WARNING: HP Bios Update

The Question

Eternal
In the event anybody else here owns an HP desktop or laptop -- and in the event it's not already too late -- DO NOT accept the HP Bios update through Windows Update. It WILL fuck up your login -- to the tune of it won't accept your login PIN. The only fix for that is to wipe your drive and reinstall Windows entirely.
 

jack

The Legendary Troll Kingdom
That explains a bunch.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
I miss the days when updates actually made things work better and be more secure.
 

Eggs Mayonnaise

All In With The Nuts
I use HP's tools to do HP updates. Windows can mind its own damn business.
 

jack

The Legendary Troll Kingdom
I had no idea there was an HP update in Windows. My fucking laptop has been doing screwy stuff for a few days now. The updates are automatic. I'm asleep or otherwise not around when they go down.
 

The Question

Eternal
It took a 100%, 'wiping the boot drive' level Windows reset to get things back in order. Of course, now that means a few days lost to reinstalling and re-optimizing all my shit.

For a hot minute there, I was tempted to just shitcan this fucking machine and put Ubuntu on an old Mac Mini I have sitting in my desk drawer.
 

The Question

Eternal
And then I decided... naw, Windows can suck my left dick. Setting up Zorin OS 16 Core, will probably spring for the Pro version later.
 

The Question

Eternal
This is what Vivaldi 5 looks like on Zorin OS. Not bad. There are still kinks to iron out, like getting Scrivener to play nice with Wine so I can run it on this OS. I'll figure that out. Eventually.

vGKgnU5.png
 

The Question

Eternal
As a follow-up: Zorin OS 16 was probably The best, most user-friendly Linux distribution I've ever tried, and I've been trying various distros for decades -- none of them got more than a few days of life on my various machines. Zorin OS was different. Sadly, though, it was the same in one particular, and that particular was a dealbreaker:

Wine.

It's supposed to be a translation layer that will allow a Linux user to install and run Windows applications. Such as, for example, Scrivener. That's the app I use for long-form writing. You'll note that I wrote, "supposed to." Because, in practice, it doesn't; at least, not without a lot of pocket-protector-sporting, Melvin-ass, neckjungle bullshit.

If the developers of Wine ever break out a version that does what it's supposed to fucking do, I'll switch back to Zorin that same fucking day. Until then, no dice.

Also, if you use a laptop or desktop, do yourself a solid and get Cloudflare WARP. It's a goodness for your network-y shit.
 

The Question

Eternal
As a follow-up: Zorin OS 16 was probably The best, most user-friendly Linux distribution I've ever tried, and I've been trying various distros for decades -- none of them got more than a few days of life on my various machines. Zorin OS was different. Sadly, though, it was the same in one particular, and that particular was a dealbreaker:

Wine.

It's supposed to be a translation layer that will allow a Linux user to install and run Windows applications. Such as, for example, Scrivener. That's the app I use for long-form writing. You'll note that I wrote, "supposed to." Because, in practice, it doesn't; at least, not without a lot of pocket-protector-sporting, Melvin-ass, neckjungle bullshit.

If the developers of Wine ever break out a version that does what it's supposed to fucking do, I'll switch back to Zorin that same fucking day. Until then, no dice.

Also, if you use a laptop or desktop, do yourself a solid and get Cloudflare WARP. It's a goodness for your network-y shit.
As a follow-up to the follow-up... they finally did it. The Zorin devs finally figured out a way to un-fuck the ability to install and run Windows apps on their distro. I now have a dual-boot setup with Windows 11 64 Home on the internal drive and Zorin OS 16.2 Core on the external SSD. It's... interesting.
 
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