Not too long ago, my colleague Chandraveer Mathur wrote about how he preferred to ditch Windows for ChromeOS Flex over switching to a more typical Linux distribution. That article sparked a lot of... opposition in the comment section, and while I understand his position, I'm also on the other side of the fence on this topic. There are tons of Linux-based operating systems out there, and I would rather choose one of them than switch to ChromeOS Flex.

Specifically, I recently went hands-on with Zorin OS, an Ubuntu-based distro that offers a few options for customizing your desktop out of the box, making it feel a bit more like Windows, while having some of the modern design elements of ChromeOS and other alternatives. Here's why Zorin OS is a great option for reviving your old PC.

Familiar, yet new

And a world of customization available

If you're reviving an old Windows laptop that doesn't support Windows 11, or you simply want to move away from Microsoft's OS, chances are you're fairly familiar with it. So, if you're moving to something else, it's nice to have something that gives you a sense of familiarity, which Zorin OS does fairly well. The default appearance for Zorin OS has a taskbar and aoo menu that's most similar to Windows 7 in terms of its overall design and layout of the Start menu, though instead of showing apps on the left side, you'll see app categories, which you can then explore. Of course, you can also just search for apps.

You can customize the appearance with a taskbar that expands to show window labels, similar to how apps were displayed prior to Windows 7, and then there's one mode that replicates ChromeOS with full-screen app launcher (which is really just Ubuntu's own app list in this case), or a more Ubuntu-like experience that has a system bar along the top with the option to open the Overview screen. Regardless of what theme you choose, the Windows key (called Super key on Ubuntu) always opens the Overview. To open the typical app menu equivalent, you need to use the mouse, which is a bit of bummer. That being said, the Overview screen lets you immediately type to search for apps, so it's just as easy to use with just the keyboard.

A huge benefit of any Linux distro, though, especially with GNOME as the desktop environment, is the customization. Sure, Zorin OS may look a good bit like Windows out of the box, but with some GNOME Extensions, you can radically change the look and feel to anything you want. It's a level of customization that not even Windows offers, and ChromeOS Flex is even worse in that regard. Zorin OS runs laps around it.

Running full apps

ChromeOS Flex is a glorified web machine

As often as it is said these days that most laptops are just Chrome machines, every now and then, you may need as "real" app. A program designed for the desktop that fully leverages its resources. Maybe that app is the web browser of your choice. On ChromeOS Flex, you can't do any of that. Any app for ChromeOS is little more than a web wrapper, showing you a web page in a way that makes it look like a proper app. And yes, you can do a lot with web apps these days, but you can't do everything, and it may not always be the most comfortable.

The app selection on Linux may be far from what's available on Windows, but it's still leagues ahead of ChromeOS. On Zorin OS, you can use an app like Kdenlive or DaVinci Resolve to edit videos at a professional level. You can use OBS to record and stream your screen or gameplay footage. Office apps are available, such as LibreOffice or WPS Office. You can choose any web browser other than Google Chrome, with options like Firefox, Vivaldi, or Zen Browser all available for the platform.

There is simply a lot more to choose from and a lot you can do with Linux that you can't do on ChromeOS Flex.

It works with your phone

Zorin Connect is pretty cool

One of the cool things about ChromeOS Flex is that, since it's also made by Google, it also tends to work well with Android phones for cross-device connectivity. That's a legitimate selling point, but the thing is, Zorin OS is also excellent in this regard. In some ways, it's even better than Windows or ChromeOS Flex, and it's all thanks to Zorin Connect.

Zorin Connect is baked into Zorin OS, and it's an app you can install on your Android phone, using either the Play Store or F-Droid. It links up your phone and PC in a way that's very similar to a solution like KDE Connect, but it has a more modern UI overall. Once connected, your phone and PC can share all kinds of things — you can sync your clipboard, view notifications from either device, and even send files directly from one device to the other in a flash.

One of the coolest features of Zorin Connect, though is being able to use your phone as a mouse and keyboard for your computer, or even using your computer to control your phone (though this doesn't work quite as well). You can even send your clipboard contents across devices, too. You're also supposed to be able to remotely control media playback, though I found this doesn't work very reliably. Still, there's a lot of cool functionality here.

Even Android apps can be supported

Waydroid to the rescue

When you think of ChromeOS, one of the big features that might come to mind is the ability to run Android apps, which most modern Chromebooks do support. But as true as that may be, ChromeOS Flex — the version you can actually install on your PC — doesn't include Android app support.

Once again, Zorin OS (and Linux in general) come out on top here. Thanks to the Waydroid project, it's actually fairly easy to run Android apps inside a Linux distro such as Zorin. All you need to do is install Waydroid, and you'll have a full instance of LineageOS running on your PC. Since it doesn't include Google apps (you can use GApps, but I wasn't successful with this), you might be a bit limited, but a lot of apps will work just fine. You can download app stores like F-Droid to find the apps you need, or simply download them directly using the included web browser and a website like APKMirror.

Aside from Telegram, which refused to send me login notifications, a I tried a handful of apps that worked totally fine, including Reddit and K-9 Mail. And because Android is designed for touch, this whole experience works quite well with tablets, too (which can't really be said for Zorin OS in general).

It's still lightweight

Zorin OS doesn't need too much

Reviving an old PC means you're probably looking to install an operating system that isn't too demanding on resources, and you might think ChromeOS Flex is the best option for that reason. But really, Zorin doesn't need a whole lot, either. Looking at the official requirements, it can run on PCs with just 1.5GB of RAM and 15GB of storage for the Core version.

I installed it on a fairly high-end PC from a few years ago — an HP Envy x360 15 with an 8th-generation Intel Core i7 (Kaby Lake Refresh) and 16GB of RAM — and the experience was pretty great. Everything launched relatively quickly and animations played out smoothly. Even running Android apps didn't seem to slow it down significantly. Of course, this is still on the higher-end of PCs for many people, but my experience would suggest you're in for a solid experience. It's not like every PC unsupported by Windows 11 is a low-end computer, anyway — a lot of them are actually quite capable, and they're unsupported for seemingly arbitrary reasons.

Forget ChromeOS Flex, embrace Linux

There's an argument to be made that ChromeOS Flex is simpler to set up than most Linux distros, but really, if you're using something like Zorin OS, the installation process isn't difficult at all, and things mostly just work out of the box without barely even needing the command line. During my time, I only used it to install Waydroid, which you might not need. Aps can be installed relatively easily with the Software store, which supports Flathub out of the box for easy setup.

Zorin OS is very user-friendly, and it's far more capable than ChromeOS Flex in just about every way. In my view, there's no contest, and I recommend checking out Zorin OS for yourself.