ZMV ON WINDOWS!?? [NOT CLICKBAIT]

    Hello netizens. I use Windows now, which means I have to use PowerShell. It's actually pretty neat once you get past the bizarre Verb-Noun command format.

    But, this means I can't use such great features as zmv, which I wrote about in a previous blog post. (I spent five minutes thinking of funny ways to ridicule the fact that I'm not linking to that blog post here but couldn't think of anything worthwhile.)

    Or can I? Well, duh, of course I can. zmv is just a funky little function. I can make my own damn functions on Windows.

    Let's use my previous example of renaming "Artist name - Album title - Track # Track name.flac" to "Artist/Album/# Track.flac" — SHIT, I mean "Artist\Album\# Track.flac". Sorry Gates.

    BEHOLD: zmv for Windows.

Get-ChildItem . | Rename-Item -NewName { $_.Name -replace '^(.*) - (.*) - (.*)','$1\$2\$3' }

    It's a bit more complicated, sure, but it works. Thanks, StackOverflow!

    (Really this series of blog posts is just me learning regex but that doesn't mean I can't look cool while doing it.)

    P.S. While figuring out how to pick PowerShell's background color, I learned that Microsoft PowerToys has a tool for doing regex renames with a fancy GUI, called PowerRename. Freakin awesome!!

    Only problem is that it's not integrated with Windows 11's new context menu (yet?)

Curse of the Apple Thunderbolt Display

Hey all. This is a bit of an update to my previous post, detailing my attempts to get an Apple Thunderbolt Display working with my GIGABYTE Z390 DESIGNARE motherboard. (By the way, it's pronounced with a hard "g" and "a" - not like "designer.") I ordered some replacement PCIe 6-pin to 8-pin adapters, so now I'm able to use the GPU with the required DisplayPort port.

After having flashed the modified Thunderbolt firmware, I expected the Thunderbolt Display to power on and work just fine, at least after reaching the Linux desktop environment (my hopes weren't too high for the preboot environment, i.e. the BIOS menu). Unfortunately, there was still no video output to the display.

However! Using `boltctl`, I was able to see that the Thunderbolt Display was, indeed, detected by Linux! This is an improvement over before, where `boltctl monitor` was able to detect something being (un)plugged, but nothing more. I am now able to connect USB drives to the back of the display, and have them recognized natively in Linux. How wonderful... though obviously not ideal.

I did some more searching, and just a few days ago, the thread containing the custom Thunderbolt firmware was updated with details on an experiment to get Thunderbolt displays to work "during BIOS and OpenCore." In layman's terms, this means the folks over at tonymacx86.com are working on getting the Apple Thunderbolt Display working in the preboot environment of the Z390 DESIGNARE! (and its cousins)

Perhaps this was the key to getting my Thunderbolt Display working with my own Linux setup?

I made a reply to the post, showing my interest in this development, and telling them I was a Linux user who owns the same motherboard and wishes to get their own Apple Thunderbolt Display working with it. I asked if there was anything I could do to help.

In response, they removed my post, stating it was "offtopic" and to "best find a linux thread."

What a bunch of... knuckleheads.

Regardless, this is an exciting development! Hopefully something good comes out of it. Otherwise I might have to sell my Apple Thunderbolt Display and buy a better, more compatible, and probably cheaper display. Oh woe.

Z390 DESIGNARE Thunderbolt ROM Flashing

Hey all. I bought an Apple Thunderbolt Display to go with my non-Apple desktop computer because I am stupid.

It didn't work, obviously. Who would have guessed the Apple display wouldn't work with non-Apple hardware! (I say, having created multiple hackintoshes.)

So I did some reading. Turns out this has been an issue for years. After quite a bit of searching, I read that one person had success after flashing a custom Thunderbolt firmware.

After some "trial and error," including breaking a SOIC8 clip, I finally managed to get this "custom firmware" flashed to my Z390 DESIGNARE.

(EDIT: Oh yeah, I should mention. `flashrom` wasn't able to detect the ROM with just the SOIC8 clip attached, nor with Ethernet attached as well. I had to plug the ATX power cable in, and turn the PSU on (though not the PC). I also kept the Ethernet cables plugged in. Then I was able to read the chip and successfully flash the custom firmware.)

But, you see, the Z390 requires a DisplayPort input from a dedicated GPU to use a display over Thunderbolt - or an iGPU, which I do not have.

The GPU I was using with the DisplayPort port required for that recently became no longer viable, as the PCIe 6-pin to 8-pin adapter I was using burned itself up.

Go figure.