Flashbang Bug – Hacking The Hike

When “It Just Works” Didn’t

January 20, 2026December 29, 2025 by Chris Marts

After meeting the two villains of this saga — the Flashbang Bug and the Big Freeze — I started my distro testing with the obvious choice: Ubuntu.

New Logo, New Direction — Same Me
When I started Hacking The Hike, it was a place to document gear, trails, and the chaos of hiking with five kids. It was personal, practical, and full of pine needles. But over time, the blog evolved — because I did.
When Scrolling Breaks and Zooms
My ThinkBook 16 G6 ABP has battled brightness bugs, suspend freezes, and kernel panics — but the final straw was a bizarre scroll‑to‑zoom issue that struck across Ubuntu and Fedora. After testing Windows and digging into Wayland and libinput, I finally uncovered what’s really going on.
Did Fedora Save My ThinkBook?
My ThinkBook was glitchy, laggy, and borderline unusable — until Fedora stepped in. Here's how a distro swap gave this laptop a second life, and what Linux users should know before trying the same.
Fedora 43 — When Bleeding Edge Might Be the Only Stable Option
When regressions pile up and “stable” distros break your hardware, Fedora 43 might be the fix. This post explores why bleeding edge sometimes delivers the only usable Linux experience — and the tradeoffs that come with it.
openSUSE Tumbleweed: The Distro I Keep Coming Back To
When regressions and quirks derail other distros, openSUSE Tumbleweed quietly delivers. This post explores why I keep returning to it — and what makes it the most stable “unstable” distro out there.