Zorin OS 17.1 is Now Available

A little over two months after the release of Zorin OS 17, Zorin announced today that its successor, Zorin OS 17.1, is now available. This time, there’s an Education edition of this user-friendly Linux distribution as well.

“Zorin OS 17 has been downloaded over half a million times after just over two months since its release,” the announcement post explains. “More than 78 percent of these downloads came from proprietary platforms like Windows and macOS, reflecting our mission to bring the power of Linux to new people and to grow the community for the benefit of all.”

As you may recall, Zorin OS 17 was a major release that added features such as universal search, Power Modes, Spatial Desktop, and Spatial Window Switcher, plus improvements to the Software Store, Quick Settings, screenshots and screen recordings, and more. Zorin OS 17.1 builds on that release and adds:

Tailored alternatives to more Windows apps. When you run the installer for popular Windows apps like Opera or Todoist, Zorin OS will direct you to install the native Linux version instead. This feature has been expanded to support over 100 apps.

Wine 9.0. For those who wish to run Windows apps directly in Zorin OS, the system now ships with Wine 9.0, a major update to this compatibility layer that marks the completion of a multi-year rearchitecting effort. Among the additions is WoW64, a new mode that lets Wine run 32-bit Windows apps on 64-bit Linux, experimental support for the Wayland graphics driver, and ARM64 support (the ability to run Windows apps on an ARM64-based PC).

Bottles. This sandboxing solution is a new way to run Windows apps in Linux. It provides gaming, software, and custom environments, a dependency manager, and community-provided installers for specific Windows apps and games.

Education edition. Zorin OS Education edition includes everything in Zorin OS 17.1 plus educational software aimed at preschool, primary, and secondary schools like Reading Strip and Logseq.

LibreOffice 24.2. Zorin OS 17.1 ships with the latest version of LibreOffice, which adds many UI enhancements and improved Microsoft Office/Microsoft 365 documents.

Improved underpinnings. Zorin OS 17.1 includes the same Linux kernel and graphics stack versions as Ubuntu 23.10, and it comes with updated drivers for hardware like Intel Core Ultra processors, AMD Zen 4 CPUs (including newer Ryzen and EPYC chips), NVIDIA graphics cards, Wi-Fi 7 chipsets, Steam Deck, and more game controllers.

There’s a lot more, so check out the original blog post for the complete list.

You can download Zorin OS 17.1 Core, Pro, or Education from the Zorin website. Zorin OS 17.1 Core and Education are free, while Pro—which adds more desktop layouts, creative apps, advanced productivity tools, support, and more—is available for $48. Those already running Zorin OS 16 or 17 can upgrade to Zorin OS 17.1 for free as well; the newer system supports in-place upgrades using the bundled Software Updater, while those on Zorin OS 16 can reference these upgrade instructions.

You can also acquire Zorin OS with a new PC from Laptop with Linux.