Hmm. I've used Linux Mint off and on over the years. Might have to give ZorinOS a try. I like the idea of installing a Windows program by running the exe file and it setting it up automatically without having to get WINE up and running first. I wonder how well that actually works.

I was wondering why most apps have to be launched via terminal, looked up if there was a way around it. The first result was someone yelling at the person who asked if it was possible because "it's a feature of Linux" and "that's how you use computers efficiently."

Basically, I have a 2011 MacBook Pro 15”. I’ve replaced the battery and upgraded the RAM and replaced the 500GB HDD with a 500GB SSD. It’s great! The machine is truly the fastest mobile computer I have.

The 2011 MBP was let go from software updates a while ago, meaning, natively, macOS High Sierra is as high as I can get the thing.

Luckily, this computer is from an era when Apple actually made computers and not eWaste, so I just erased macOS off of it and flashed Zorin OS (an Ubuntu-based Linux distro) onto it. The computer is now even better! It’s my primary productivity machine. The display, speakers, battery life, and thermals are all pretty bad, but it’s just so snappy and problem free I can’t help it.

Now, when I set up Zorin OS I used LVM Encryption to encrypt the entire disk. Basically, upon booting, before anything happens, I’m prompted with a password box. Once I put in the encryption key, the computer would continue booting and bring me to my usual login screen. Great! Easy peasy, extra secur-sy. Well. That was the case.

Somehow, in my efforts to find a way to stop Linux from using my MBP’s Discrete GPU in favor of its Integrated (more efficient, less power hungry) one, I broke something in the EFI or SMC idk. Reinstalling didn’t help. MacOS Recovery mode didn’t help. The only way I fixed it was by wiping the device, running the installer USB, downloading the script I used to fuck it up, and then running it to undo what I previous had it do. This worked. Luckily, I was keeping the machine backed up with Timeshift. So, I wiped the computer again and installed Zorin OS, fresh, reinstalled Timeshift, and restored from backup. The only problem?

When I reinstalled Zorin, I didn’t use LVM Encryption because I was tired of having to manually type in that 25 randomized character password I chose. As a result, now every time I boot the computer, I’m prompted with a “Waiting for encrypted device, (name).” That prevents the machine from booting for about 5 minutes until it just randomly decides “ope, never mind” and finally takes me to my login screen. It does nothing in prohibiting me from using the computer expect prolong it. It’s just annoying and weird as hell, and I have no idea how to get rid of it.

Clearly, the way Timeshift resorted the device has it thinking it’s still an encrypted volume, and I have no idea how to tell it that it is not.