Linux, but, you know, we

41:58

don't always have that option. But here's some. someone

42:00

was able to make that happen eventually thanks to

42:02

Windows and the life situation. You never

42:04

know when you can kind of move your organization into

42:06

the living room. That's when you get the Linux user within.

42:09

The Linux user within comes out, yeah,

42:12

absolutely. And

42:14

speaking of that, RTM, since

42:16

we're on the topic of

42:19

education, how does Zorin OS

42:21

support educational initiatives or environments?

42:23

We know that's a big

42:26

mission for you to support those

42:29

environments. And this you probably learned from

42:32

with the situation in Italy. Yeah,

42:36

no, absolutely. So since even the

42:38

early days of Zorin OS, we've

42:40

always been releasing the Education Edition,

42:43

which comes preloaded

42:45

with a lot of software

42:47

for teaching different classes like

42:49

maths, geography, coding, science, all

42:51

out of the box. It's something

42:54

that we've been working on since we were in

42:56

school. So we kind of thought to ourselves, like,

42:59

how would we make a desktop

43:01

experience that would improve the

43:04

learning experience as well as

43:06

we were going through that process? And it's

43:09

a project that we've been really passionate about

43:11

for a really long time. And

43:13

we're seeing that there are a lot of

43:15

schools also in Italy all

43:18

around the world as well, making use

43:21

of Zorin OS education. Even

43:23

a couple months ago, I saw a really

43:25

cool project that's happening in Malawi.

43:27

There's a couple of charities, I

43:30

believe they're called K2Tech and Bridges

43:32

to Malawi. And

43:34

they've been sending old

43:36

decommissioned Windows laptops to Malawi,

43:38

preloading them with Zorin OS

43:42

education, giving them out to schools. And

43:45

it's been really cool to see that, you know,

43:47

something that we've made here in Ireland is

43:49

making its way out to places that we'd

43:52

never thought they would be, is

43:54

making an impact, I hope, on

43:57

the schoolchildren there. That's

43:59

awesome. So kind of

44:02

going back to what we were talking about a

44:04

little earlier with the rise

44:06

of AI. I'm just curious, you know...

44:08

Thinking of making an impact. Thinking

44:10

of making an impact. You know,

44:12

and changes that things, because recall obviously is

44:15

kind of made possible by these type of

44:17

technologies we're talking about earlier. You

44:20

see AI being talked about everywhere. So I

44:22

have two questions for you. My first one

44:24

is, what are your overall thoughts on AI?

44:27

Like, do you think it's as big as

44:29

people are making it out to be? Is

44:31

this going to be a life changing technology

44:33

that's worth what, $8 trillion now

44:36

with Nvidia? You know,

44:38

what are your thoughts on that? And then second, well,

44:40

how's Zorn OS handling AI? Are you

44:42

guys looking to implement it or integrate it

44:45

in any way? And what are your

44:47

thoughts there? So

44:49

like the developments in AI over the

44:51

past couple of years have been, you

44:53

know, really interesting, really exciting. In some

44:56

ways, you know, somewhat scary.

45:00

I'm sure like your viewers would share

45:02

some of those sentiments. But

45:04

overall, I think like I'm

45:07

quite optimistic in, you

45:09

know, how AI will

45:12

be able to, you know, help

45:14

people and organizations to do what

45:16

they want to do with their technology. At

45:20

the same time, though, like from

45:23

the business perspective, I see that there's

45:25

a lot of buzz and hype around

45:27

it that in some cases

45:29

might not be fully warranted. And,

45:32

you know, maybe some of

45:34

your listeners and viewers might remember the.com

45:37

bubble, for example, it was a little

45:39

before my time. But

45:41

there were similar hype cycles around technology

45:43

trends that, you know, over

45:47

the long run, they might have

45:49

materialized and made a big difference.

45:51

But maybe some of those companies

45:53

that were working on tools around

45:55

that technology didn't end

45:57

up surviving that hype period because.

46:00

if there's a huge boom, there's

46:02

probably going to be a bust

46:04

sometime in the future. Because

46:06

that must come down, right? Exactly, yeah. And

46:09

it calls out some of the companies that

46:11

probably shouldn't have gotten the hype

46:14

that they ended up getting and maybe the

46:16

investor dollars that they ended up getting. So,

46:20

it's like, from our

46:22

perspective, we see that whole trend

46:25

in the industry around AI to be kind of

46:27

up in the air. I don't know exactly where

46:29

it's going to go. There

46:32

might even be some developments

46:34

in AI that might make current

46:37

AI companies in many

46:39

industries obsolete. Next

46:42

month, for example, it's

46:44

just something that you can't really predict

46:47

to a far

46:51

enough time scale to see how

46:53

it ends up. From our perspective,

46:57

we think about things a little bit differently.

46:59

We don't really try to look

47:01

at this cool new technology and see how to

47:03

implement it. We kind of think of it the

47:06

other way around. What features and what experience

47:08

do we want to give to our users?

47:10

And then how do we work

47:13

our way backwards to the best technology

47:15

to implement that use case? So

47:18

that's how you landed on implementing Clippy. Of

47:23

course, of course. Of course, yes, yes, Clippy.

47:27

Major new feature. But

47:30

yeah, that's

47:32

just one of those sort of mental models,

47:34

you can say, that led

47:37

us to where we are today, led us to

47:39

the product that we're able to put out that

47:42

so many people use and love on their

47:44

computers. So

47:47

we don't see AI as something that

47:49

we ought to implement for

47:51

the sake of implementing AI. There might

47:53

come a time when there's an important

47:56

feature that we think will benefit users that

47:58

might make it. more

54:00

flexible and of course privacy

54:02

respecting. So from

54:05

a new user's perspective, I think now

54:07

is a really great time to consider

54:09

Linux, even more so than even just

54:12

a couple of years ago, we're starting to see

54:14

that a lot of the apps and

54:16

games that people use are now

54:19

natively available for Linux. And

54:21

in some cases, the apps that they use might

54:24

be web-based, which means they can run on any

54:26

platform. So that

54:28

app gap that was there back in

54:30

the early days of Zorn last that

54:32

kind of stopped people from switching over

54:34

from Windows to Linux is no

54:36

longer as big of a problem as it was before.

54:39

Same thing goes with hardware support

54:41

drivers, they've gotten quite a lot

54:43

better than back in the

54:45

early days. So a lot of those roadblocks

54:49

that were there stopping people from

54:51

using Linux are no

54:53

longer as big of an issue.

54:55

So yeah, I'd say

54:57

it's a really great time to start

54:59

using Linux. Never

55:02

a better time, really. Yeah,

55:05

especially with the recall coming. So

55:09

RTM, if you could describe the future of

55:11

Linux in one word, I know this might

55:13

be a little tricky, one word,

55:17

what would it be and how is Zorin

55:19

OS part of that future? And

55:21

why is that one word Tux Digital? Yeah.

55:26

What if he comes back with Clippy? So

55:29

I'm going to cheat a little bit,

55:31

I'm going to use two words. Not

55:35

just like Tux Digital, but inflection

55:38

point. I think, as

55:41

I was saying earlier, right now is a

55:43

really interesting time for Linux where it's

55:46

becoming way more viable of a

55:48

general purpose operating system than it's

55:50

ever been before on the desktop.

55:54

The changes that are happening to Windows and the

55:57

end of life of Windows 10 is we

55:59

think. going to be quite a big factor in

56:01

getting a lot of new users over

56:05

to Linux. And I think

56:08

it's a huge opportunity. As

56:10

well as that, the fact that, you know,

56:12

the quality of the Linux desktop and the

56:14

experience that new users would be going through

56:16

is just so much better than it was

56:18

before. I

56:20

genuinely think that like, on the

56:22

technology side, I think generally, like

56:25

Linux would be ready for the

56:27

general public, as it is today.

56:30

At least the vast majority of users.

56:32

I think the interesting

56:36

opportunity to help make that

56:38

happen, make that big migration

56:40

happen, is to start

56:42

focusing on distribution. So

56:44

I know for quite a long time,

56:46

the general consensus is we could

56:49

get more people using Linux if,

56:51

you know, the manufacturers of laptops

56:53

and desktops started preloading it. And,

56:57

you know, there have been some interesting examples over

56:59

the past few years where, say,

57:02

for example, some

57:05

of your viewers might be familiar with

57:07

another distro called Endless OS. They've

57:10

generally been focused on emerging

57:13

markets, third world countries. And I

57:15

believe a few years ago, they actually

57:18

reached number one market share for the

57:20

operating system on new computers being sold

57:22

in Indonesia, which was kind of mind

57:25

blowing to me. But

57:27

unfortunately, that didn't really last very long because,

57:29

you know, some of the major manufacturers that

57:31

they were partnered with, from

57:34

what I heard, they essentially received

57:36

a call from Microsoft saying, you

57:38

know, if

57:40

you want to continue working with them,

57:44

we might have to, you know, alter

57:46

our deals when it comes to,

57:48

you know, Windows licenses in other

57:51

markets. And that was kind of

57:53

a risk to their business. And

57:55

it ended up not really allowing

57:58

Endless OS and Linux to really.

58:00

thrive where it should have been.

58:03

So we're kind of thinking of different

58:05

ways on how would we bridge that

58:07

gap, how would we get more people

58:09

able to use Linux on

58:12

a day-to-day basis. And we

58:14

kind of thought that actually

58:16

focusing on businesses, enterprises, organizations

58:18

would be an interesting way

58:21

to go. Say

58:23

that example of Vicenza, the city

58:25

in Italy that switched over to

58:28

Zorn-Wes, was a success story in

58:30

its own right. And

58:32

we thought that why aren't more

58:35

businesses and organizations using Linux

58:39

on their computers. And well, one

58:41

of the bits of feedback that we

58:43

did hear from Vicenza

58:46

was that they were generally

58:49

happy with Zorn-Wes. The main downside was

58:51

managing all of the computers was a

58:53

bit of a pain. So once they

58:55

installed Zorn-Wes on their computers, if they

58:57

wanted to make some sort of a

59:00

change, like changing a setting or installing

59:02

an app or updating software,

59:04

they would have to send someone

59:07

around to each computer individually. So

59:09

that was clearly a big downside that

59:11

sort of stopped organizations

59:14

from being able to make that change

59:16

just because it was too difficult to

59:18

manage. So one of the

59:20

projects that we're working on is

59:22

called Zor and Grid, and that essentially

59:25

bridges that gap where IT

59:28

administrators would

59:30

be able to manage their entire

59:32

fleet of computers just from a

59:34

centralized console. So if they want

59:37

to deploy a new app

59:39

or change a setting on

59:41

all the computers, they would be able to do

59:43

that just from a single console. And

59:46

we think that will be quite a big

59:48

game changer when it comes to allowing

59:51

businesses and organizations to actually use Linux on

59:53

a day-to-day basis. They're able, the IT managers

59:55

in those organizations, are able to manage their

59:57

own data and their own data. So that's

59:59

a big thing. are able to choose what

1:00:01

software that they use, rather than say the

1:00:04

hardware vendors. So

1:00:06

they can pick whatever tool is best for

1:00:08

them and hopefully, Zornos and Linux would be

1:00:10

the best tool for a

1:00:12

lot of them, especially now that they

1:00:14

have to deal with the Windows 10 end

1:00:16

of life debacle. Nice. Yeah, will

1:00:19

Grid be ready before Windows 10 fully ready,

1:00:21

before Windows 10 officially

1:00:23

ends its support? Yeah, so we're

1:00:25

working really hard to make sure that it will be ready

1:00:27

by then. We think it's gonna

1:00:30

be a huge opportunity. Yeah. I

1:00:32

love it. That'd be a perfect timing to be able

1:00:34

to switch over and everybody and stuff. Yeah. That's awesome. I

1:00:37

just had a couple more questions that I thought of on the fly. You're

1:00:41

currently Zornos 17.2 is based on 2204 of Ubuntu.

1:00:47

When do you think the next base, rebase

1:00:49

for 2404 will happen? Yeah,

1:00:52

so we developed new versions of Zornos

1:00:54

and also just our software in general

1:00:57

on a release when ready basis. So

1:01:01

we don't have a set release date

1:01:03

in mind, but we're

1:01:05

expecting it to be ready in either

1:01:08

the second or third quarter of next

1:01:10

year. So again, just to

1:01:12

be ready for that Windows 10 end of

1:01:14

life period. We think it's an interesting

1:01:17

time and we want to make sure Zornos

1:01:20

is on its best foot to tick

1:01:22

on those new uses. We think

1:01:24

Zornos 18 will be quite exciting for

1:01:26

that. That's awesome, especially

1:01:29

since Linux kernel 6.11 will

1:01:31

be available for Ubuntu with the

1:01:34

hardware enablement then. And

1:01:36

that's gonna be really

1:01:38

wonderful. Absolutely.

1:01:42

And also I saw, I

1:01:44

mean, maybe it's a rumor, I don't know, but

1:01:47

I saw some people talking about how Zoran Lite

1:01:49

might be going away. Is that a

1:01:51

thing? Yeah,

1:01:53

so like, that

1:01:55

was a decision that we came to, that

1:01:59

did... take quite a lot

1:02:01

of deliberation. We wanted to make sure that

1:02:04

like the roadmap for new

1:02:06

features and new products around ZornOS,

1:02:08

we'd be able to execute upon that and

1:02:12

provide the best user experience we possibly can.

1:02:16

At the same time on the desktop side, we

1:02:21

were seeing a bigger and bigger

1:02:23

mismatch between the features that we

1:02:25

would be able to ship in

1:02:27

the non-light editions versus the light

1:02:30

editions going forward. As

1:02:35

well as that from a performance aspect,

1:02:37

we'd been seeing that like with every

1:02:39

new release of ZornOS over the past

1:02:42

few years, the non-light editions have been

1:02:44

getting faster and faster to the point

1:02:46

where on quite

1:02:48

a lot of hardware combinations, the

1:02:51

performance of those non-light editions

1:02:53

are actually exceeding the

1:02:56

light editions. And

1:02:58

so if we were to think to ourselves

1:03:00

like, we're a small team with limited resources,

1:03:04

how do we provide the best possible user

1:03:06

experience and as many new

1:03:08

features as possible on a timely basis?

1:03:11

What's the best way of going around it going

1:03:15

forward? So we did

1:03:17

end up coming to the

1:03:20

decision to eventually sunset ZornOS

1:03:22

Lite in 2029. We

1:03:25

wanted to make sure that the existing users would have- That's

1:03:27

a very long time to have. Yeah, we

1:03:29

wanted to make sure that the existing users would have

1:03:31

a lot of time and

1:03:34

we didn't want to rush any decisions

1:03:38

out of respect for them. So

1:03:41

from ZornOS 19 onwards, so

1:03:44

that's a couple of releases from now, we'll

1:03:47

be focusing on just

1:03:49

the non-light editions of ZornOS. That's interesting.

1:03:51

And also it doesn't, when I

1:03:53

first heard about it, I thought it maybe this is like, this

1:03:57

might be an issue, but it sounds like if

1:03:59

the- non-light version, you know, like

1:04:02

if it's the same speed, the same efficiency and

1:04:04

same resource usage or close to that, then it

1:04:06

kind of makes the point where that light doesn't

1:04:09

need to exist rather than it not, you know,

1:04:11

just not just being going away. So I think

1:04:13

that if that's, you know, that's the case and

1:04:15

you're also there's five years from now, you

1:04:17

know, that makes a lot of sense. I was gonna say

1:04:20

that's uniquely open source right there. What projects like, hey, we're

1:04:22

gonna get rid of this thing in five

1:04:24

years. So that's really

1:04:26

nice that you guys continue to support it for

1:04:28

that long for respect of the user. And also

1:04:30

just telling people that it's happening, you know. That's

1:04:33

nice too. Zornwass light won't

1:04:36

be sort of like a curated version of

1:04:38

Zornwass from 2029 onwards,

1:04:41

but you'll still be able to install

1:04:43

the XFC desktop environment. You'll still be

1:04:45

able to, you know, have all of

1:04:48

the features of that

1:04:50

desktop environment on a Zornwass

1:04:52

based system. So

1:04:55

it would be still possible to

1:04:57

have a similar experience going forward

1:04:59

indefinitely. That's neat. We just wanted

1:05:01

to give the heads up like

1:05:03

very early on that

1:05:07

it's a project that we're planning on. If they still wanted

1:05:09

it, they could do it. It just wouldn't be like an

1:05:11

ISO that was pre-packaged for them. Yeah. Yeah,

1:05:14

yeah. That's that makes

1:05:16

a lot of sense. That doesn't sound like

1:05:18

a doom and gloom removal thing. That just

1:05:20

sounds like a transition, you know. And that

1:05:22

was particularly near and dear to my heart

1:05:25

because I run Zornwass light on

1:05:27

lots of old computers. But

1:05:30

I also know that GNOME, the

1:05:33

performance of GNOME has gotten so much better.

1:05:36

And, you know, you'll be

1:05:38

able to install the other desktop

1:05:41

manager. So in

1:05:44

fact, with Zora and I often install WindowMaker

1:05:46

along with it as well. WindowMaker

1:05:49

just fits in right in there, doesn't it? Yes.

1:05:53

Yeah. It's my go-to. It's

1:05:56

really cool to see how, you know, different

1:05:59

users might... Zorin OS in

1:06:01

different ways that we wouldn't have been able

1:06:03

to anticipate it. They might install

1:06:05

different window managers and desktop environments.

1:06:07

And we think it's really cool

1:06:09

that you are able to do

1:06:12

that. You're able to tailor your

1:06:14

system to your own needs and

1:06:16

desires. That's something that's, again, uniquely

1:06:18

open source, uniquely Linux. And

1:06:20

it's just really cool to see. So,

1:06:22

at some point, we're going to expect to

1:06:25

see the Zorin OS Rat Poison edition. Yes.

1:06:27

That's another one. Jill's

1:06:30

use case is really unique though with

1:06:32

all of her hardware museum. We call

1:06:34

it the hardware museum, but she has

1:06:36

thousands of computers. And

1:06:39

a lot of them very, very old

1:06:41

that she features on a special segment

1:06:44

that we have for

1:06:46

Jill's museum and hardware

1:06:48

museum. And the fact that

1:06:50

Jill, you rely a lot on

1:06:52

Zorin is really, I think, a

1:06:54

testament for getting it

1:06:56

running on those older machines that you have. I

1:06:59

mean, we're talking really old machines

1:07:01

and newer ones too, but you have

1:07:03

some really old machines that you use

1:07:05

this on, which is awesome. Yeah.

1:07:08

And in fact, I wanted to

1:07:10

tell you, RTM, I'm

1:07:13

part of a local organization called the

1:07:15

Linux Chicks of Los Angeles. And

1:07:18

for one of our Linux install fests about

1:07:20

a year ago, we

1:07:22

featured Zorin OS and

1:07:25

showing people how to install Linux using

1:07:28

Zorin. So, that was really

1:07:30

awesome. That's really cool

1:07:32

because one of the reasons we

1:07:34

chose it is because you also

1:07:37

had the educational version, which is

1:07:39

really good for the kids. And

1:07:41

we have kids that come to our install fests. That's

1:07:46

really, really cool to hear. Really glad

1:07:48

to hear that. Yay. So,

1:07:51

RTM, you have made it through

1:07:53

this gauntlet of questions, unscathed, but

1:07:55

the real hard part happens

1:07:58

now. This is the lightning round. where

1:08:00

we asked lots of arithmetic questions.

1:08:03

All kinds of- We're talking about

1:08:05

calculus trig. Yeah. And-

1:08:08

So get your, no paper, no notes, no AI.

1:08:10

Well get my chat GPT ready right now. Get

1:08:14

Clippy open real quick and see how that

1:08:17

helps. We're gonna have a lightning round. It's

1:08:19

just a couple of questions that we're gonna

1:08:21

ask. Just first thing that comes to mind,

1:08:24

there's really nothing

1:08:26

serious here in these questions. So we just wanna have

1:08:28

some fun, let people get to know you a little

1:08:31

bit as well. You mentioned being a programmer, so I'm

1:08:33

gonna start with the first question, which is, if you

1:08:35

could use only one text editor for the rest

1:08:38

of your life, which would it be? Nano, VIM,

1:08:40

or something else? A

1:08:42

lot. I mean, I'm a

1:08:44

bit weird in that I just use GEdit. Yay!

1:08:48

It's not a text editor in Zornos. I

1:08:50

just find it's just simple, gets out of

1:08:52

your way. So I pretty much love that.

1:08:54

Do you use like the default vanilla, or

1:08:57

you have like add plugins for ID and

1:08:59

stuff? Just the vanilla one. Vanilla, I just

1:09:01

like it. I love it. Simple.

1:09:04

That's awesome. Wow. I know

1:09:06

it's very strange, but I like the simplicity. I now want

1:09:08

you to do like a live stream coding session so we

1:09:10

can see how this all works. Yeah.

1:09:15

RTM, what's your go-to stack that

1:09:17

you can't live without, especially when

1:09:20

you're coding and you're building Zornos?

1:09:24

I mean, I've tried to be a bit healthier over

1:09:26

the past few years, so I

1:09:28

generally reach for like an apple or a banana.

1:09:30

I know it's a boring answer, but I know.

1:09:33

No, it's great. I like it. He

1:09:35

didn't tell us that it's dipped in caramel with nuts on

1:09:37

it and stuff. That's my

1:09:39

secret right there. That's my secret. I spilled

1:09:42

the beans. So we have

1:09:44

a very deep one now. It's like, imagine you're

1:09:46

honest, a deserted island, and you can only take

1:09:48

one piece of tech, which also comes with a

1:09:50

battery that you can charge. Or somehow it's a

1:09:52

deserted island, but it also has power utilities so

1:09:54

you can charge it. What is that going

1:09:56

to be? An

1:09:59

SOS locator. beacons so I could get the heck out

1:10:01

of there. That's the

1:10:03

most practical answer. Man, that's

1:10:06

a good one. I like that. All

1:10:08

right, what's the last open source project

1:10:10

that really impressed you? The software, distro,

1:10:12

anything? I come across a lot of

1:10:14

them, just even just on Flat Hub,

1:10:17

just some of the apps that show

1:10:19

up there. I think there was one

1:10:21

where it was just an AI-generated sort

1:10:24

of photo generator kind of thing. And

1:10:26

just playing around with it, the fact

1:10:28

that it was really simple and user-friendly,

1:10:32

it really spoke to me that I could

1:10:34

just open it, type it in. I

1:10:37

don't have to log into any service. I

1:10:40

thought that was pretty cool. Nice.

1:10:42

If you remember what it's called, let Ryan know so that he can

1:10:44

use it, because he definitely needs that

1:10:46

for thumbnails on YouTube. Hey, how do you? I'll

1:10:50

lock it up and let you know. So,

1:10:54

coffee or tea while coding? What's your

1:10:56

preference? Which one do you like the

1:10:59

best? I generally

1:11:01

go for tea. Coffee, unfortunately, is

1:11:03

my kryptonite. I won't be able to sleep

1:11:05

at night. Even though I

1:11:07

do like the taste of it, I

1:11:09

go for the tea. What about decaf?

1:11:12

Even decaf is too much for me.

1:11:14

I'm just weird. So, for the tea,

1:11:17

is it Earl Grey hot? Nah.

1:11:21

Just like Picard from Star Trek? Sorry.

1:11:25

I generally go for a berry tea or chamomile. Oh,

1:11:27

nice. Yeah,

1:11:29

absolutely. So, if

1:11:31

you could talk with any person in

1:11:33

the history of tech, who

1:11:36

would it be? You

1:11:40

know, I think Nikola Tesla would be

1:11:42

an interesting person to talk to. Oh,

1:11:44

what a good boy. Oh, beautiful choice.

1:11:47

That is a good one. I'd love

1:11:49

to talk to him. Yeah, absolutely. Well,

1:12:00

that's awesome. You made it through the lightning round.

1:12:02

We got nothing else left for you. We

1:12:04

got nothing else left for you. We do have one

1:12:06

special one that Ryan forgot. What

1:12:09

do you, which do you choose? Cupcakes

1:12:11

or muffins? Oh. Ah, yes.

1:12:16

Probably muffins. Yeah. Keep

1:12:19

it simple again. Keep it simple. That's right.

1:12:21

I guess someone installing Zoran after this. Yeah.

1:12:25

Yeah. Nice. So,

1:12:28

RTM. Thank you so much

1:12:30

for coming back to Destination Linux. You

1:12:32

know, we appreciate all the hard work

1:12:35

you and your team does bringing Linux

1:12:37

to more people around the world. We

1:12:39

would love to have you back on

1:12:41

again at the next major

1:12:43

Zoran release. Yeah. Let's

1:12:46

talk about the next Zoran release. We have you back. You're

1:12:48

going to talk about it. Talk about all the great features

1:12:50

and stuff. We got to have you back on for that.

1:12:52

Yeah. And it won't be this long. We just,

1:12:54

we had, it's been so long since you've been on the show. We

1:12:57

had so much to ask you. But,

1:12:59

you know, we'll do it in shorter increments

1:13:01

so we don't have two hour interviews next

1:13:03

time. Thank you, RTM. We appreciate it. Yeah.

1:13:07

No, thanks so much for having me on. It's a blast as

1:13:09

always, and I'm always happy to come back.

1:13:12

Thanks so much. Nice. So

1:13:14

we really hope you enjoyed that interview. I

1:13:16

know we did. A big thank you to

1:13:18

each and every one of you for supporting us

1:13:20

by watching or listening to Destination Linux. However you

1:13:23

do it, we love your faces. Want

1:13:25

to come join our community on Discord

1:13:28

and talk about the show and everything

1:13:30

that went on, all the interview, all

1:13:32

the questions that got answered, then head

1:13:34

to tuxdigital.com/Discord add your opinions, thoughts there,

1:13:36

and you can also send your comments

1:13:38

in. You never know, could be used

1:13:40

in the show. Also, if

1:13:42

you want to support the show, you can

1:13:45

do that by going to tuxdigital.com/membership, where you

1:13:47

can get a bunch of cool perks by

1:13:49

becoming a member. You can watch the show

1:13:51

live with us. You can also join us

1:13:53

in the Pay Your Shroom

1:13:55

Post show that happens every week

1:13:57

after the show. And also you

1:13:59

can get access to the unedited

1:14:01

episodes. and so much more, tuxdigital.com/membership.

1:14:03

And then there's so much more

1:14:05

you can get. You can actually

1:14:07

get some cool merch by going

1:14:09

to tuxdigital.com/store. We have hats, mugs,

1:14:12

hoodies, and so much more, tuxdigital.com/store.

1:14:14

And make sure to check out

1:14:16

all the amazing shows here on

1:14:18

Tux Digital. That's right, we have

1:14:20

an entire network of shows to

1:14:22

fill your whole week with geeky

1:14:24

goodness. Head to tuxdigital.com to keep

1:14:26

those Linux penguins marching and

1:14:29

everybody have a wonderful week.

1:14:31

And remember that the journey

1:14:33

itself is just as important

1:14:35

as the destination. And

1:14:38

head to zorn.com. Yes. Thanks

1:14:42

everyone.