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“Something has gone seriously wrong,” dual-boot systems warn after Microsoft update (arstechnica.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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Last Tuesday, loads of Linux users—many running packages released as early as this year—started reporting their devices were failing to boot. Instead, they received a cryptic error message that included the phrase: “Something has gone seriously wrong.”

The cause: an update Microsoft issued as part of its monthly patch release. It was intended to close a 2-year-old vulnerability in GRUB, an open source boot loader used to start up many Linux devices. The vulnerability, with a severity rating of 8.6 out of 10, made it possible for hackers to bypass secure boot, the industry standard for ensuring that devices running Windows or other operating systems don’t load malicious firmware or software during the bootup process. CVE-2022-2601 was discovered in 2022, but for unclear reasons, Microsoft patched it only last Tuesday.

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The reports indicate that multiple distributions, including Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Zorin OS, Puppy Linux, are all affected. Microsoft has yet to acknowledge the error publicly, explain how it wasn’t detected during testing, or provide technical guidance to those affected. Company representatives didn’t respond to an email seeking answers.

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[–] 31 points 2 years ago (53 children)

Y'all, help a dummy out. I dual boot windows and Fedora. I only keep windows around for a very few college classes that require for screenwriting software. I have not booted into windows in months. I have a screenwriting class coming up in a week.

How worried should I be? I am not great with computers, I run fedora mostly because I support the philosophy of Linux, less for the techy stuff. Please advice, Linux people. I'm scurred.

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  • [–] 19 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    Does that screenwriting software require a lot of performance? You might opt to install Windows into a virtual machine, as described here: https://www.windowscentral.com/how-setup-windows-10-virtual-machine-linux

    Essentially you're using some software to emulate a computer inside your computer that can run any operating system you want. It doesn't need to touch your actual operating system installation, you can treat it as just another program. For your use case that sounds appropriate; you occasionally need to run specific software that has low system requirements. This way you can do that without risking Microsoft borking your Linux machine any time it feels like it.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I'd imagine it requires about as much as a word processor, since that's basically what it is. A word processor with a specialized template and some nifty autofill options. Again, dummy here. If I'm running a virtual machine, can I create a file in it that is saved to my actual machine, or would I need to, like, email it to myself using the virtual windows os?

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Don't use Virtualbox as it is a Hype 2 hypervisor not a hype 1. You want actually KVM via Libvirt. Libvirt also has the advantage of not requiring any proprietary software. (Just make sure to install the virtual drivers)

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    That's all fine and dandy but OP said they're not very technical. Conceptually Virtualbox is a lot simpler to deal with. There's a lot of advantages (philosophical and practical) to be had with a KVM or QEMU setup for sure, but if you want a simple to understand click-it-together setup then Virtualbox is better. If OP wants to graduate to a better setup then I hope they go for a good FOSS solution eventually but going straight for the deep end is rarely a good idea if you want people to understand what they're doing.

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  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago

    Sorry idk specifically how to avoid the update, but the linked ArsTechnica article has some advice

    Someone here advised & I’d agree: use a Windows VM, for things you haven’t found the Linux version of yet.

    Windows’s plan to screenshot everything will include your private artistic work too, so you’ll be doing yourself a favor

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago (6 children)

    When I was still dual-booting Windows and Linux, I found that "raw disk" mode virtual machines worked wonders. I used VirtualBox, so you'd want a guide somewhat like this: https://superuser.com/questions/495025/use-physical-harddisk-in-virtual-box - other VM solutions are available, which don't require you to accept an agreement with Oracle.

    Essentially, rather than setting aside a file on disk as your VM's disk, you can set aside a whole existing disk. That can be a disk that already has Windows installed on it, it doesn't erase what you have. Then you can start Windows in a VM and let it do its updates - since it can't see the bootloader from within the VM, it can't fuck it up. You can run any software that doesn't have particularly high graphics requirement, too.

    I was also able to just "restart in Windows" if I wanted full performance for a game or something like that, but since Linux has gotten very good indeed at running games, that became less and less necessary until one day I just erased my Windows partition to recover the space.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    I've never run a virtual machine, because I've always had, frankly, really shitty laptops. Like... Cheapest of the cheap without being a Chromebook. Only decent computer I've ever bought got broken within a month. :(

    Can I run VMs on really low end specs? The screenwriting software is the only thing I need it for, and I'm assuming it's pretty much the same as running a word processor.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Provided your CPU has virtualization features (described here) then the performance overhead for virtualization is negligible. So very probably you'll be fine.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    The memory requirements for virtualization is not negligible.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    That depends, if you're going to run a barebones W10 install with what amounts to a word processor I think 2GB should be enough. If you can run Chrome you can run a VM. 4GB if you're feeling generous, that's a fair compromise as compared to the disadvantages of dual booting.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    I remember trying to push the limits with a Windows 10 VM, and 2GB was the bare minimum;
    however, Windows loves to abuse virtual memory (basically using the main storage drive instead of RAM) and if that drive is a HDD the PC is little more than an IoT space heater.

    A relative of mine has a Windows 10 PC with 4GB of memory and it takes ~ 5 minutes to start Chrome after booting it up; it does have a lot of miscellaneous bloatware on it, though.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Do you know which bootloader you have? There are two popular ones in use currently, one called systemd boot, the other is called grub. From reading this post only grub seems to be affected. I don't really know which one fedora defaults to at the moment, and it likely depends on what happened during the installation process as well.

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  • [+] 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (11 children)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (10 children)

    They require a program called Final Draft. I looked around but couldn't find an alternative

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago* (9 children)

    Try running it in Bottles. A lot of programs work there without many issues.

    Use Bottles Flatpak

    Bottles uses WINE which is way more performant than a VM.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (7 children)

    Technically it uses Soda + Proton but same diff

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (6 children)

    Can you install windows in a VM instead? VirtualBox is easy to set up.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    Don't use Virtualbox as native libvirt will be faster and doesn't involve any licensing.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    Depends if you care more about performance or ease of use. Based on the fact that OP hadn't considered VM as a solution, I assume they aren't super familiar with hypervisors.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (3 children)

    Virtualbox is a pain. Virtual manager is much easier and natively supported. You just click new and then follow the wizard

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    That's not at all the case in my experience. Sure virtual box modules can be harder to install, but libvirt has so many issues that the average user has no idea about. I've had networking issues, display issues, and so on. At one point it read the display scaling information and scaled down the VM display instead of scaling it up. Furthermore RedHat don't even support virt manager anymore. They want you to use Cockpit. Honestly the all around best virtualization solution is probably VMWare or something like Gnome boxes or QuickEmu.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Which screenwriting software? Have you tried running it under WINE?

    And do you HAVE to use that one in particular? Or can you use something like Trelby, Manuskript, or Scrite?

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    The school pays for final draft, and I am poor. But someone else just showed me fade in was free and works with Linux, so I'm gonna try that out!

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    It looks like some GRUB versions are fixed, e.g. possibly in Ubuntu from 22.10. Dunno if Fedora has the fixed version. I'm facing the same with my Mint/Windows dual boot; considering not booting windows till I'm ready to upgrade Mint to 22.

    If you do get problems, it also looks like you can get around it by turning off secure boot until things are sorted.

    If you're not an experienced Linux meddler I wouldn't recommend changing your bootloader from the default given by your distribution, but I guess if this is widespread most distros will upgrade their bootlodladers soon to deal with it.

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