I have a multifaceted (sorry) question about the Qubes Manager window columns. The column at the far-left has an icon with two monitors joined together, or a “blank?” icon, and a special single monitor icon for dom0. Will someone please tell me what these icons mean, exactly ? ;And the next column from the left has icons with different qube shapes…;What is the meaning of each of these different shapes ? ;And, there is a column labeled “internal” What is the significance of this column ? ;And, Please explain the significance of the “Default DispVM” column . Thank You.
Are you on Qubes 4.0 or 4.1? That will affect a lot of the answers to your questions.
I don’t think they really have a well-defined semantics. They were probably just chosen for the sake of having different icons for different things.
@ninavizz, I think this is referring to your icons.
Have a look at this issue:
(If you’re on 4.1, and it’s still unclear, let me know so I can reopen this issue.)
When a disposable is launched from a qube, it’s based on that qube’s default disposable template (if any).
You can read more about disposables here:
These are reasonable questions, and they point to the need for explanatory tooltips for the Qube Manager’s table headings. I’ll add the suggestion to this issue:
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Thank you. Your semasiological tutelage …Am I in the correct forum? Could someone tell me where the “kiddie pool is”? !
You are probably looking for the Getting started page. Once you digested it, you will have a basic concept of dom0, templates, app qubes, service qubes, standalone qubes etc. The icons and shapes you see in the Qube Manager try to help distinguish them visually.
That page also contains a nice list of how-to guides covering common tasks such as update, backup, copy & paste as well as moving files between qubes, installing software and managing peripherals.
It’s not a long read but it will give you the basic concepts after which hopefully the UI will make more sense to you. Windows, OS X and standard Linux desktops are interchangeable since they are all based on the same concepts. Qubes OS basically lets you have many of those computers in one machine with an integrated UI, but that necessitates an understanding of how this is organized and managed. That part is new to you and hence will require a small amount of reading.
You are in the right place. This is the “kiddie pool” 
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…or write me a private message here and I’ll help you in a “Question-Answer” kind of style… 
Wow, suggesting it “only” for 6 years. If it’s not late, +1 from me. Qube manager needs many more things, too.
Dear Qubes-oriented friends,
I spent most of my yesterday obsessing about, and crafting a perfectly reworded question in order to get the answer I needed. It was wordy and precise with the perfect amount of sarcasm and goodwill.
Yes , a Whole Day's worth of careful sentence structuring, dictionary-thesaurus referencing, re-reading, editing, re-structuring and polishing.
I was going to send it today ; Then I looked at it from everyone elses perspective. I ended up with a very cynical attitude towards all of it...a-z...myself included.
How could I have possibly wasted a whole day with such an insignificant question ? ! ; And then I read your post - "Why are you here?" What a beautiful, thoughtful, intelligent, insightful intercourse.
That post has inspired me to not send my re-worked question/rant. It has alternative inspired me to instead, share a little humor and ask some slightly different questions about qubes.
Apparently there are more jokes about "me" than I realized. I have to say that only some of tose things are stictly true and the rest is exaggeration. Don't beleive all of it !
Anyways...as you know, I've been struggling to learn about qubes ; And, I don't mean to scare you guys but, my dad says if I don't start doing better at learning qubes, somebody is going to get a spanking ! And then he said something I didn't understand. It's about qubes, so maybe you guys can help me to understand it. He said, "It's just like yogi bear once said,'if they make it understandable to little guys like you, Johnny ; then it wouldn't be special anymore, it would be too crowded' "
I asked him what it meant and he said don't worry about it cause I was already learning it the hard way. Well, that's how I usually do it so, I will keep on trying !
P.S. My dad said to always be careful on the internet ; And I’m not sure if I should send a Private message. So, I’m just going to click on the big Blue Button that says Reply.
Since I wasted a lot of time searching for some info and this thread is shown at the top of a search with your favorite non-tracking search engine, I thought I add my few cents to it.
Both the first and second column indicate the type of the qube (I believe:)
- column:
- monitor with a gear: dom0
- application window: AppVM (also as a DisposableVM template - i.e. ‘Is DVM Template’-column=Yes) or DisposableVM
- two monitors: TemplateVM
- monitor without a gear: StandaloneVM
- column:
- black qube with white crown: dom0 (well, no shit sherlock?)
- solid qube: AppVM or StandaloneVM
- solid qube in front of transparent: TemplateVM
- qube with hole: System/Service (called ‘Service’ in the application menu (the Q in panel). e.g. sys-net, sys-firewall, sys-usb, sys-whonix)
I don’t have an idea whats required for a qube to be a system qube but it’s not just addingsys-before the name.
and the TL;DR of this internal thing is: NO TOUCHY!!!11ELEVEN like described anywhere in the issue linked by adw:
internal
Internal qubes (with this feature set to True) are not included in the menu.
Default: not internal VM
As far as I can tell, “internal” roughly means (to developers) something like “internal component of the system that we don’t want users to mess with.” But, of course, there is no way that you could have known that, because it is not indicated or even hinted anywhere, so you did exactly the opposite.