Alt Distro in dom0

what about package installing

Let’s discuss that once we reach that point.

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Which packages specifically does Fedora have that require it to be used as dom0?

Xen project undergoes a Synopsis Coverity scan which should also be the case for QubesOS. What types of attacks would Xen be subject to if it isn’t network facing?

Nevermind; It’s the guest VM which makes a hypercall; Xen doesn’t implement ASLR or PIE

If Debian/Devuan have such a large user base, wouldn’t it make sense to look at a Kicksecure hardened

Devuan as a dom0 alternative? Other options like HardenedBSD have a good reputation for security but the

user base is smaller.

@huaopeng please stop creating new threads for existing discussions.

Is there any reason a distro with active reproducible builds can’t be combined with a functional package

manager like Nix to address package manager issues with Arch?

Actually, it would make more sense to use something like Devuan or Artix with Nix because systemd is removed.

Instead of debating on an OS to replace Fedora which meets the criteria of:

  • not using systemd for init
  • using muslc
  • using libreSSL

why not create a custom MirageOS unikernel which implements all of these packages in OCaml
here:

Can you just lock this discussion? It has stopped being useful.

I’d like to repurpose it into formulating an FAQ entry, since the question comes up quite frequently. I am a bit too busy currently to spend time on coming up with a first draft, so if someone else wants to get the ball rolling … it would be appreciated.

This could be a starting point for a draft:

I’ve somewhat reconsidered locking this thread, as it is useful in keeping these types of discussions contained in one place. At least people post here are not generating new topics or spamming the mailing list/GitHub issue tickets. Once the GUI is pulled into its own hypervisor, then these discussions might be useful again.

Here is my (hopefully not too passive aggressive) version of the QA:

Q Have you considered switching dom0 to $fav_distro?

A Probably! However, the Qubes team lacks the resources to switch to another distro. We are currently focused on removing as much as possible from dom0 (i.e. GUI compositing), which will make switching more feasible from an engineering perspective.

Q But $fav_distro is AMAZING!

A It sounds amazing! We are happy to support concrete code or financial contributions :wink:.

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Probably not, at least I don’t think that is the idea behind sys-gui, it should reduce the need to interact with dom0, making the OS choice even less of an issue.

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dom0 matters: it has direct access to hardware and where most of the trust in the system is placed. Hardware support, stability, packaging, reproducibility, and opsec of the upstream distro will definitely matter. It’s just that potential replacement distros will continue to evolve while we wait for Qubes to get to the point that it can consider switching.

A post was merged into an existing topic: How to minimize dom0?