Pearl

Pearl is a Dell XPS-15 I got today, so of course I have to deal with the annoyances.

Hardware

• Dell XPS 15 9520
• Intel i5 12 generation
• RAM: 32GB; 2x16 (up to 64GB 2x32; 2 slots DDR5, 4800 MHz)
• SSD: Samsung NVMe 990 Pro (Two M.2 2230/2280 slots for solid-state drive, you'd need another heat spreader to install the second device though. Available from Amazon)
• PCI bus: Up to PCIe Gen 4.0
• WiFi: Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX211

Manual: https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/en-us/xps-15-9520-laptop/xps-15-9520-setup-and-specifications/set-up-your-xps-15-9520

History

2024-11-18 -- Installed Samsung 990 PRO 2TB SSD increased storage from 512GB. Had to switch from RAID (default from factory) to AHCI to get full performance. Used "Power Save" mode in Magician.

2023-06-10 -- Dell wants to update its "pair" app but fails. Since I don't use BT mouse or kbd with Pearl, I don't care.

2023-06-10 -- updated the Live account information and finally got permission from Microsoft to use a local account. Switch to local. Sigh. Done. Works. No big deal. Less tracking.

2023-05-09 -- Set up with my old Live account, AKA Skype, which was attached to my TrailPeople address and therefore inaccessible. I had to wait 30 days to update it.

Filesystem Organization

mount point	drive
C:	Samsung NVME 990 Pro	2TB
C:/Users/bwilson/Dropbox	Dropbox	8GB available
C:/Users/bwilson/Documents	Wenda:/volume1/homes/bwilson	Synology Client

2024-11-19 Moving projects from Dropbox to Synology

Installing Node and NPM via NVM

"NVM is the Node version manager, it's the easiest way to get Node and NPM installed and working. Download the Windows installer and run "nvm_setup.exe". Accept the defaults. It will create two environment variables and add them to your PATH. "NVM_SYMLINK" and "NVM_PATH". The "nvm use" command will modify a symlink to put your chosen node on your PATH. Once that's done you can run "npm".

Installing Docker

On Windows 11 Home, I have to use the WSL version of Docker. The HyperV version is not supported. First install WSL, in a Pearl shell, _{wsl --install --d Debian}

Reboot. Download the installer from the Docker Hub and run it.

Stupid Windows 11 Home things

SMB has to be enabled. Until you do nothing will show up under Network, which means for months I did not use CIFS shares on Wenda. This is annoying in the sense that it was turned off by default, but pleasing in that I thought they wanted me to upgrade to the Pro version. Pearl just became far more usable, at least while I am at home. I still want the Synology Client to work though.

My Windows account had an obsolete email address attached to it. It is making me wait 30 days to update it!

My own page is here, Windows 10 and Windows 11

Ads ads ads!

I've removed McAfee and the Web thing for McAfee (Add and Remove Programs...) While I was in there I removed Alexa and Microsoft Family.

Today, a notification reminding me to use McAfee called "Dell Digital Delivery" so I uninstalled that too.

I wanted to use Edge because Microsoft is so determined but it was packed with so many ads I gave up and installed Firefox. Also, there is still no Psono add on for Edge. Firefox is full of ads but they make it easy to turn them off.

That box down there in the lower left corner with the temperature is fine, but ads pop up when I just hover over it. OMG! It's so irritating.

I am assuming I will remove the Dell program from the task bar as soon as I find out why it's there. (Obviously it is an ad and its there to sell me something. Probably a warranty.)

I don't want One Drive.

Software

I've installed software for my radios.

I've installed tools for embedded development with Zephyr including the Nordic command line toolkit for the nRF52840DK board and nrfutil for the dongle. More notes here Nordic nRF52840