[HN Gopher] Testing Microsoft's Windows Dev Kit 2023 ___________________________________________________________________ Testing Microsoft's Windows Dev Kit 2023 Author : ingve Score : 131 points Date : 2022-11-03 14:33 UTC (8 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.jeffgeerling.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.jeffgeerling.com) | TheLoafOfBread wrote: | I bought Samsung Galaxy Book with snapdragon ARM for 200USD from | eBay (somehow come brand new) to get experience with cross- | compilation for Win 11 ARM emitted on my Win 11 x86 or the laptop | itself. On the ARM laptop most of x86 application are running | just fine, some has issues (Dropbox), but I was able to get ARM64 | executable for basically all important applications (VSCode, | Python 3, Notepad++, NET6 SDK). | | What I do not understand on Win ARM64 is why x86 processes have | blurred GUI. It works fine, but it is very distracting. However | at least I know on first look that I am running application in an | emulator. | retskrad wrote: | Millennials couldn't care less about Mac, Windows and desktop | operating systems in general. Everyone does their computing needs | on their phone. | | Apple put the M1 and M2, which are literally the two most | advanced CPU's on planet earth, and it has only slightly pushed | the Mac ahead. Putting Windows on ARM is a waste of time. | kyriakos wrote: | Wouldn't mind replacing my dell latitude with a Windows laptop | that has no fan doesn't get hot performs the same and runs 20 | hours on battery though | rejectfinite wrote: | >Everyone does their computing needs on their phone | | Its so awful. Am I millenial? Im 30. | | But my ideal work/play desk is big, 3 monitors, 1 144hz for | games, desktop PC (bigger fans = less noise + real CPU and GPU, | no throttling at all) + mech keyboard + mx master/gaming mouse. | | A phone is for logging into my bank or to order food. | | Phone games are so trash and TikTok rots brains. | | Yes I read real actual books, should do more of that. | filoleg wrote: | I assume you are a dev (or at least dev-adjacent), so this | isn't about you. You will, most likely, always prefer | multiple monitors, beefy desktop, etc., regardless of your | generation. | | We are talking about gen pop here. I am a late millenial, and | back in my teens, if you wanted to access internet, do social | media, listen to non-physical format music, etc., you pretty | much had to own a PC/laptop. Almost everyone back then had | access to it at their home. | | In present day, most people have no need for that. Social | media, music, internet, etc., is all done on smartphones. I | see less and less gen pop interest and need in PCs as the | time goes. | | My grandparents learned to use PC just so they could check | out news and talk to me on skype (we live in different | countries now). Over time, they switched to smartphones, as | they found the ease of use and pretty much a complete lack of | the need for troubleshooting very appealing. Years later, | they are happy with that decision. | | That doesnt mean that PCs are gonna die or dwindle, quite the | opposite. For work, smartphones are suboptimal, and thus PCs | will stay around for work, for the enthusiast crowd (which | would include gaming), and for a bunch of other hobbies/niche | used (like music production, etc.). I don't foresee PCs and | multimonitor setups ever going out of my life either, aside | from the form factors of some of them slightly changing | (e.g., a virtual multimonitor AR setup instead of a physical | multimonitor setup). | gjsman-1000 wrote: | "I'm hopeful for Microsoft's future on ARM, but either Qualcomm | needs to get their act together, or Microsoft needs to pour money | into some other chipmaker to optimize for Windows. Otherwise, the | vast gulf between ARM SBCs on the low end and Apple's custom | Silicon on the high end will persist." | | Part of it is... what on earth is Qualcomm thinking with their | pricing? Every PC that has had a Windows on ARM processor is | priced like a premium machine, while running slower than the | competition from Apple, Intel, and AMD (though Project Volterra | is the best value by far, so far). | | It's like Qualcomm has decided that high-end Snapdragon parts may | only appear in $1000+ devices, perhaps to prevent people from | asking questions about the cost of their chips in phones. (If a | Snapdragon Gen 8 appeared in a $500 laptop, why couldn't it be in | a $500 smartphone? Especially important, because of legal | filings, Qualcomm uses the total sale price of the device for | some royalty calculations IIRC.) | maxsilver wrote: | Yeah, Qualcomm is behind the M1, but the funny thing is that | Qualcomm is _already ahead_ of a lot of the Intel product | lines, if they were willing to compete at the lower end of the | PC market. | | For example, why does the Surface Go 3 still sell with a "Core | i3" or "Pentium Gold 6500Y" in it, when it could have this | Qualcomm chip in it. Qualcomm's Gen 8 is approximately 3x | faster while also being lower cost _and_ having lower power | draw! Why does a $500 Go 3 ship with "4GB Ram" and "64GB eMMC" | when this Qualcomm devkit can ship with 32GB ram and 512 nVME | SSD for just $100 more? These are the products that should be | Qualcomm-ified, it would be an immediate improvement to people | buying this, over any other current PC comparable. | | Instead, the consumer version of this Windows devkit is a | "Surface Pro 9", which when equivalently spec'd to the devkit, | comes out to $1900 USD. At that price, nearly any Intel / AMD / | Mac comparable is a way better pick. | Kon-Peki wrote: | > Instead, the consumer version of this Windows devkit is a | "Surface Pro 9", which when equivalently spec'd to the | devkit, comes out to $1900 USD. | | It seems likely that this machine is being sold at a loss. | That's why things aren't being Qualcommified. | [deleted] | wolpoli wrote: | They seem to believe that the extra battery life of the | Snapdragon when running ARM software justifies the price | premium, when most consumers would be mostly running x86/x64 | software in emulation. The reviewers pick up on that point, | consumers continue to buy x64 devices, and the Windows ARM | ecosystem remains largely undeveloped. | | Qualcomm and Microsoft's unwillingness to invest in growing the | ecosystem is very troubling. What was the point of the timed- | exclusivity agreement to begin with, if not to invest in the | ecosystem? | wmf wrote: | Qualcomm is also trying too hard to encourage cellular in | laptops. It makes no sense to pay extra upfront and $20/month | for 5G on a laptop. | wolpoli wrote: | I don't get the push for cellular modem in Laptop either. Who | is actually asking for this, since most of us have could just | tether off our existing phone or use a wifi hotspot, and | wouldn't, like you mention, need to pay an extra $20/month. | beembeem wrote: | To your last comment - the royalty on ASP is capped. Apple had | argued in court over this with claims that shoving more storage | into a phone led to more licensing fees which was not the case. | I can't speak to whether the pricing on this dev kit would be | below the cap or not, I forget the rough range of the caps (in | the mid $100's if my memory serves me right) | | Agree on the weird pricing strategy though. My take is that | they're trying to milk the relationship because Windows is a | relatively premium brand. Competing interests for sure that | Windows is looking for a wider audience on the low end while | Qualcomm wants the $$ from high end. | [deleted] | bartlettD wrote: | >The big question is--will this $599 desktop be enough to push | more developers towards cross-compiling for native ARM64 software | on Windows? | | No, more consumer hardware like the Surface series will push | devs. Who will eventually want to get out of the x86 emulation | layer and run their programs native. | | Comparing this to an M1 Mini is a bit odd since they're not | competing with each other at all, and Microsoft is limited by | what Qualcomm et al can put out. | bpye wrote: | I work for MSFT and have been using an SPX as my primary device | for a little over a year. I haven't had an issue with user | space applications, but I do have an audio interface that | doesn't work because the vendor (MOTU) doesn't ship ARM64 | drivers :( | mjard wrote: | Does windows not provide a generic "class compliant" audio | driver? I'm amazed it works so well everywhere else if | Microsoft doesn't support it. | bpye wrote: | I went down this path. Yes, Windows includes an inbox USB | audio class driver, but it lacks support for implicit | feedback. The MOTU interface does not have a feedback | endpoint, and relies on implicit feedback, so the inbox | driver doesn't work. I think the inbox driver does work for | Focusrite's interfaces - I guess they include the feedback | endpoint, and both Linux and macOS support implicit | feedback so MOTU's devices work there. Apple actually | recommend implicit feedback only [0]. | | [0] - https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/technotes | /tn2274... | csdvrx wrote: | It's sad. I'm using a USB-C to 4.5mm TRRS audio dongle, and | if you can't get audio drivers, I fear my "exotic" setup is | even less likely to be supported. | | I've been wanting to try Windows 11 on ARM64 with a Microsoft | or a Lenovo device, but nothing seems to have the basics I'm | looking for like OLED for a laptop, or ECC (for both a laptop | or a server) | | If there were ARM64 options with ECC RAM, I'd buy that today | and start deploying tomorrow. | bpye wrote: | The only ARM64 option with ECC that I know of is Ampere's | rather expensive development workstation [0]. | | [0] - https://solutions.amperecomputing.com/systems/altra/k | raken-c... | cooldown_00001 wrote: | gjsman-1000 wrote: | Nope, it won't, as you say. How many people have Surface Pro X, | or another Windows on ARM machine? | | Less than 1% do. Let's say, though this is a high estimate, | 0.5% of Windows users are ARM. Now let's say my app has 1 | million installs at $1 each (pretty successful). That means my | total value for optimizing for those ARM users is... $5,000. | And they can already run my app with translation, so it's | actually worth less than that. So... when you factor in costs | of Project Volterra + Developer Time + Fixing Code Time + Lost | Opportunities on More Productive Things... there's basically no | way, even with 1 million users at $1 each, to justify the | effort. | | This device is great for developers who already care and love | their users. Anyone who doesn't care won't care. | | Edit: Also, at those numbers, it would be better if I _didn 't_ | offer an ARM-native version. If even a tiny percentage of my | userbase downloads the ARM-native version by accident on their | x86 machine, the support costs will eat away at that too. | | Edit @bartlettD: We're not - sorry if it reads that way. I'm | just providing an additional argument, but I've reworded | slightly to make that a bit clearer. | giaour wrote: | > Less than 1% do. Let's say, though this is a high estimate, | 0.5% of Windows users are ARM. Now let's say my app has 1 | million installs at $1 each (pretty successful). That means | my total value for optimizing for those ARM users is... | $5,000. And they can already run my app with translation, so | it's actually worth less than that. | | Not disputing your numbers, but for devs writing web services | or cloud workloads, compiling for arm can mean spending a lot | less on VMs. If I were writing software that had to run on | Windows Server on ARM, I would probably want one of these | devices for local development. | jve wrote: | It takes 1 CEO of Windows ARM device for dogfooding own | software to ARM :) | | Anyways, what I noticed is that CxOs started to carry Apple | MacBooks around and sysadmins just had to deal with it. | dboreham wrote: | > How many people have Surface Pro X | | <raises hand> | bartlettD wrote: | I don't think we're disagreeing. Devs have no incentive to | develop for ARM if there is no market share like you said, so | they're not going to buy a $599 kit and its existence won't | sway them either. | | I think there will come a time when the number of ARM Windows | machines increases though. | | This kit _is_ useful for the devs who care about the | performance of their programs on ARM kit but they 'll only | optimise for it if the market is there. | Kukumber wrote: | why would you use windows nowadays? | | why would you use windows with ARM? | | m1 mini let's you build apps for the biggest OS on the market | (iOS) | | macOS is the industry standard when it comes to | audio/photo/video production | | office? everyone uses a web interface, even slack has a web | interface | | and it makes even more sense to compare both, specially | considering we are headed towards a giant recession due to | rising cost of energy and the anti-carbon policies that will | come will affect the companies that are wasting energy with | inefficient machines | | it's mindbloging that people put this much energy defending | qualcomm contract, it literally is putting the west at a | disadvantage against China | | it makes perfect sense to compare it with the apple chip, you | are blind if you think otherwise, to stay polite | z3phyr wrote: | > Why would you use windows nowadays. | | 1) PC Gaming is a big market mover. | | 2) (Underrated) As a systems developer, Visual Studio is one | of the best development environments I have ever used. VS for | windows is the real one, VS for mac is a totally different | software. | Melatonic wrote: | macOS is the standard for prosumer audio/photo/video | production - not for the actual pro market. VFX mainly uses | Linux or Windows desktops and the top compositing | applications arent even made for macOS. | | Not to mention all of the stuff that requires CUDA to run and | the fact that Apple made their bed with AMD a long time ago | and you can no longer use Nvidia GPUs. | jhoechtl wrote: | > m1 mini let's you build apps for the biggest OS on the | market (iOS) | | Mobile OS it's Android,Desktop is Windows. | | > office? everyone uses a web interface, even slack has a web | interface | | Huh? Microsoft Word on Windows native? | | > companies that are wasting energy with inefficient machines | | I bet your usage of cloud office burns more energy than an | native app. | rekoil wrote: | > Huh? Microsoft Word on Windows native? | | I think the commenter is trying to say that it's not | something you need a Windows device for anymore. | | I agree with that sentiment, but disagree about web-based | Word, web-based Word is terrible, we often joke in my team | that we need to start over if someone accidentally opens a | SharePoint document in web-based Word. | [deleted] | TheLoafOfBread wrote: | I can user 2 or more monitors without actually losing my | sanity. | rekoil wrote: | macOS is very clearly optimised towards laptops in this | regard, which makes sense since they sell waaaay more of | those than they do stationary. | | It's been a while since I used Windows on a laptop, about 2 | years (so Windows 10 20H2 was likely the last I used on a | laptop). Back then un-docking and re-docking my laptop was | a pain because it would smoosh all app windows to the | primary monitor, and I'd have to move everything around on | my 3 monitors when re-docking. Every. Single. Time. | | Those had different DPIs as well, with all the issues that | brought. | | I can't actually recall a time when macOS was that bad at | managing my app windows when changing monitor | configurations, but I'll give you that Windows is better at | window management if all displays stay connected and have | the same DPI. | | Has Windows gotten better at these things? | TheLoafOfBread wrote: | If you have icons on 2 monitors and then you disconnect | 1, yes icons are everywhere. When you will reconnect the | second one, it will restore as it was. I do not know how | it is working (or not) on laptops and monitors | combinations as I have desktop PC with 2 monitors. | rekoil wrote: | I'm not so worried about icons, I don't really use the | desktop, in fact I actually disable desktop icons on my | macOS laptop. | | I'm more interested in what happens to app windows when | you remove and reconnect displays. | nvrspyx wrote: | > why would you use windows nowadays? | | - Gaming | | - Cheaper hardware options than Macs | | - Commercial software support (e.g., Adobe, Autodesk, | Affinity, Office, etc.) | | - Better hardware support (e.g., Nvidia graphics cards) | | - Easier Linux VM setup with WSL and x86(_64) support than | Mac (i.e., requires ARM iso or the hassle of setting up | Rosetta) | | - Piecemeal hardware upgradability | | - Less hassle than Linux, depending on hardware configuration | and needs | | - Smoother experience for some things like (HiDPI) multi- | monitor setups and video playback than Linux with the current | state of Wayland and the recent drop of third-party codecs by | multiple distros | | Some of these apply to Mac and some of these apply to Linux, | but only Windows has _all_ of these characteristics. Windows | is far from perfect, but it _is_ the best tool for some jobs. | People also simply have different preferences and trade-off | priorities, whether it be in regards to usability, | affordability, privacy, or anything else. | cooldown_00001 wrote: | [deleted] | smackeyacky wrote: | This is a good list, although for me I find it less and | less compelling as more of my development tools become | either fully cross-platform or web based completely and | distributions like Pop! make hardware support easier. | | - Gaming - no question windows is still better. | | - Less hassle? - I find that questionable these days. | Windows 11 has broken this somewhat. | | I like WSL2 but for the last couple of years I've found it | easier to reboot into Linux for dev work and just switch | back to Windows for gaming. | flohofwoe wrote: | > why would you use windows nowadays? | | PC games, plain and simple. | neogodless wrote: | https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share | | Android 42% | | Windows 30% | | iOS 18% | | > everyone uses a web interface | | Can you provide some global statistics for this claim? I | don't believe it's accurate, but I don't have a good way to | measure or disprove it. | Kukumber wrote: | windows has 0 market value, most of the usage comes from | zombie machines | | it even dropped in revenue in their latest report | | https://www.wsj.com/articles/microsoft-msft-q1-earnings- | repo... | bilekas wrote: | > windows has 0 market value, most of the usage comes | from zombie machines | | Have you ever worked in an enterprise environment ? | Kukumber wrote: | It's clear in that graph | | Look around you, look what tech companies uses to make | their products (hint: electron) | | Microsoft moving their Office suite to the web should give | you an indication where they want to take Windows, due to | new usages | | Global market share is a fake metric, what grandma's PC | from 2006 has to do with todays usages? | | It's true for everything, gaming, music, video, even art | [1] | | "Photoshop's journey to the web" | | [1] - https://web.dev/ps-on-the-web/ | mynameisvlad wrote: | > what grandma's PC from 2006 has to do with todays | usages? | | I mean, grandma clearly uses her PC for it to be included | in a global market share, so why do you think her use | should be discounted? | | Even if her usage is considered "niche" (debatable as | that is), it doesn't mean it shouldn't be included. | hota_mazi wrote: | OP debunks your claims with solid statistics and the best | way you can respond is "Look around you"? | | You fandom for all things Apple make you a bit blind to | reality, I suggest you look at things with more nuance | and actually document yourself with actual numbers. You | might be surprised by what you find. | cooldown_00001 wrote: | rejectfinite wrote: | >why would you use windows nowadays? | | One thing people have not mentioned is Enterprise. | | Just because its all webapps does not mean everyone can move | to a Chromebook. | | The ecosystem of HP/DELL/Lenovo Thinkpad hardware + Windows | 10/11 OS + management over Azure AD or on-prem AD that hooks | into Office 365 and most other apps. Plus all ERP and HR | software that run on Windows Servers. | | Yes the USERS are mostly on the Office 365 suite and webapps | for things. But their PCs have to be managed and apps have to | be served. | elorant wrote: | Speaking for myself, it's not an ARM desktop PC what I need, | but an ARM server. Make those highly available and then I'll | start developing/porting my code on ARM. | JimmyAustin wrote: | AWS has them: https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/graviton/, and you | can run Lambdas with ARM. | | Disclaimer: I work for Amazon (not in AWS). | cylinder714 wrote: | Foxconn, Gigabyte and Supermicro make Ampere Altra-based | servers: https://amperecomputing.com/reference- | platforms/ampere-altra... | elorant wrote: | I've seen those, but they cost a fortune. Even the smallest | 32core CPU with 128GB RAM and a couple of nvme ssds costs | more than 10k. | csdvrx wrote: | It's hard to get from usual companies like Lenovo, Dell, HP | etc. | | I just want ARM64 with ECC and the ability to put quite few | NVMe inside (U2 or M2, doesn't matter that much) | nicoburns wrote: | Pretty much all the cloud providers have ARM options these | days, even the smaller ones. | empraptor wrote: | Microsoft had preview for ARM64 Azure VMs earlier this year. | Not sure if they've gone beyond that. | | https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/now-in-preview- | azure-... | Kukumber wrote: | Half the speed of a chip released close to 3 years ago | | Qualcomm is bad | lostgame wrote: | I have negative interest in Windows, so can anyone in the know | tell me if they have some sort of x86/x64 emulation layer in | there like Apple does? | | If so, how effective is it? If not, this is as DOA as Surface RT. | geerlingguy wrote: | They do, it's called WOW64, and it covers emulation of 32-bit | and 64-bit x86 on ARM. More details on Microsoft's website: | https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/arm/apps-on-arm-x8... | | It's not as fast as Rosetta 2 on Apple Silicon (not by a long | shot), but especially for lighter apps like productivity | software, it isn't bad at all. | leeter wrote: | I think it's important to call out that Rosetta 2 on Apple | silicon uses a special mode that changes how the memory model | works to support x86 style memory ordering. That massively | reduces the amount of work needed to emulate x86 and x86-64. | Pretty sure apple both has a patent on it and a special | dispensation from ARM to use it. Where qualcomm and MS don't | have either. Which means emulation on Qualcomm CPUs is going | to be painfully slow in comparison because it has to use a | lot more locks and fences than is actually necessary with | that mode available. | GeekyBear wrote: | > I think it's important to call out that Rosetta 2 on | Apple silicon uses a special mode that changes how the | memory model works to support x86 style memory ordering. | That massively reduces the amount of work needed to emulate | x86 and x86-64. Pretty sure apple both has a patent on it | and a special dispensation from ARM to use it. | | >Myth: Apple chips are the only ones to implement the x86 | TSO memory model. | | Nvidia Denver/Carmel and Fujitsu A64fx do too. | | https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1534053625110351872 | ericpauley wrote: | From the article: | | > And in an embarrassing turn of events, right now at | least, you can eke out more performance running x86 code | inside Apple's Rosetta 2 in a Linux VM under Windows than | you can using Windows' native emulation layer! | | So clearly there's more going on than just leveraging TSO | support on Apple's chips. | abudabi123 wrote: | > ECS (Elitegroup) LIVA Mini Box QC710 Desktop | | The squircle design aesthetic looks nicer than the latest 32GB | memory new dev kit. Extrude up the shape to a squcube or stack | three cubes as modular compute units with a unified memory plane. | The Microsoft Windows Dev Kit 2023 exterior has no design effort | on the exterior. Wish industry would give dev-consumers the | choice of microkernel, user space, window manager kind of like | how vehicles come in varieties, avoiding Windows avoids the | heartache of the security hamster wheel by being different | qbasic_forever wrote: | It boggles my mind Microsoft didn't get into the custom ARM chip | design game years ago like Google, Amazon, etc. I imagine it's | far too late now especially with the state of the semiconductor | and supply chain world. Good luck betting your future on | Qualcomm, hope it works out. | int0x2e wrote: | A rumor I heard somewhere - MS supposedly built x86 emulation | for ARM a few years back, and created a demo on top of some | vendor's ARM servers for transparent Azure x86 on ARM (in | addition to regular ARM VM SKUs of course). But rather than | move forward with this as a public offering on Azure, they used | it to put the squeeze on Intel/AMD, and they got rock-bottom | price on hardware in return for holding-off on ARM adoption. | | Sounds like someone may have gotten a massive bonus that year, | but may have significantly delayed any ARM efforts on Azure... | gjsman-1000 wrote: | Qualcomm, meanwhile, has announced today that they think 2024 | will be their year. | | Great, _an entire 8 years_ after the first Windows on ARM | Qualcomm devices... but they think they 've got it this time. | For sure. | | https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/03/qualcomm_q4_2022/ | | Edit: This is so incomprehensibly late it's just embarrassing. | It's been 2 presidencies. Qualcomm had an exclusivity contract | for Windows on ARM for literally half a decade (2016-2021) | which they did absolutely nothing of significance with. And if | 2024 is their year, it will be 4 years after M1. Yikes. Not to | mention the lawsuit between themselves and ARM Holdings over | whether Nuvia's designs are legitimate, which could delay | things further. Nuvia had better be like pulling a rabbit out | of a hat when it arrives. | | Edit 2: @beembeem Right... _shutters_. 8 years in the sense of | modern Windows with some 32-bit Intel app compatibility. But as | for ARM as a whole... Windows RT and Windows CE before it... | beembeem wrote: | 8 years? Try more like a decade. | | https://www.qualcomm.com/news/onq/2012/06/impressions- | window... | sumtechguy wrote: | keep going... (source: old wince sdk survivor) | captainmuon wrote: | I don't blame Qualcomm as much as I blame Microsoft. They | tried to use the transition to ARM to lockdown and | smartphonize PCs. There were at least two attempts to bring | out a restricted, store only version of Windows (Windows RT | and Windows 10 S). But what's the point of Windows when you | can't use the majority of existing Windows software? ARM and | x86 differences are bad enough, but they had to artificially | add more barriers. | noveltyaccount wrote: | Thanks for the trip down memory lane...I had a Surface RT in | 2012 and it was a turd. Terrible performance and way too | locked down to be useful. | aidenn0 wrote: | I still use my Surface RT for videos on car trips. It has a | USB port, a 16:9 screen and can run (a very old version of) | VLC. I wouldn't have paid money for it, but I got it for | free. | gjsman-1000 wrote: | For those wanting to jump into Windows on ARM for a lower price, | who do not mind running an IDE on a separate machine, Microsoft's | original Windows ARM Devkit is still available from Microsoft, on | eBay, for $219. It has a Qualcomm 7c which is not powerful at all | (as shown in his graph as roughly similar to the "Dot 1"). But... | if you don't want to spend $599, it's a fun few weekends. | | https://www.ebay.com/itm/255784903190? | lostmsu wrote: | Good to know but my takeaway from the reviews was that it is | slow as molasses. Just over 1k in Geekbench multicore is | extremely low. | Aloha wrote: | > The rest of the innards are a bit of a mess. It seems obvious | the guts were basically a Surface Pro X-style main board | rearranged to fit inside a desktop case. And Microsoft missed out | on a few golden opportunities, like adding in a 2.5 Gbps network | port instead of a stodgy old 1 Gbps port. But the box does have | WiFi 6E and triple display support built in (one via mini | DisplayPort, two via USB-C). | | Is 2.5Gbps networking at all common? | geerlingguy wrote: | It's common enough most mid-range and better motherboards (and | many SBCs and cheap Intel/AMD/ARM desktops) include it by | default. The chips for 2.5G NICs are about the same price as 1G | parts now, and driver support is excellent across Windows, | Linux and macOS. | | It's basically a free 2.5x faster networking upgrade with the | same cabling, so many are adopting it. And since it's backwards | compatible with 1 Gbps networks, it's not a big issue to | include it. | | 2.5G switches are typically a little more than 1G switches, but | the prices have come down substantially in the past few years, | making it a worthwhile upgrade instead of going to 10G, | especially if you don't need all that speed (and heat) and the | hassle of cabling/transceiver issues that inevitably crop up. | Aloha wrote: | I did a casual look around and I'm not seeing much vendor | support. | | Like its there, but not super there. | lhoff wrote: | I'd its gradually changing. For example all available AM5 | mainboards and about 80% of all availabe Socket1700 have it | build in. Laptops are a different story die to the physical | size of the port but also get more common (of the laptop has a | Ethernet port) I bought my first USB Adapters (for a direct | connection between my NAS and my Desktop) in 2020 for ~30EUR. | dboreham wrote: | > Is 2.5Gbps networking at all common? | | Yes. Problem is that it isn't _that_ much faster than 1G. | c-smile wrote: | I've got one already. | | Here are real-life / practical numbers so you will know what to | expect. | | Compiling Sciter (https://sciter.com) full rebuild (C++): | | i7/32GB - just 64 seconds. | | That ARM (WDK)/32GB machine - 2 minutes 6 seconds. | | And for the comparison, same Sciter sources, full rebuild | | Mac (Mini) M1 machine - 8 minutes 33 seconds (XCode/LLVM, but it | builds universal binaries). | | And yet, the same Sciter, Linux on MacMini/Intel, GCC | | i7/32GB - 9 minutes 45 seconds. | | So, when we speak about hardware it is not enough to compare pure | synthetic benchmarks but real life scenarios. | | Really, Microsoft Windows is the most developer friendly | platform. De facto. | ericpauley wrote: | >it builds universal binaries | | Are these workloads comparable? It could very well be that | macOS is doing more compilation. If you wanted a fair | comparison, you could run Linux on both and compile in that. | | Even if building for macOS requires more overall work, I | wouldn't say this constitutes a "real-life" comparison because | the output product is different. | bilekas wrote: | I see a lot of negative comments and while some of them are | definitely valid for the Qualcomm choices, but I have to say the | box still feels like far better value for money over Apples | offering. | tyingq wrote: | I agree, especially once somebody gets Linux running on it, it | would be a good value for CI/CD Arm build jobs. | geerlingguy wrote: | It's a bit slower, but does have more memory than any | available M1 option. | nigerianbrince wrote: | I had a ryzen 3 2200g with 32 gigs of ram and it felt way | faster than my mac mini. That extra space makes everything | faster. | graycat wrote: | Thanks! | | Since I decided to base my startup on Microsoft, that is, write | the software using .NET to run on Windows, a few days ago I | noticed the Microsoft "Dev Kit" and wondered what it was. | | I clicked for a few HOURS at the corresponding Microsoft Web | pages and finally gave up -- I could make no sense at all out of | what the "Dev Kit" was. Wasted a few thousand mouse clicks and a | few HOURS or time. Got frustrated. | | In particular, in those Microsoft Web pages, there was an HTML | single line text box were could ask questions, and the question I | asked, the simplest, most elementary, first question, was | | "What is in the Dev Kit?" | | In the hours of clicking some thousands of times on those Web | pages, I asked that question some dozens of times and got back | nothing meaningful. Right, from all I could tell, for the | simplest, most elementary, first question, no information. | | By the time I gave up, I still had no idea what the heck "Dev | Kit" was, what was in it, what it was for, etc. Was it hardware | and software or just software? Couldn't tell. Most elementary | question, no answer. | | So, here with this thread finally I can see the first, simple | answers to the first, simple questions. Good. | | For me the answer is, no, I don't want a "Dev Kit", not for | money, marbles, chalk, or for free. Good to get that question | answered! | ripley12 wrote: | The very first search result for "windows dev kit": | https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/d/windows-dev-kit-2023/94k0p... | | "Everything you need to develop Windows apps for Arm. Powerful | AI. All on one device." | | "Introducing a developer-class desktop device to build, debug, | and test native Windows apps for Arm." | | A tech specs tab shows you exactly what the hardware is. | | How did you spend hours on this? | graycat wrote: | Apparently via Google you found a good explanation of the Dev | Kit. | | Gee, maybe the Microsoft Web pages should have given the | links you found! | | Yes, eventually I did do a Google search. I found a little | information, better than the Microsoft Web pages. | | But a "device"? What was meant by a "device"? My life, my | work in computing, my work for my startup, are all awash in | various _devices_. Heck, my kitchen has a lot of "devices". | So does my car. I have a sack of gorgeous Nikon camera | equipment, all "devices". | | Somewhere some description needs to get simpler, down to the | level of the Common Man in the Street, to the 6th grade, with | an introductory explanation: I've done a LOT in computing and | still am doing so, but a "device" is just too vague to be | meaningful. People for whom that jargon is meaningful have a | background I am missing. For my current work, I have no need | for that background. | | The Microsoft Web pages kept promising to tell me what was in | the kit, product, offering, box, unit, device, whatever. | Sooo, I kept clicking, thinking that maybe I just missed the | Web page that actually explained what the Dev Kit was. | | So, the "Dev Kit", the _thing_ Microsoft was talking about, | is a COMPUTER, complete with a DC power supply, central | processor, main memory, solid state memory for a file system, | ports, maybe some version of USB (Intel 's universal serial | bus) for connecting a keyboard, a mouse, and one or more | video displays, an operating system, and some software tools | from Microsoft, and for most of this still I have no actual | source and am just guessing. NONE of that was at all clear. | | My interest was as a founder of a startup, a Web site, and | the programmer of that Web site. I've done the programming | using Microsoft's .NET software and their SQL Server. And I | wrote the code on Windows XL and then Windows 7. | | That was a long time ago -- I got delayed by some | unpredictable, independent, unfortunate outside events. But | now I'm returning and trying to rush to going on-line as a | Web site available to everyone on the Internet. | | Early in the work, I got from Microsoft a version of SQL | Server for free. What I wanted to know a few days ago from | the "Dev Kit" was, is a free (developer) version of SQL | Server still available? What other versions of SQL Server are | available? Should I consider converting to PostgreSQL? What | other Microsoft software is available? Eventually it became | clear that somehow whatever the Dev Kit was, it was not | really for people developing a Web site. | | Soooo, maybe somewhere there is a little company developing | and selling software to help, say, a pizza shop. The little | company writes the software using .NET. Some of the pizza | shop customers are using computers with ARM processors | instead of x86 processors and some version of Unix instead of | Windows. So, the Dev Kit is aimed at software developers in | such companies. Okay. Microsoft never made any of this at all | clear, but eventually, okay, now it's clear. | | This Dev Kit is not for me. Now I understand this. | | Then I did another Google search and got a good, clear, | surprisingly nice explanation for my question about SQL | Server: | | At | | https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server/sql-server- | downlo... | | I saw | | SQL Server 2019 Express is a free edition of SQL Server, | ideal for development and production for desktop, web, and | small server applications. | | Sure, I'd still like to know what $ I'm in for if my startup | is successful and I need a _non toy_ version of SQL Server? | Ah, getting information like that is asking for too much! | | But some such information is available sometimes!!! Last | month I finally found a path to some serious people at my | ISP, Comcast, about what they could do for me when I bring my | Web site live! Most of their answers were good, clear, and | more favorable than I had guessed. | | So, sometimes in business it's actually IS possible to get | some clear information!!!! | | It appears to me that in the last year or so Microsoft has | made good progress in the main, foundational challenge -- | describing their work. Before, long it appeared that getting | such information was not like pulling teeth from lions but | pulling tusks from elephants. | | "Device": Whoever at Microsoft described the Dev Kit as a | "device" needs some serious _counseling_. | | In my first use of SQL Server, I had no problems designing | the database, understanding "normal forms", but spent a solid | week trying to get a "connection string" to work. Finally I | sent to Microsoft so much in email and phone calls that I got | to apparently some mid-level executive in the SQL Server | organization who told me right away how to get a connection | string. WOW, only a week wasted!!!! | bigbillheck wrote: | > Apparently via Google you found a good explanation of the | Dev Kit. Gee, maybe the Microsoft Web pages should have | given the links you found! | | It's literally the same link as the very first one in the | body of article this comment thread is about. | | > The Microsoft Web pages kept promising to tell me what | was in the kit, product, offering, box, unit, device, | whatever. Sooo, I kept clicking, thinking that maybe I just | missed the Web page that actually explained what the Dev | Kit was. | | As ripley12 says, there's a 'Tech Specs' tab (I realize | that 'tab' might be a new concept for you, but if you'll go | to that page and scroll down a little bit you'll see a | section that looks like |Overview | Tech Specs | FAQ| and | each of those is a 'tab') | | > for most of this still I have no actual source and am | just guessing. NONE of that was at all clear | | In addition to the 'Tech Specs' tab there is a 'FAQ' tab. | As you might know, this stands for 'Frequently Asked | Questions' ('frequently' means 'often'). In there you will | see a list of questions with ">" symbols next to them (this | ">" does not mean that they are less than some value, it's | just a typographical symbol). | | The first of those (when read from top to bottom) is "What | are some of the specific challenges Windows Dev Kit 2023 | will help solve for developers? " | | If you 'click', with your 'mouse', on that it will reveal | (which means 'to show which was hidden'), and the revealed | text reads: | | Today, if a developer wants to build an app that targets | Arm, they generally write their code and build the app | binaries on a x64 Windows PC, and then copy the built | binaries over to an Arm device upon which to run or test | the app. If they need to debug the app, they have to hookup | a remote debugging session from their x64 PC. | | Windows Dev Kit 2023, as an Arm-powered device powered by | the Snapdragon(r) 8cx Gen 3 compute platform, will enable | Windows developers to build, test and debug Arm-native apps | alongside all their favorite productivity tools, including | Visual Studio, Windows Terminal, WSL, VSCode, Microsoft | Office and Teams. | | I realize there are a lot of words there, but sometimes in | this industry we have to read them. | cylinder714 wrote: | Try typing "Windows Dev Kit 2023" into your preferred search | engine; it took a while for the news to spread. It's not a | hotrod, but if you think Windows on ARM has a future, $599 for | a small form factor PC with 32G of RAM is pretty good. | | >Since I decided to base my startup on Microsoft, that is, | write the software using .NET to run on Windows | | If you have any interest in Linux or cross-platform | development, Microsoft and Canonical announced first-class | support for .NET for Ubuntu: | | https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/dotnet-6-is-now-in-ubu... | | https://ubuntu.com/blog/install-dotnet-on-ubuntu | graycat wrote: | Thanks. So far I'm developing software to run only on my | hardware, 64 bit x86, and only on Windows, Windows 7 | Professional or some version of Windows Server. The main | purpose is just for my Web site. In time I will write more | software to process, some of it could be called _statistics_ | , some relevant data essentially independent of the Web site | itself. | | I can understand that maybe for a server farm on a few | million square feet of rack space, and some millions of | processors, one way and another they could save significant $ | (a) powering the computers and (b) removing the resulting | heat from the building. My startup is not there yet. Also I | can understand that my AMD FX-8350 processor can use a few | more Watts per computation than some recent processors with | simpler instruction sets and smaller line widths, but I'm not | worrying about that now either. | | I am pleased that Microsoft is working hard to get .NET to | run on a variety of processor instruction sets and operating | systems -- for me it means that Microsoft will continue to | support the .NET I am depending on. | WithinReason wrote: | I was hoping Microsoft would port Windows to Raspberry Pi, looks | like that's too underpowered. | TonyTrapp wrote: | There's no porting to be done. You can run Windows 10 / 11 on a | Raspberry Pi 400 today. | geerlingguy wrote: | Windows 11 only up to one of the betas--the production | version has some ARMv8.1 extensions that aren't compatible | with the Pi's SoC. | | The Pi is also woefully underpowered, even when overclocked-- | the cheaper ARM SoCs from Qualcomm are still 2-4x faster than | a Pi 4, and they even feel a bit slow at times running | Windows on ARM. | qbasic_forever wrote: | They ported Windows 10 IoT to run on the pi (it's not a desktop | Windows experience though, don't get your hopes up). I'm not | sure they maintain or care about it anymore though, I think | they moved to Azure IoT that's Linux-based. | notaplumber1 wrote: | The recently released OpenBSD 7.2 boots and installs on it, | support for the same Qualcomm Snapdragon SoC used in the ThinkPad | x13s was added during last release cycle, so support for the | Microsoft Dev Kit 2023 came for the most part for free. | | https://www.openbsd.org/72.html | | OpenBSD developer Patrick Wildt shared boot messages (dmesg) | here: https://twitter.com/bluerise/status/1585584481854816256 | | Another UK tech reviewer Alex Ellis showed it booting OpenBSD | into X11: https://blog.alexellis.io/linux-on-microsoft-dev- | kit-2023/ | uni_rule wrote: | Wonder if that means alternative OS's will eventually reach the | Galaxy Book Go. Its rock bottom price intrigues me but it seems | to lack dev support in that regard. Maybe these attempts to | support similar specs of machine will trickle down to it. | my123 wrote: | Thankfully from the kernel perspective the Galaxy Book Go SoC | is pretty well supported because Chromebooks did ship with | the same SoC. | | However, that specific device doesn't have good support. | Would take some developer time to do so... (and not sure if | that will happen) | notaplumber1 wrote: | I believe the Samsung Galaxy Book Go was tested with OpenBSD | during the initial development for the ThinkPad x13s, | keyboard support was added in this commit. | | https://github.com/openbsd/src/commit/74edc71ccae4051eda11fa. | .. | | Many of these older generation "Windows on Snapdragon" | laptops unfortunately did not use fast NVMe storage however, | only slow eMMC and eUFS (Universal Flash Storage), the latter | currently being unsupported by OpenBSD. | stoplying1 wrote: | Yeah I don't get how Linux is running on the Thinkpad and | openbsd was able to boot but a device trees is the blocker for | Linux? Are they just on some distro that doesn't have the new | kernel packaged? | | Oh, it's because of "APCI" mode working with openbsd | apparently... | notaplumber1 wrote: | The upstreamed Qualcomm drivers in the Linux kernel require a | device tree from the vendor which doesn't exist yet for this | machine, I believe the Linux community has something cobbled | together for the ThinkPad x13s, or got something from Lenovo. | | > Oh, it's because of "APCI" mode working with openbsd | apparently... | | Indeed, OpenBSD attempts to support these machines to some | extent in ACPI mode, but from what I read the ACPI tables are | in bad shape/incomplete. "Good enough for Windows, ship it.". | ntauthority wrote: | > but from what I read the ACPI tables are in bad | shape/incomplete. "Good enough for Windows, ship it.". | | It is a bit more nuanced than this. Qualcomm ships a giant | custom (mandatory, most the platform will not even work | without it!) driver stack on Windows and uses ACPI | definitions more than most x86 platform vendors, to the | extent that it even exposed a bug in the Windows ACPI | implementation when an ACPI method return buffer would | exceed 64 kB so since this generation of SoC a lot of the | Windows drivers instead bundle their own 'subset' of | certain ACPI buffers and the main DSDT is empty as a | result. | | Linux on ARM still doesn't really use ACPI except where | forces more influential than Qualcomm managed (e.g. SBSA?) | so even downstream Linux kernels for Qualcomm still use DT. | notaplumber1 wrote: | Appreciate the additional context. It does seem like | though a lot of magic is contained in the Qualcomm | Windows drivers, with large parts of the ACPI tables | being stubs or broken (requiring hardcoded driver | quirks/workarounds). | rcarmo wrote: | Like I wrote on a similar thread a few days ago, some of these | expectations seem a tad misplaced, but I would buy one in a flash | if it was available in my country, as a _personal_ ultra-quiet | desktop with a good Linux userland and the ability to drive a | 5K2K display or matching pixel acreage. | | For my terminal-centric lifestyle WSL2 is fine, and all of my | personal machines run either Linux or macOS even though I happen | to work for MS. And getting a fully working aarch64 Linux | userland with Windows 11 window management and PowerToys is, | well... tempting. | | I am, however, increasingly leaning towards just getting a Khadas | Edge 2 Pro (which has an RK3588S and a comparable amount of RAM | and storage). I don't think Jeff has tested that one yet (and it | should come in below the SQ2), but if you want _fast_ aarch64 | readily available, it seems to be the thing to beat (I can see it | now on my regional Amazon store, a click away... must... | resist...) | drekipus wrote: | > with Windows 11 window management and PowerToys is, well... | tempting. | | Can I ask why? In all of my experiences, both "windows window | management" and "power toys" seem to be lackluster to Linux | equivalents. | rcarmo wrote: | You likely haven't tried FancyZones or the baseline window | snapping with mouse dragging. I use a set of GNOME extensions | that mimic them, but they are simply not as... snappy. | jnsaff2 wrote: | It's not quiet tho. It has a cheap-ass fan and also bad enough | coil whine to get a mention in the video. | geerlingguy wrote: | The fan is pretty quiet, at least--I couldn't hear it unless | I put my ear up to the box. | | The coil whine was excessive though. I wouldn't normally | mention it if it were here and there and quiet, but it was | noticeable from a few feet away any time I went above 100 | mbps down over Ethernet. | rcarmo wrote: | That is interesting - I noticed that in your video, and I | suspect a little shielding around the Ethernet electronics | might help (but I have no real idea how the Ethernet was | integrated into the Surface motherboard variant). | PointyFluff wrote: | Dammit, Jeff! | | Stop buying up all the Raspberry PIs! | | </jk> ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-11-03 23:01 UTC)