Aurynn Shaw@aly@mastodon.nz Pin all the things!
🌱
Alyssa 🏳️🌈
@aurynn@cloudisland.nz also the release .NET stack has been around in some for since 2002. The core libraries are really well baked and don't need that much change. The number of depandabot alerts for tiny packages that come through on node vs C# is a little alarming.
🌱 Alyssa 🏳️🌈@aurynn@cloudisland.nz I think I'd like to see node get more boring, and dotnet get less boring. A best of both worlds.
Aurynn Shaw@aly@mastodon.nz Confusing computing for everyone?
🌱 Alyssa 🏳️🌈@aurynn@cloudisland.nz I don't know, I've been a pro MS dev for so long and I don't much like MS so there's always tension.
Aurynn Shaw@aly@mastodon.nz Fortunately, macOS will be different in new and exciting ways.
🌱 Alyssa 🏳️🌈@aurynn@cloudisland.nz Oh I know, I've been there.
My honest preference would be a well specified tower PC at home running Linux, and not needing to travel for work.
Aurynn Shaw@aly@mastodon.nz let me guess, an Linux workstation does not have corporate popularity ?
🌱 Alyssa 🏳️🌈@aurynn@cloudisland.nz It deeply does not.
- I do work on site occasionally so need to be portable and to be able to present at meetings etc.
- Compliance requires certain things to be installed (brick on demand etc) which are not compatible.
I think the first one should be solved with good remote access these days, but the second is a bit on a showstopper.
Aurynn Shaw@aly@mastodon.nz To pick this back up, I learned about WinGet yesterday, as a built-in package manager, and there's community repos for it, as a tool for installing things like nodejs onto the root machine instead of trying to use WSL, which could alleviate some of your performance pains.
🌱 Alyssa 🏳️🌈@aurynn@cloudisland.nz Yeah, none of these has really "won" the battle to be THE Windows package manager unfortunately, but I should try them more.
I've learned a lot more about the makeup of the typical Windows laptop now too and it's just not the right platform for heavy dev workloads. I am surprised how heavy the node stack is though.
For the moment, the laptop manages better if I remove a monitor from it.
🌱 Alyssa 🏳️🌈@aurynn@cloudisland.nz Which, IMHO, gives away how unsuitable it is.
Aurynn Shaw@aly@mastodon.nz that’s … not a good sign. Is it only an integrated graphics chip? Might need to force Windows to use the accelerated GPU instead, if there is one.
Sounds like it’s just not a good laptop overall. 😞
🌱 Alyssa 🏳️🌈@aurynn@cloudisland.nz Haha... oh the sadness. Yes you can disable the integrated GPU and force it to use the NVidia one. The minor tradeoff is that this prevents you from using any external monitors.
"good" is always subjective depending on the context right? It's light, nice enough, has good battery life... it's great for taking to meetings.
I don't want my life optimized for going to meetings though.
Aurynn Shaw@aly@mastodon.nz it prevents using the external display!? What? How? What? How!?
🌱 Alyssa 🏳️🌈@aurynn@cloudisland.nz OK, I'm no expert here but, from what I understand...
Systems may have a mux, which allows routing of graphics signals between cards and ports. In that case you have options.
Lighter more portable laptops are likely muxless. In this particular setup with integrated Intel graphics, and an NVidia Optimus discrete card, it is probably wired so that the discrete card passes its signals though the integrated card to display things. So when you disable the integrated you lose access to the extra ports. This is cheap, light, and efficient.
Windows will choose for you which card to use for which task, and it uses the integrated graphics for basically everything unless something like a game engine specifically asks otherwise. This saves lots of power since it doesn't need to run the discrete card.
Again, great for going to meetings and taking notes, but my burning need is to compile so so many tiny JS packages.
🌱 Alyssa 🏳️🌈@aurynn@cloudisland.nz I haven't done numbers, but running two 4K monitors definitely feels like it hurts the laptop's performance in big way.
Aurynn Shaw@aly@mastodon.nz Okay so I understand all that about a mux, and that makes sense.
But afaik you can force Windows to use the accelerated card for everything? Like there's hardware GPU scheduling setting, and the power profile stuff as well? So this ... should be able to force Windows to not be quite so bad.
🌱 Alyssa 🏳️🌈@aurynn@cloudisland.nz If you can tell me how to do that that would be great. I have tried, I promise.
🌱 Alyssa 🏳️🌈@aurynn@cloudisland.nz It's kind of a deep rabbit hole, see e.g.
https://dchambers.github.io/articles/driving-multiple-monitors-on-an-optimus-laptop/
🌱 Alyssa 🏳️🌈@aurynn@cloudisland.nz Additionally, this is a problem that money solves fairly easily. Alas...
Aurynn Shaw@aly@mastodon.nz Money solves many things, alas...
Trying to find the setting I remember for you now. Wouldn't surprise me if it got removed and you need something like gpedit to bring it back...
Aurynn Shaw@aly@mastodon.nz okay I'm feeling quite gaslit by Windows right now because I am dead certain I remember settings like forcing the high-performance GPU to be enabled at all times, and I can't find it. I also can't find this hardware-accelerated graphics scheduling setting that's supposed to exist in Windows.
I might need to use a second GPU to find this.
In any case, the high performance power plan is where I remember being able to force the good GPU?
Or the nvidia control panel?
🌱 Alyssa 🏳️🌈@aurynn@cloudisland.nz "feeling gaslit by Windows" is familiar. Part of why I want off it. :/
Aurynn Shaw@aly@mastodon.nz I do not blame you there. I'm sorry, that's very frustrating.