Dell XPS 13 9360
Intel Core i7-8550U
16GB RAM

Linux boot drive: USB 3.0 attached Samsung 1TB Evo 860
Windows 11 drive: Internal NVMe Toshiba KXG50ZNV512G

Power on to boot menu: 12 seconds

Windows 11:
Boot menu to login: 30 seconds
Boot menu to usable desktop: 79 seconds

Ubuntu 24.04.4 LTS:
Boot menu to login: 23 seconds
Boot menu to usable desktop: 38 seconds

I have a password manager that requires login after the desktop login, and once that is done, I consider it a usable desktop. From those times, you can guess which OS is my daily driver - Linux FTW every single time. I wish I didn't have any Windows only apps that I need from m time to time, or I'd completely dump it. (And yes, I have tried them under Wine, but some do not play well)

It''s great they want to roll out all of these new features, but they need to step back and focus on the core OS and think about quality vs. quantity. Under 11 21H2, I had more BSODs than in my entire history of running Windows since version 3.11 WFWG. With 11 22H2, I've had over a dozen BSODs and I've only been running it for 2 days. There is still a serious bug in SMB that needs to be dealt with. When I perform a clean install, I connect to a SMB share (Linux Samba Server) to install all of my applications and missing drivers (Intel core chipset, printers, etc.) and every single time the UAC prompt should have shown up, I was greeted with a BSOD instead. I've had to copy every folder to my local drive and run the same files locally to get them to install.

My card company allows me to generate virtual account numbers.. I would have generated one and provided the correct card number with false dates/CVV so it couldn't be processed, then contacted my card company for info on the payment attempts. They've helped me in the past, even giving me the IP address the charge originated from. That along with GeoIP lookups and police contacts in the appropriate area can get an investigation going. I had someone steal my debit card number years ago, and within 12 hours I had all of the orders cancelled, talked with security groups from the sellers and validated the source IP of all the charges. After an NMAP scan and GeoIP lookup, I didn't even have to fight the card company because none of the charges ended up being processed in time. The PD in TX where the charges all originated from did their job.

It's not first time they've blamed an error on this... Cisco ACE modules had the same issue years ago, CSCsv52331.

I've never had any formal coding instruction. I needed a way to perform method "X" for a personal project and grabbed the reference manuals and started programming in Assembly Language for the Z80 back in the day (1986/1987). That code involved controlling 120VAC circuits from a TRS-80 Model IV to make money DJ'ing as well as building laser interfaces that allowed PC to PC messaging via laser interfaces instead of wires. That progressed to learning BASIC on a TRS-80 Model IV, as well as making calls to assembly from BASIC because I was able to perform graphics routines much faster in assembly language.. which progressed to full BASIC... and for S&G taking first place in state programming competitions. Then Visual Basic, Perl, Python... then web languages such as a PHP. I still haven't gotten a good grasp on C variants or Java, which seems a bit silly. Most of what I do now is based on Python in SecureCRT sessions hitting up network gear and pulling data or performing configuration updates. My most recent set of code was in Python to perform code upgrades and QC checks against 190 pairs of firewalls, and all but 2 went great... and they weren't because of the process, they were because a predecessor didn't know how to configure a network switch interface.

What a bunch of cry babies. Our city, county and state governments have been on Motorola's StarCom21 system for a few years now. Each department has their own groups of channels, some of which are just digital and some of which are encrypted. It's nothing that a Uniden BCD-396T can't handle. I've run scanners since the days of having to use crystals to configure a channel through current generation Digital APCO-25. I have no complaints if they want to encrypt their traffic. The news outlets are just pissed because they might actually have to get off their butts instead of being lazy and sitting next to a radio all day.

OK, I have my flame retardant clothing on... I'm not a big fan of the iPod for a few reasons - the cost, the minimalist look, and the expense of the plethora of addons. I looked for a long time, and was actually considering the purchase of an iRiver H140, but by the time I got the money saved up for one, they discontinued it and replaced it with the inferior H340. Rather than purchase the iPod, I was going to give up on getting a decent player, but I happened to stumble across the iAudio M3 20Gb. It had a listed play time of 35 hours on a single charge... Hmmm... OK, so I broke down and bought the 40Gb model, and I am glad that I did - saved $70 over an iPod, and coupled with a pair of Sony EX71SL buds, the sound quality is beyond what I would have ever expected. I still have 7 Gb free to use as external storage (no proprietary software needed with this guy, just copy the files to the USB "Mass Storage Device") Anyway, after watching iRiver dump a decent product and replace it with an inferior one, I don't know that I would trust them with a product right now. I've also heard nothing but complaints about their lack of support and extreme slowness in creating firmware updates to address pretty stupid problems.