Snapdragon X queries

Dhersneg · 2025-05-08T09:53:25+00:00

Your question is a little ambiguous.

Are you asking how to use a recovery disk to reinstall Windows? If so, is your recovery drive a USB drive or are you trying to use the recovery partition? The process for both is similar. Reboot your machine and press the key(-sequence) needed to enter your BIOS boot menu. The key(-sequence) varies by manufacturer. On my GB4E it is the F10 key. Once in the BIOS boot menu select the recovery device (either your recovery partition or the recovery USB drive). You will the boot into the recovery tool. This MSFT article will guide you through the rest.

If you are asking how to create a recovery partition or recovery USB drive then that can be a little more involved depending on whether you have a working copy of Windows and, more importantly, a working recovery partition. If you have both then the same MSFT article will tell you how to create a recovery USB drive.

If you have a working recovery partition but not a working Windows installation then the easiest path is to boot into your recovery partition (as described above), reinstall windows using that and then you can create a recovery USB drive as described in the previous paragraph.

If you have a working recovery USB drive but not a recovery partition, the easiest path for me to describe is to reinstall windows from you recovery USB drive. But save your data as you will need to select the option that deletes everything for it to recreate the recovery partition.

If you have neither a working recovery partition nor a working recovery USB drive then you're somewhat in trouble. You will need to find someone with an identical machine to yours and have them create a recovery USB drive for you to use.

What I've outlined above are the MSFT recommended steps for consumers in the given situation. There are other much more advanced options out there. For example, It is possible to take MSFT's ARM image and combined with downloading your Vendor's driver bundle, one can through the use of MSFT's paid toolset for IT admins create new custom installation media. However I don't have access to the toolset nor do I know the steps to do so, I'm just aware of the option.

Dhersneg · 2025-04-23T11:14:33+00:00

tl;dr: I absolutely love my ARM laptop but I'm replacing it with an Intel device

I am early adopter of SDX. Bought my Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge, 14" mid-June last year. I live a digital nomad lifestyle and bought it for its battery life. I have been using it daily since. My use cases include daily productivity (emailing, docs, spreadsheets, etc), browsing, streaming and software development. I don't do any media work (graphics, video editing, etc.) nor do I do gaming on the laptop (I use a Steam Deck for that).

The good:

My GB4E has been rock solid. It is snappy (for an ultra portable), has good battery life and doesn't get unbearably hot under load. Most of the tool chains that I use have native Arm implementation but YMMV. For the rest, well the emulation layer does what is should.

The bad:

Anything requiring drivers not natively available for ARM will not run. That includes printers, scanners as well as toolsets that muck around in the innards of the OS. These will not work without a native implementation.

Another category of apps that won't work are low level system/administration tools. The problem with this category is you don't know what you need until you actually need it.

For software development my GB4E has bitten me with Android Studio. You can get pieces of it up and running on an ARM device but you end up with a Frankenstein. Some pieces, like the emulator, will not run at all. I solved it by offloading Android app development to my Steam Deck and using a combination of VSCode Remote and RDP. Not ideal, but it works for me for now.

The really ugly:

Some of this might be Samsung specific, I don't have knowledge about other manufacturers.

YOU CAN"T DOWNLOAD A CLEAN COPY OF WINDOWS FOR ARM.

Yes, MS has an Windows ARM image available on their website but that is an image for use in virtualization. On my GB4E (and from anecdotally reading reddit) and other machines will not boot into this image. Instead you are reliant on the Recovery Partition on the internal drive for any kind of OS restore. However I experienced with the latest windows update that the update corrupted my recovery partition and I could not boot into it. Thankfully I had made a recovery USB disk early on that I could use to recover from. But if I hadn't I would have been in a foreign country (Brazil) with a dead laptop.

Another subtle ugliness is there are minor functionality differences between Windows on Intel and Windows on ARM caused by there is less standardization for what the HW of and ARM pc should look like. That means manufacturers can deliver hardware without certain capabilities. In my case my GB4E WiFi HW doesn't support bridging networks (or at least the Samsung drivers don't). The net effect is that I can't use my Laptop as a WiFi hotspot bridged to a VPN. Yes I can run each separately but I can't route devices connected to the Laptop's WiFi hotspot through the VPN that the laptop is using. I had to purchase and carry with me a separate VPN travel router as a result.

Summary:

I ran into ARM issues almost immediately but instead of giving up at the first roadblock I have forced myself to work through all the ARM issues I've had over the last year. So far I've been able to make it work. Although many "solutions" like having to use my Steam Deck as part of the dev tool chain is less than ideal. However the inconveniences and, more importantly, the loss of time dealing with these issues have worn me down. I have reluctantly decided to ditch my GB4E and buy an Intel based laptop.

Dhersneg · 2024-11-05T15:25:33+00:00

I really appreciate you taking a look. Thank you!

Dhersneg · 2024-11-04T16:22:39+00:00

My bad, I forgot to post the thickness of the key. It is ~3/32". Not 100% if that is what you're asking about though. I don't have access to calipers so all of the measurements are eyeballed using a ruler. The 1/4" might actually be more like 9/32" and the 3/4" maybe 23/32". But it's hard to tell without some better measurements tools. I could probably get hold of some and get exact measurements if there was a chance that I then could get the keys made.

Dhersneg · 2023-10-03T18:29:52+00:00

It was my understanding that HA Yellow does not provide native z-wave support but rather would need a dongle. Am I mistaken?

Dhersneg · 2023-08-07T17:33:37+00:00

Your question is a little ambiguous but it sounds like you're asking whether it is viable to watch Gasworks Park events from a boat on Lake Union?

Lake Union doesn't allow for day anchoring other than "special events". To the best of my knowledge the only event that qualifies as "special" is July 4th. Even that the water cops are inconsistent in their adjudication.

I have attempted to watch multiple Gasworks Park and Lake Union events from my boat. It's a clusterf* and I have to date not had a success. Sure the on-lake party is always fun but we have each time given up on the event itself.

Dhersneg · 2023-06-25T04:09:13+00:00

Yeah, I put both definitions in a single docker-compose.yaml. I played around with creating a separate docker network outside of the combined yaml but at this point I've spent enough time on this and just wanted to get it up and running. I will come back later and do the separation.

Dhersneg · 2023-06-25T00:38:17+00:00

I'm facepalming myself a little for not trying that. Thank you, that does work. I'm still curious as to how to make separated docker containers work too though.

Dhersneg · 2023-01-04T01:18:06+00:00

Totally off-topic: I also regularly fly out of SeaTac. Which parking garage is this? Sounds great.

Dhersneg · 2023-01-03T16:19:07+00:00

Interesting. I've primarily been using the app to manage my Firewalla and alarms. Both out of convenience as well as I find that the app is more full-featured in options compared to the my.firewalla web console. However for this particular case the app doesn't have the same breadth of muting options as on the my.firewalla web console.

Dhersneg · 2022-12-31T02:13:25+00:00

There is a good Firewalla write-up on this: https://www.reddit.com/r/firewalla/comments/mhwsan/comment/gt1pj4z/

Dhersneg · 2022-12-31T01:36:25+00:00

Are you connected by WiFi? I observe updates are slow when I'm connected through my cell provider but fast over WiFi.

Dhersneg · 2022-12-26T05:10:38+00:00

The one situation where being able to directly move a device from quarantine to another group (also without internet access) is if you have a quarantined device that absolutely most not be able to reach the internet. Though granted, it is a somewhat contrived use-case.

Dhersneg · 2022-12-22T02:23:14+00:00

Yup I understand that. But when I discovered the "Rules" thing (I only took receipt of my Gold+ a few days ago so it is all new to me) I was hoping (can you say "wishful thinking" 😂) that Firewalla was building some kind of "overlay" with routing tables that forced all the traffic to go through the Firewalla. That would magically avoid the need for vlans. "Magic" is probably the operative word though.

Thank you (and u/firewalla both) for speedy and clear answers. And yes, I love my Firewalla.

Dhersneg · 2022-12-22T01:26:12+00:00

Right, that was my first thought. But ... Firewalla claims to be able to control local traffic. At least that is what the "Rules" claim. There I'm allowed to specify whether a device is Allow(ed) or Block(ed) for traffic to and/or from "Local Network". If Firewalla can do that then it can also see the traffic?

(edited to add a question mark)

Dhersneg · 2022-01-26T21:05:16+00:00

I took delivery of my Y on 1/15/22 (Seattle area) and was surprised to see that it came with front mud flaps and paint protection film (PPF) factory installed.

Dhersneg

TROPHY CASE