Hi, thank you so much for getting back to me. I do appreciate you patience and willingness to help me out. I also like the quotes thing although not sure that I’ve done it properly. Anyway, if it works I had a look at the Qube Manager and I was quite impressed to see all the VMs and their corresponding templates. Unfortunately, it didn’t tell me what template dom0 is based. The manager just referred to it as ‘AdminVM’. I don’t suppose you’d happen to know what dom0 is based on?
Oh and I forgot I don’t currently have Fedora 38 but why would I need it? Sorry that this is the third time I made that comment I’m still getting my head around this forum and just realised I can edit the previous post, doh!
Hi, so far I’ve had a look at one of the forum posts you were kind enough to find for me and found this:
Since you’re using USB drive then after calling: sudo qubesctl state.sls qvm.sys-usb
Since it doesn’t know that you’re booting from USB drive it’ll by default create the sys-usb that would contain all your USB controllers including the one to which your USB drive is connected. So when you start sys-usb it’ll remove USB controllers from dom0 and your dom0 will lose it’s drive with filesystem.
You need to determine which USB controller is used by your USB drive and remove it from the list of passed through PCI devices in sys-usb.
You’ll need to reboot Qubes and disable your VMs autostart to prevent sys-usb starting: Autostart troubleshooting | Qubes OS.
I think in a previous response you told me how I could determine how many USB controllers I had and I posted an image of those results. Do those results mean that I have only one USB controller and therefore I won’t be able to isolate it as it is also being used by dom0? If that is the case would the only option I had then would be to install Qubes directly to my hard drive, which I don’t really fancy doing?
Hi, thanks for the response, it is much appreciated. I do in fact have the option to install with Kernel latest which seems to be 6.1.12.1.qubes.fc32 and will now try and reinstall using that. I’ll let you know how I get on in due course.
Phew! I managed to figure out how to copy the .yml file to a USB in Qubes, yay! I’ll attach it here and I hope it helps.
I’m now getting a bit confused as to where I’m at as this is getting a bit complicated. Anyway, I also checked my sys-net and it is based on Fedora 37. So how would I change sys-net to something else?
It actually shows that you have two USB controllers. You need to check if it’s true: You can go to the Qube Manager, find sys-usb qube, open its Settings, tab Devices. Does it show two USB controllers selected on the right hand side? What are their names? (Sometimes, the system is mistaken and one controller can be shown as two. I have such situation by the way on my machine. I do not know how to reliably find it out without experimenting.) One of them definitely contains your USB boot device, so removing it would break your installation… Another one, in theory, could be removed from sys-usb and added to new sys-usb-2 qube (or something)…
Try right click on the qube in the Qube Manager. The Template can only be changed when the qube is not running. It will replace the /root partition of the qube. Alternatively, you can change the Template in the qube Settings, tab Basic.
Actually, this should not be very complicated. Your Internet does not work. Two possible solutions: (a) make WiFi work, or (b) make ethernet work. Because the latter is a USB device and you booted from another USB device, this is complicated. Option (a) should be easier.
For option (a), you probably need to install the firmware. Most of the time, latest Linux versions already contain it and it should just work. Your WiFi card is attached to and managed by sys-net virtual machine. It is based on Fedora-37. You can try to make it Fedora-38 in the hope that newer kernel will fix your problem. Alternatively, you can try to make it Debian-12.
Wow, who knew I had two USB controllers, well I do now. I checked in Qube Manager and it doesn’t list a sys-usb. Does that mean that I have to create it as I did previously?
Ok, when you put it like that it does sound easier. I think I was just getting confused as there seems to be multiple threads and things to try. But you clarified very succinctly. I tried changing the sys-net template to debian-11, I didn’t have debian 12 but still with the same problem. On boot sys-net tried to start but then shutdown. Fedora 38 isn’t listed as an option that I can change sys-net to. The only other options are whonix-gw-16 and whonix-ws-16 but didn’t try them.
If I apparently know that I now have 2 USB controllers is it also possible that I could isolate one for my boot device and one for my USB Ethernet card. Although I’m not sure how I would go about that? This might achieve option b, what do you think?
I checked out this question but I don’t think I can do the first two lines of code as I don’t have a functional Ethernet card:
sudo dnf update
sudo dnf install dkms make kernel-devel -y
git clone https://github.com/tomaspinho/rtl8821ce.git
cd rtl8821ce/
sudo ./dkms-install.sh
exit
I had been investigating how to install the driver manually and had downloaded that driver code from github and transferred it to dom0 of my Qubes installation. If you read the installation instructions for installing the driver manually it states the following:
In order to install the driver open a terminal in the directory with the source code and execute the following command:
sudo ./dkms-install.sh
I tried this but it failed with the following errors:
So I wasn’t sure if I was executing the file from the correct folder or now. Or maybe I should be doing this in sys-net and not dom0, again, what do you think? Might try that next?
Debian-11 is quite old, so I did not expect that it would help and did not suggest to try it.
These are newly available Templates, you can install them with just one command, see here and here. However, without the Internet access, you would have to download them manually. I’m not sure how to do it… @adw is this possible?
Indeed, I forgot that you have no sys-usb. You can create it manually and add a USB controller to it, but be very careful here. As I explained above, one of your USB controllers (if you have two) is used to boot your system. If you add this one to sys-usb, you will break your system. You need to add a different one. But it can be hard to find out wihch one is which! Do not use automatic create with Salt, because it will put both controllers to sys-usb and break your system (which already happened to you before).
Actually, that link is about the WiFi, not Ethernet: How to enable WIFI on a NitroPC. To be installed in sys-net’s Template.
Exactly. Also, Qubes OS is a security-oriented OS, relying on compartmentalization. Running untrusted code in dom0 is a security risk.
Ooooppppssss!!! I broked it, dam! I used the following command:
sudo qubesctl state.sls qvm.sys-usb
Which I assumed created the sys-usb VM but then assigned both my USB controllers to it and upset dom0. So guess it’s back the drawing board and a reinstall.
I did then notice the next section about assigning a USB controller manually so guess I’ll have to figure that out next when Qubes reinstalls.
But how can I run this is sys-net won’t even start. I was under the impression that I had to start sys-net and then I could start a terminal in sys-net. Is that correct? Or is there another way I can manually install the drivers?
Back to the drawing board, perhaps, but no need for a reinstall just for
this. There’s almost never need for reinstall.
At the Grub prompt, edit the kernel entry to include qubes.skip_autostart and
remove rd.qubes.hide_all_usb
This will allow Qubes to start with no qubes starting, and the USB
controllers will still be available in dom0.
This means that you will be able to check which controller you assign to
sys-usb.
I never presume to speak for the Qubes team.
When I comment in the Forum or in the mailing lists I speak for myself.
