I have a chemistry B.S. and Ph.D. Some reactions don't need to go to completion or are not expected to, like organic syntheses. In other cases it's important to get the ratio of the reactants correct, otherwise you get precursor mixed in with your product. For baking you don't want leftover baking soda, or flour, etc.
Things are getting better. A new fiber-only network provider is expanding across my region so I got it installed a few months ago. No data caps, 500 Mbps up+down for $50/month.
I figured it out. The issue had nothing to do with my Linux installation. My motherboard had a hidden option to change the UEFI boot order, which is entirely separate from choosing which drive to boot from.
In the bios options it shows that secure boot is already disabled. It's not an old pc. I got it around 2021. Z590 motherboard. I've already run a system image off of a USB drive, which is how I installed the OS originally.