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.

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.

  • Dharma Curious (he/him)@slrpnk.net
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    2 months ago

    I looked into it, but I can’t afford it out of pocket. The school pays for final draft, but won’t cover anything else :/ If I could, that would definitely be my go-to

    • Presently42@lemmy.ca
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      2 months ago

      It’s free tho? Except for some minor limitations:

      “The free downloadable demonstration version of Fade In includes all key functionality except for online realtime collaboration, and will place a watermark on any printed/PDF output.”

      And there are ways around those

      • Dharma Curious (he/him)@slrpnk.net
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        2 months ago

        Oh shit, this I did not know. I just Googled the price and I guess it only showed the paid version. Sweet! Thank you! If this works, I can officially uninstall Windows! That’s literally the last thing holding me to it. :D

        • Presently42@lemmy.ca
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          2 months ago

          My pleasure. I will mention, that unless the author changed the program since last I used it, it also has a small popup every ten minutes or so, asking if you’d like to buy it. Remarkably, I didn’t find this terribly annoying, and forgot all about it until writing this comment - so don’t let that be a hindrance!

          • Dharma Curious (he/him)@slrpnk.net
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            2 months ago

            So I just emailed my professor, and he says that I can use fade in if the formatting is the same as final draft, and I buy the license so there’s no watermark. Which sucks, but fuggit it it lets me keep using Linux. Do you know if the formatting is the same? This is only my second ever screenwriting class.

            • Presently42@lemmy.ca
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              2 months ago

              The watermark is only applied if something is printed directly from Fade In: export and print somewhere else and there should be no watermark. As for the formatting, I don’t recall - but I do know, that everything is configurable; so you can make the formatting the same, if it differs

              • Dharma Curious (he/him)@slrpnk.net
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                2 months ago

                Thank you for replying so quickly! I’ll email him back and let him know I should be able to get the formatting the same. I really appreciate your advice!