Best laptop or desktop to run Qubes OS

Hi, I think I missed the best laptop or desktop where I can run QubeOS.
I know that there is a page that lists all the compatible hardware, but it’s quite long…
What I notice is that there are very old models with full compatibility, the newest was a laptop with the series 6 of Intel, so hardware of 2015…

Things I may really need:

  • No thermal problems, I can’t deal with it on a machine for productivity, obviously the problem is with laptops
  • Output in 4K without maxing the CPU
  • I has to be fully compatible with QubeOS, I may need to run also virtualization with KVM or any other fully supported, so I can play with snapshot restore of my VMs etc, I would keep the host very simplistic, otherwise I’m quite sure that I will brick the OS very soon, in the end is still a distro in development, if not, please confirm :slight_smile:

This may be a problem, because AppVMs use a software-only (CPU-based) implementation of OpenGL. It seems one cannot do much about it, since it’s necessary for Qubes OS GUI isolation. Related issue.

See other topics:

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Thank you, but these laptops have hardware of 9 years ago…

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Purism Librem 14 does not have hardware from 9 years ago. See also many new devices in the HCL. Upd: and in the Community-recommended list.

The HCL is not the officially supported, right?
But thanks, I’ll have a look.

What concerns me is that the QubeOS team may not support these laptops (HCL) anymore in future, I mean, just at the next kernel or whatever driver update.

I also noticed that almost all of them have the TPM “unknown”.
What that means exactly?

That’s for an Anti Evil Maid solution. You can look up what it is.

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It means Anti evil maid (AEM) | Qubes OS is not tested.

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Thank you, but these laptops have hardware of 9 years ago…

Whenever I see people worrying about the age of hardware, I
wonder what their priorities are, and their budget: I wonder because
these things are rarely stated.
Some people simply dismiss hardware options because of age - I dont
think op is doing this, but their only stated requirements are “no
thermal problems” and “4k output”, so it’s difficult to say.

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I am using a 4 year old ThinkPad P51 and have no issues driving a 4K
display using the display port and the integrated Intel graphics (not
using the Nvidia).

The laptop gets warm … sure. But it’s on the desk and not in my lap so
I don’t care. No performance impact.

I have 32 GB and 1 TB SSD which means there are no boundaries in sight
even running 16+ qubes at a time.

You can’t install Coreboot… if you need that go for X230 or T430 and
max out the RAM.

i use x220 i7 16gb 1tb evo ssd + heads firmware ,
its good only for programming and ssh,
also you need a lot of re-tweaking stuff, good knowledge of cli alternative programms.

x220 one of the best machines on market.

thats why:

  1. easy firmware flash ~ 5minutes maximum from scratch
  2. easy repair - disassembled to zero and back in half an hour
  3. cheap parts
  4. portability
  5. but 1366x768 screen an amateur and you need not fake chink 9cell battery. i got it only from offical lenovo shop.
    dont buy batteries on ebay

my second tank is p50 with xeon and 64gb ram with 4.1

for me there is no difference.

is also slow, virtual machines are loaded twice as slow as in the previous version, x220 with dwm and 4.0 works faster

fast hypervisor only dream for me.

I never tried something better than 4cores+ cpu.
Maybe librem is better.

minimal templates are power.

also maybe x390 or x1 carbon will be nice
p50 weight ~ 4kg, for travel it sucks.

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There have been some efficiency issues with 4.1 that some people were able to fix. See this comment Major known 4.1 gaps? - #5 by gust and the whole thread. If you try it and it works, please let everyone know.

The thing is that 9y old hardware have also security issues, and on a laptop you can’t easily upgrade them… Let’s say that 99% of the time is a pain.
Thermal issues are a serious concern on a laptop, especially on high performance laptops.

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Here im using a 3 years old thinkpad t480 recently upgrade to 32gb(2x 16gb corsair) ram and ssd adata 2280 and i have nothing bad to say about it. sure the laptop gets warm but nothing to worry about, im very satisfied with it and im not thinking to change it.

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I have a Librem 15 and Qubes runs flawless on it. It has a 4k screen but not sure if it has 4k output. No thermal issues.

I also have a Librem Mini and there are some issues. Suspend seldom works but not really a big issue as I simply leave the computer on. Mouse movment becomes choppy after a few days of PC being on. Overall not that bad but I may or may not recommend the MIni for Qubes. I have used the mini for about six months.

Yes, Librem 15 works flawlessly for me, too. Unfortunately, it’s not sold anymore.

See here for a list of good hardware: Community-recommended computers.

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