I successfully changed almost all my computers to Zorin, after I was really fed up with all that Windows and cloud stuff. It works absolutely fine (even quicker and more stable than Win11). Good Job !!
Just a very few minor issues (I could live with, but I am keen to solve):
The Lenovo B40-30 AIO PC runs quick and reliable, but shutting down does only work in 2 of 100 cases (my feeling). It usually does not switch off the power button. I have seen it working a couple of times (one time, I forgot the shutdown and did it after a few hours of not using it - maybe a hint to the solution).
Everything else is fine on that machine! Happy to be here - maybe just a question: Is it really not needed to use a virus protection? What would be the safest way to protect on the fly?
Now I also have a Surface Go for travelling - This also works fine, but makes me some more headaches.
A know issue is the webcams, but as I remember those worked, when I tested it with the usb stick, I wanted to revisit and see, if it still does - BUT - The machine is (after installing Zorin 17 -with encryption!) not booting from USB at all (yes I know, what to set in the BIOS - have also tried all hints with secure boot off etc.)
I have come now to the conclusion, that the grub has overwritten the bootloader from the machine (could that be or am I completely wrong?).
If anyone has an idea, how I can boot from USB.... I would be happy (also in case of an emergency).
My HP Elitebook is working 100% fine with Zorin!!
Overall, Zorin is the absolute best Linux for someone changing from Windows!
For the most part this is true. It's not impossible for stuff to happen to linux boxes, but it's much more rare. I would, however, urge you and anyone else to turn on the firewall that zorin comes with. Just using it as the defaults is generally enough to help. As for malicious files and the like, just stick to trusted sites. That will do way more than any antivirus would ;).
It's possible, but without going further into this issue I can't be sure. Regardless of what may or may not have been overwritten, you should still be able to boot from a USB (encrypted drive or no). Can you still get to your bios? Assuming you can, it should be able to boot to a USB with the selection.
Hello,
yes - i still come into the Bios and there the USB is set on the first place to boot (that is also the way it worked, when I came from Win11). The Bios is started using the volume+ key. There should also be a way to select the boot-drive with the volume- key at startup, but that does not work anymore.
However I did that - I may be able to reproduce - I came into the grub, which just offered me the option on the hard drive.
Is there a command I can force this little tool to boot from USB?
I now really want to reinstall, as Zorin - after testing too much - does not let me set the screen resolution anymore.
Holding down the power button should shut the machine down completely.
It is highly unlikely that grub Overwrote your Windows bootloader. Instead, grub places its own bootloader in the EFI partition.
Are you dual booting?
If you had Windows OS - did you ensure that you disabled Windows Fast boot or Fast Startup under the Control Panel > Power options? Windows Fast Boot locks in Windows OS to make it hibernate instead of fully shutting down, enabling it to appear to boot very quickly (though it is actually just waking from suspend, not booting).
The Surface Kernel can be installed at any time after installing the GnuLinux distro of your choice.
Holding the power botton works fine. But I wanted to completely shut down the machine, when power off from the Desktop. This is just on the Desktop (Lenovo AIO). No Dual-boot. Complete new SSD - no windows. I still have the windows ssd - this powers the machine off completely. But I check the setting for fast boot.
That was my AIO.
My Surface Go has the issue not booting usb (Desktop still does). Also no Dual boot on the surface. I came into the grub - I will try to do that again and make a photo.
It offers 3 options - Zorin, Zorin with advanced options and a third one with I do not know anymore, but no USB. The issu is, I cannot switsch the SSD on the surface without destroying it. And the Istallation manual for the surface kernel says to download and create a bootable usb and boot from that - but that is not working....
My only hope is a command in the grub to boot from usb - if that exists.
The Grub Menu does not show a boot from USB option. That is performed by the Hardware operating system: BIOS.
If unable to reach that, you might try shutting the Surface down, then holding down the volume-down or volume-up button while powering on.
I do not think this is your only hope... Yes, you can set a custom menuentry in GRUB to automatically boot from USB, but I do not recommend this.
Can you please create a new thread for a separate machine and keep each of two threads for each machine? This might get confusing talking about two machines with different issues in one thread.
Did exactly that - see above. volume+ goes into bios, there usb it set on place 1.
volume- sometime shows the grub. I have also tried to make the Sd-slot bottable - but that seems to be no USB - or has the same issue.
Have you checked that the USB stick is working properly - tested booting on another machine? Don't assume... it could have failed after the last use.
If your BIOS is set to give priority to USB and it then is not - I would first check that it is the USB stick not initializing, not the system.
I have a Surface Go 2 with the same issue, and it's entirely Microsoft's fault. Rather than the BIOS / UEFI handling this as on any sane system, for (I presume all) Surface devices Microsoft actually did hand this off to the Windows bootloader: holding the volume key during startup to boot a USB drive only actually works once you see the Windows icon on thescreen, right before Windows itself would normally start. Unfortunately, grub does not inherit this behaviour.
The solution I came to, which is far from ideal, was to use something like Disks to grab the UUID of the USB stick I use for Ventoy and manually adding a custom grub entry for it in a specific format:
❯ sudo cat /etc/grub.d/40_custom
#!/usr/bin/sh
exec tail -n +3 $0
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries. Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment. Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.
menuentry "Ventoy USB" {
search --set=root --fs-uuid 223C-F3F8
set gfxpayload=keep
insmod fat
insmod chain
chainloader ($root)/efi/boot/grubx64.efi
boot
}
Note: if you're not using Ventoy, this exact config may not work for your USB stick even after changing the UUID.
I Will seperate the topics next time. As the powerdown issue is only minor, I will keep this thread for the Surface Go for now - Maybe an admin can change the header and take away the Lenovo AIO - just leave the Surface go - Thank you.
i have checked the USB-stick - it is working fine on the Desktop
But with this hint, I had a dream last night and tried to boot from USB with Win11 (Rufus stick) into the Surface Go - and believe it or not - this is working (with the "volume-" - Key pressed at startup!!!
Of course - I cannot make use of the system recovery functions as there is no windows on the SSD anymore, but I now think about deleting the harddrive using the command prompt with fdsik - is that an idea ? Or should I reinstall windows and then try to cover that with Zorin again?
Before that, I will check another distribution of Linux - maybe zorin old on zorin updated is not coexisting....and also check to update the grub with the solution from Ultrabenosaurus - this could be the better option to install the surface kernel.
Thank you for all that help so far - at least I am a small step forward now. Interesting stuff- so I learn more and more about Linux.
I tried the Ventoy version - running sudo cat shows the above code, but then, when starting from usb, it fails secure boot, wants MOK something, if I continue, no additional entry is there.
Do I need to update the grub somehow? update-grub command is not found.
I edited using gedit - was that ok? I chose MBR and secure boot in Ventoy. Is that right?
Sorry, yes, after adding something to a customer grub file you do need to update grub on your machine for the menu entry to show. If you don't have update-grub that's a different issue, and you'll want to get that installed sooner rather than later, otherwise you won't ever be able to boot new kernels when there are updates.
(note: not all linux distros use sudo update-grub though; if you're on Fedora, for example, then the command you want to run is actually sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg)
MBR format for Ventoy should be fine, as long as your USB stick is less than 2TB, which I imagine it is.
As for Secure Boot, there is a page about that on the Ventoy website:
- This is the first step to be done for that.
