Over the past few years, Zorin OS has rightfully earned its place among the top desktop Linux distributions, especially for its clean, polished, and user-friendly design.
It’s built mainly with newcomers in mind—particularly those considering making the jump from Windows to Linux—and delivers a desktop experience that feels comfortably familiar to anyone used to Windows.
As we informed you, the latest Zorin OS 18 release landed just a few days ago. And whether by coincidence or clever timing, it was announced on October 14—the very same day Microsoft ended support for Windows 10. The message couldn’t be clearer: Windows users, Zorin OS is ready to welcome you.
In a recent social media post, the Zorin OS team shared an impressive milestone — in less than 48 hours, Zorin OS 18 has been downloaded over 100K times, and that number keeps climbing, making it, in Zorin’s words, “our biggest launch ever.”
That alone is pretty remarkable, but here’s what’s even more interesting — about 72% of those downloads came from Windows users. Now that really makes you stop and think.
It seems that the recent push from several Linux distributions to attract frustrated Windows 10 users — following Microsoft’s decision to end support — might actually be starting to pay off.
This brings up that age-old question that’s become more of a running joke in Linux forums than a serious debate: Is this finally the year of Linux on the desktop? Well, just like years ago, the answer is still the same—no. Honestly, I don’t think that day will ever really come. But that’s a whole other discussion.
Still, what Zorin has pulled off here is impressive. Hitting 100K downloads in just 48 hours is a strong indication that the distro’s user base is expanding fast. Whether this surge is directly linked to the end of Windows 10 support remains uncertain, but the timing is hard to overlook as a possible contributing factor.
Finally, it would certainly be interesting to see comparable numbers from other major players in the Linux desktop space—and, more specifically, from Linux Mint or Ubuntu—but no such data has been shared so far. In any case, congratulations to the Zorin team; the achievement is well earned.
