Is it safe to upgrade to paid version of a distro if I'm dual booting?
My primary OS is Windows (I use it for work) and I have Linux as my second OS. If I upgrade my linux distro to the paid version so I can have more features, will Windows be okay? Thanks I'm a newb
As others have said, there usually is no such thing, and if there is, your distro is probably practically a scam and you should find another.
What distro are you running?
Some legitimate distros may have extra support available for a cost, but that just means support, not extra features. Also, they sometimes have things like live patching, but that really is more an enterprise grade feature.
I'm using ZorinOS and I really like how simple it is and I want to support the project. If I upgrade to the Pro version then I get more desktop themes/options.
But I understand what you mean. I could just install for example Debian with KDE desktop and have more customizing options for free.
If you like Zorin and want to support it then just do it. Don’t let other people tell you to switch, more people should contribute.
ALL of the listed features from zorin pro have free alternatives, unless you really want microsoft office, screen sharing, adobe premier, etc... just stick with the free version and find free viable alternatives. Libreoffice, kdenlive, etc. How did you land on zorin to begin with? Most new users are recommended to use fedora, ubuntu-gnome, and linux mint. To me, just looking at zorins website they do not share the most basic principles of the linux space (being free and open source). I highly recomend switching, if you could run
echo $XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP
This will output the name of your display manager like gnome, kde, etc. The version of zorin you are running is more than certainly using a popular one. Just find a distro that uses the same one. And your user experience will be almost exactly the same. Zorin might have some QOL features but definitely not anything you couldnt implement yourself.
Feel free to reach out here for more help if you run into any brick walls. You already dual booted your pc so i have faith that you have a pretty good grasp on what you are doing. If time is a factor and you just need a distro that "works" stick with what you have, and find FOSS alternatives for zorin. Best of luck
I don't know if Zorin doesen't just add additional repo to pro version. You should mail them and ask, if there could be any problems. Have you done some additional steps to dual boot? If not, then even installing pro version from .iso should be safe.
It's kind of creepy, weird, and unusual. However, I can see someone building a distro and creating a bunch of non-OSS themes and basically selling the themes. That's not beyond the pale, although it is (again) questionably moral given that they probably created all of those themes using free software that they didn't pay for. But whatever.. just keep that in mind.
The usual way of commoditizing Linux is to sell service - so you get, like, 4 tickets a month or something where someone is guaranteed to be there to try to fix whatever problem you have within a reasonable amount of time, and you don't have to either rely on the kindness of strangers.
Zorin is mainstream enough that I suspect if they were really violating the GPL, someone would be on their case already. You can't - usually, depending on the license - just repackage OSS and sell it. So if that's how you wanted to spend your money, you do you and don't worry about the comments on this thread.
Oh, about your question: according to the upgrade page, the "upgrade" is just access to more packages, probably in another repos. You won't have to re-install the distribution, and there won't be any impact on your dual boot. You're just getting more packages to install.
It's not a scam at all, Zorin is a good distro.
Personally, I dislike Zorin, but I can see your point. I didn't know it was Zorin at the time I I just find paywalling some FOSS stuff that isn't entirely yours very weird, and I also don't think users should touch almost anything Ubuntu-based, especially new ones. Mint might be the exception, but it's not to my tastes as well personally.
I think I agree with my university's Linux Users Group recommendation of Fedora, though I personally use Debian.
Honestly, if Debian would tidy up their website, make the Calamares-based installers the default, and perhaps had an installer with backports kernel built-in, it could be the easiest distro out there - I think everything else in Debian is almost perfect for most people. They don't even have to compromise on all that "universal operating system" stuff - they could just offer multiple installers. As for the website, I can get why they need to use a static site with HTML4, but that shouldn't stop them from designing a simple-to-use website.
Also, had no idea you were also in this community. Pleasant surprise.
If you want to support a *nix distro, that's awesome and I fully support you. What you shouldn't support is distributions locking features behind a paywall.
This is how you get Microsoft Windows and Copilot.
To answer your question--Windows is destructive to *nix boot sectors. When you update Windows, it will bork your *nix install. Dual booting with Windows is a real PITA.
According to this comment
https://lemmy.world/post/29546682/17016426
it's not absolutely proprietary. It's just Free Software they are selling, which is approved by Root Mean Square.
I have never seen a paid consumer distro.
A paid linux version for personal use? Which distro are you using? Get a popular free distro like mint.
I'm pretty sure you should be fine. Seeing as you mentioned you're running Zorin in another comment, there's a page from their support site that tells how to update. From my reading of it, it shouldn't risk messing up your dual-boot situation unless you're doing a fresh install (in which case, even that should be fine assuming you make sure to overwrite the correct partitions). You're miles more likely to experience issues dual-booting after a Windows update than any Linux updates.
Side-note, while I understand that people are trying to help by saying you can run some other Linux distro for free, that's neither helpful nor answers the question. I paid for a copy of elementaryOS once because I wanted to support the project, and their very fair pay-what-you-want scheme allowed me to use what was my first Linux distro for free.
I get that some people might be turned off by Zorin keeping some cosmetic features "locked" behind a pawyall, but they really aren't -- you can make all those changes manually with other apps/editing config files manually, it just isn't as easy or seamless. But that's the point of their business model, they save non-essential features for the paid version as an extra incentive to support their work on a solid distro, knowing that some people might either value the convenience enough, or simply want to support the development monetarily.
A paid version of Linux (almost) isn't a thing. You can buy the install media, you can donate to a foundation, or you can subscribe for support.
If you're paying for the software, it's not Linux or your being cheated. That's weird and I didn't know that.
If you're already dual booting, your windows install should still be safe. I'm not saying it will be, just that going to a paid version of Linux shouldn't change anything about either install.
Afaik, zorin just uses a key to "unlock" things, so you won't be changing anything at all.
Holy shit I thought this was satire until I read the comments. There are distros that lock features behind a paywall??
they don't
25 years ago I purchased Corel Linux. Do not recommend.
Depends what you're talking about. If it's something like Zorin OS, then yes, it's fine. If you're talking about switching from Fedora to RHEL, it's a bit more complex.