Zorin OS 15.1 is Released: A Better Way to Work, Learn and Play

Just over 6 months ago, we launched Zorin OS 15, our most advanced and refined operating system ever. Since then, it’s been downloaded over 550,000 times around the world. Over 65% of these downloads were coming from Windows and macOS, reflecting our mission to bring the power of Linux to people who’ve never had access to it before. We would like to take this opportunity to thank every one of you for making this release as big and impactful as it has been.

Today, we’re excited to announce that Zorin OS is getting even better with the release of version 15.1. We’ve paid close attention to your feedback and worked hard to make the desktop experience better for work, learning, playing, and everything in between. We’ve focused on making the desktop feel even more familiar and user-friendly to new users, especially those moving away from Windows 7 leading up to the end of its support in one month.

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Improvements to Zorin Connect

Zorin Connect has been upgraded to make the experience between your computer and Android phone even more seamless. The Slideshow remote feature now includes a pointer that responds to your phone’s movement. This makes it easier to get your point across when presenting slide decks.

It’s now also possible to control the playback of the media player on your phone from the notifications menu in Zorin OS 15.1.

Better Microsoft Office compatibility and performance in LibreOffice

The new LibreOffice version 6.3 is now included in Zorin OS 15.1. It has received a plethora of improvements to make it even more compatible with Microsoft Office documents. In addition, documents now open and save up to 97% faster than before.

You can learn more about what’s new and improved in LibreOffice 6.3 here.

Games run faster with GameMode

Zorin OS 15.1 is now an even better platform for gaming thanks to the built-in GameMode, which makes games run faster than ever before. It allocates more CPU, GPU, and disk I/O resources to the game you’re playing, prioritizing its performance on demand. GameMode will automatically be enabled in the background when playing supported games. If you’re using Steam, you can set to enable GameMode for a game by right-clicking on the game in your Steam Library > Properties > Set Launch Options… and entering this text:
gamemoderun %command%

We’d like to give special thanks to the team at Feral Interactive for their work on GameMode.

More customization in Zorin Appearance

When Zorin OS 15 was launched with Zorin Auto Theme – which switches between the Light and Dark theme depending on daytime – we heard from you that it was one of the most loved features of the new release. That’s why we’ve made it even better in Zorin OS 15.1. With the new Manual schedule option, you can now choose the exact time of the day when to start showing the Light and Dark themes from within Zorin Appearance.

We’ve also added a setting to enable and disable the Dynamic background opacity of the Panel, which changes its transparency when a window is nearby or maximized.

It’s now also possible to set the Window Manager theme from within Zorin Appearance in Zorin OS Lite.

The font that helps you remember better

A new font has been introduced in Zorin OS 15.1: Sans Forgetica. It was designed using the principles of cognitive psychology to help you remember text better. Its unusual and disrupted letterforms subtly prompt readers to increase cognitive processing on the text, increasing memory retention. It’s the perfect font to use when highlighting important points in your study notes.

You can learn more about Sans Forgetica from the team of designers and behavioral scientists at RMIT University who created it here.

Updated System Technologies

Many of the built-in system technologies have seen improvements for better security, compatibility, and performance. Zorin OS 15.1 is now powered by Linux Kernel version 5.0, which works with even more hardware and introduces performance enhancements and security improvements.

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How to get Zorin OS 15.1

All editions of Zorin OS 15.1 are available to download immediately from the download page on our website.

Download

All Zorin OS 15 users can update to Zorin OS 15.1 by installing the latest updates from the Software Updater today.

If you’ve purchased Zorin OS 15 Ultimate, you can download your copy of Zorin OS 15.1 Ultimate or Ultimate Lite from the download link in the original purchase email.