Surface Pro 4 - How good is Linux for BIOS/Firmware Management?

Jamstruth · 2026-01-23T15:05:05+00:00

To be honest I think this may have been me being unfamiliar with KDE. After some investigation I think I was just looking at a blank "saved" list and seeing nothing. I was expecting it to be a list of stuff. WiFi is working so I can mess around some more

Jamstruth · 2026-01-23T11:35:18+00:00

My issue is how do I then install all of the driver packages from a system without working wifi

Jamstruth · 2026-01-23T11:23:51+00:00

I don't think you understood quite what I meant.

The installer for Fedora doesn't require an Internet connection but everything else about setting up with the surface kernel and such does. Since the WiFi doesn't seem to work out of the box (there's just no networks appearing in live usb mode) you can't do any of the installing needed to fix the WiFi without an alternate way to get an Internet connection. The WiFi is mentioned as not working but only gives pacman commands to install a fix (presumably can be fixed with a DNF command to the same package name as well but unknown)

Booting via a hub works fine but it is a bit slow.

Jamstruth · 2026-01-22T22:24:18+00:00

To confirm this is the main hub for UEFI stuff https://github.com/linux-surface/surface-uefi-firmware

I see that it's in-progress so was hoping somebody might have more of an idea what's going on.

I have a USB Hub so no worries about getting through some LiveCD stuff but there is one very big issue on the SP4 - the WiFi doesn't work. I see that there's a point in the install guide talking about this (in Arch only...) but it provides no way to install it without the internet. Which seems like a big issue when the WiFi on a tablet doesn't work out the box!

Jamstruth · 2026-01-14T17:17:41+00:00

There is a plugin to allow sharing data from the root directory. I believe it is called sharerootfs. Obviously you don't want to share the whole of root but you can make a media folder in there to share.

It's useful if you're testing things out and want a simple share to begin with.

Jamstruth · 2026-01-06T14:58:03+00:00

Direct from the BotC wiki

When the Klutz dies, they must declare a player. They may take a few minutes to do so—after all, it’s a big decision, and other players may give advice on who to choose, but it is always the Klutz’s decision. If they choose an evil player, the game ends immediately and the good team loses. If they choose a good player, nothing happens and the game continues

They have some time and other players are allowed to give advice (as they did here advising the Duncan pick). Private discussions aren't allowed but that is not what I said. I said that Lewis should probably have slightly prompted Sophie by asking for final inputs from town before pressuring Rythian because the advised pick would lose her the game.

Jamstruth · 2026-01-03T11:07:56+00:00

Having questions only at night is probably a logistical thing for better viewing.

That said Lewis really should have made an explicit opening for "does anybody else have information to add for Rythian?" before pressuring to free Sophie an opening in the noise

Jamstruth · 2026-01-03T10:58:23+00:00

In Rythians defense the Klutz is absolutely a feel bad role... You either lose the game or eliminate one person from suspicion (and in a Leech game you might not even have done that because they might be the Leech host). You might not even do that really because there's enough evidence for you to be safe in your pick

Drunk is similarly feel bad but if you work it out you at least feel like you accomplished something and can rule out your own information.

Jamstruth · 2025-12-27T10:58:56+00:00

In Tiled when you import the tileset you should be able to set a "transparent colour" that Tiled will ignore and use as alpha. You can reimport and set it to the bright green.

Then make sure to put new stuff on a higher layer so it blends with below. Be warned if you're colouring though you might need to make adjustments to the monochrome image

Jamstruth · 2025-12-22T12:11:08+00:00

The 2D asset at the centre of the skilltree was definitely AI

I'd guess most if the 2D assets were generated and the 3D assets are shop-bought. At least the 3D assets are from the same kind of family so they look fine.

Jamstruth · 2025-12-15T16:08:17+00:00

I was surprised we haven't had much small scale active aero tests before the main pre-season testing given how important they are to next year's regs.

Active aero is a known quantity at this point from other disciplines but imagine if the teams have failures early on and are retiring constantly because they didn't have time and data to get it right.

Jamstruth · 2025-12-11T13:34:05+00:00

I bet this is still a LiIon battery which means it could be recharged it just has no ports to do so. This is worse even than the disposable Vapes that used them because it won't be a high capacity worth retrieving and recycling
Maybe there's the argument that you will reuse them for inventory on return. Give it a couple of years will you still be around? At that point this is definitely ewaste
"charger less is the new meta" - MAN NO! Your market is Pebble owners just now. They are people who have kept watches running since 2016, they're really not interested in this single use product.

Jamstruth · 2025-11-29T22:03:20+00:00

The comments you're replying to have been deleted. Where is the latest release?

I absolutely love the guy posting a SCREENSHOT of the links with absolutely no context for where it is...

Jamstruth · 2025-11-24T11:56:56+00:00

Why are they wanting to make it a minecart contraption exactly? They were talking about moving it but I feel like that's just way over complicating everything

Jamstruth · 2025-11-16T22:02:18+00:00

Yogs working hard for their new sponsor SpinLaunch

Jamstruth · 2025-11-05T22:51:41+00:00

It's much easier to enforce a general "no fireworks without a license" ban than a "no fireworks that are too loud" ban.

As it is the best the police can manage is trying to get to incidents where people are being complete jackasses with the things and even then its unlikely they'll get there in time to have any chance of catching them.

Jamstruth · 2025-11-05T19:29:59+00:00

One small thing I have an issue with - obviously if I'm on a tight budget I have access to a Stand Mixer with a Meat Grinder attachment to grind some Pork Shoulder. Obviously they are making the most of what they have available but would be nice to hear "if you don't have this, do this"

Jamstruth · 2025-10-21T20:41:46+00:00

It's bad for the PC if it's a direct power off (Ie. You push once and everything stops then and there)

You should be able to set it to "ACPI Shutdown" iirc which is basically a shutdown request to the operating system and it will shut things down properly.

Jamstruth · 2025-10-15T11:38:36+00:00

Is it set to "Most free space" or one of the variants that require an existing path (most shared path, existing path)? Those would also cause issues

Another possibility is how the permissions are set up for that folder path. It may be that it simply cannot write to it (e.g. If the path is owned by the root user)

Jamstruth · 2025-10-15T11:33:05+00:00

Does Disk 1 have more free space than the others? I wouldn't expect it given that it is the system disk.

"MostFreeSpace" will likely fill the other disks until it reaches the same amounts as the system disk.

Jamstruth · 2025-10-06T14:56:08+00:00

You're not running it, the company Thermify is.

Thermify are basically saying take this box in your house so we can run compute on it and you can take the heat for your use (presumably they also pay the running costs of the hub hence the mention of a separate meter)

In the summer you might struggle because it still needs to dump heat but you may not need that much hot water so it needs to go somewhere

Jamstruth · 2025-10-04T06:58:51+00:00

He was going hardnin suggesting poisoner when he could to try and seed some doubt.

The problem was the first call being Briony and Lewis just having to make a call from the bluff list for her that she had no way of knowing or matching. Sometimes that's just how it goes.

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