In the worst-case scenario, yes… but the wording on the Windows dialog literally says, “There is a problem with your device and you should scan it” and then when you do, “Your device is ready to use, no problems were found.” This, after it was ejected and got the safe removal notification. 🤷‍♂️

Them eggs is spensive cuz they real good ones. I gottem and gonna eatum with my limited edition cheese and laugh at the poors!

There exists a modern EPROM replacement that internally uses flash and the chip itself has a USB port on it, but I can’t remember the name.

Liches ain’t shit, but foes and tricks

Phylactery gems that one has hid…

grub’s always been a hack. The first stage in 512 byte boot sector chainloads the second stage in the space between boot sector and the first sectors of first partition. Second stage chainloads the kernel. (This is my primitive gist.)

grub was never made for security, it just exists in a place where one would think security would be priority… but again, physical access = pwned, etc.

Not quite the same, but funny: I recently unlocked an HDD from a car head unit to prove to a friend that it was only storing music ripped from its CD drive (and the associated minimal CD title database)… Toshiba master HDD password is 32 spaces. 😅

Better replace your keyboard everytime you leave it unattended, someone could put a keylogger in it. Don’t forget to check for hidden pinhole cameras around that capture you inputting your passwords. Etc, etc. Those even work against an encrypted drive…

Jesus, the downvotes! Well, I thought it was funny! 😂

Even if you understand the commands, you need to trust the website because a malicious site can use JavaScript to copy something completely different into your clipboard, with a newline character at the end to automatically execute when pasted. (Is the newline exploit fixed in all shells? It used to fail in zsh but work in many others…)

One can also paste into a text editor to verify before pasting into terminal, but what noob is going to know or bother to?

The sudo who do what-you-don’t-have-permissions-to-do people.

What process? KDE under Wayland and I’m guessing you have Nvidia?

Edit: CachyOS. I see references to pageflip kernel bugs on AMD, too. You’re running a cutting-edge OS (Arch-based), please get in touch with devs and help improve your OS and maybe learn something along the way?

Edit: Arch of all things, you are a guinea pig. Just like on Windows, except open-source so you can help.

Sorry if harsh, it’s getting late:

I’ve been on Linux for 20 years. Gamer, so dual-booted for the first 10. Ubuntu -> Linux Mint -> Debian -> Mint Debian -> EndeavourOS. I think. Messed with Knoppix and Mandrake before those, THAT was definitely before the “YotLD” 😅

Ads in the OS make me kick that shit out in an instant. Yes, I know there are third-party utils but I’ve seen settings reverted on update, and if I’m fighting my own PC it’s going to be by choice and I’m going to learn to improve it along the way, which is not easy in closed-source land. If ads didn’t do it, “AI” “stealing” my data would. Somehow piracy bad but I have to agree to let Microsoft copy my data for profit in order for me to use my computer? Fuck that.

You could make a Windows killer desktop, except which distro?

Mint Debian for computer-illiterate. The built-in software manager has tens of thousands of safe Debian packages available rather than installing adware infestations from random websites. Two clicks and a password OR set automatic for getting all software up-to-date.

EndeavourOS for tech-inclined. More cutting-edge software packages from Arch (and the AUR, but adds a bit of risk/required knowledge). Still no installing random shit from websites.

Which shell/tools/utilities?

The defaults, or whatever you want or need from a wide selection. Choice is bad now?

Steam, duh. Lutris has scripts to install the older/more picky/fiddly Windows games that aren’t on Steam. For students/office work, OnlyOffice has better compatibility with MS formats if necessary. List goes on…

Arch is not for Grandma or the average user, try Mint Debian.

Naive take imo. No distro is an excellent desktop.

Wow. Not a single one, huh? I’m sure manufacturers assuming Windows and lazily building hardware that does 90% of the work in giant closed-source drivers have nothing to do with the “flaws and issues” that ALL distros apparently have some of.

No Linux distro I’ve run has had a necessary parent process like “explorer.exe” crash causing the PC to mysteriously stop working with no indication of what’s happening, an issue I’m still encountering in others’ Windows PCs 25 years later… or having the main (Start) menu responding to clicks/taps (changing color like it’s activated) but not opening the menu, seen that on multiple Windows machines with perfectly fine hardware. Maybe it was too busy loading unwanted, unsolicited ads into the Start menu to do its job.

The “average user” will either pay a not-insignificant amount of money to fix issues or throw away still-good hardware and buy new every 3-5 years, at which point they will still need help backing up and restoring their data unless they are sending it all to Microsoft cloud who is training “AI” with it for profit. Environmentally and financially taxing but I guess I can’t complain; more free/dirt-cheap Linux boxes for my friends and family!

Edit: My wife and son are gaming on up-to-date OSes on PCs that are old enough to drive a car. Truth be told, my son has a slightly newer video card than that, though. Energy use is becoming a concern although it’s not really wasted when we need to heat the house six or seven months out of the year where we are.

Just watch or dispose of those lithium ion batteries! I wish they weren’t such a pain in the ass to open, removing them leaves that hole with exposed contacts, and phones/tablets with custom ROMs could be perfect little servers for 3D printers and the like, but often won’t power up without their batteries.

explorer (file manager, taskbar) crashed a lot and had to do win+r -> explorer.exe to get it going again.

This still happens on up-to-date Win10 occasionally. I’ve seen it on multiple machines, hardware tests good. A variant I’ve seen is that the Start button responds to click (changes color) but does not open the menu.

Thanks! Like I said I got it running but it’s a bit of a mystery. If you are interested, here’s where I gave up on Mint Debian for gaming because I couldn’t fix the same problem on the same PC.

Hardware is known to be good. Greatly enjoying EndeavourOS and I wanted to get familiar with Wayland and some newer software anyway.

Just upgraded my EndeavourOS (Arch btw) and saw Nvidia driver update. Reboot, KDE came up successfully, OK, good. Play game, stuttering right on the title screen. 😑

From my idiot troubleshooting with Nvidia in the past, I disable “Allow screen tearing in fullscreen windows.” Test, runs perfectly now. The funny thing is that I had to enable that option in the past to make the same stuttering go away. 🤷‍♂️

Someone suggested maybe that option doesn’t matter and I just had to start the game multiple times because of shader cache? IDK, but I do know that my next card will be AMD.

$ sudo usermod -l root susudio

$ su susudio

# ohh

Don’t do this, it summons an angry Phil

sudon’t