Chromium installation in template gets deleted

User Support General
1

Hi,
I have installed software before in Templates. This time I did:
sudo dnf install chromium
(in the default-dvm Template_

It gets installed as /usr/bin/chromium-browser
I also get a chromium-browser.desktop under /usr/share/applications getting created.

But Chromium never shows up in the App Menus in the Settings of the template. While the template was running, I ran in dom0:
$qvm-sync-appmenus default-dvm
default-dvm: Creating appmenus

In the Settings of default-dvm template, I tried the following:

  1. Click on ‘Refresh Applications’
    There is a Web Browser application, which is Firefox, not Chromium.

After I shut down the default-dvm template, and restart the template:

  1. There is no chromium-browser under /usr/bin
  2. No .desktop under /usr/share/applications

This is really bizarre. I have gotten other apps to show up in the AppMenus in other cloned templates.

Any suggestions?
flc

Update:
I tried the same in the ‘work’ app VM. Installed chromium - the /usr/bin and the /usr/share/applications/ files show up. But the app never shows in the AppMenus. After restarting the app VM, the chromium files are gone.

Update:
While installing Chromium, and other apps, I get this error message. I started getting it recently:

[Dom0]Houston, we have a problem…
Whoops. A critical error has occurred.This is most likely a bug in Qubes Manager.

TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for -: ‘int’ and ‘str’
at line 33
of file /usr/bin/qubes-vm-settings.

2

You need to install the apps in the template.
default-dvm is a disposable template (basically an app qube).
Read this:

2 Likes
3

So if the disposable template only persists like an app qube, then what is the point of a disposable template - it doesn’t behave like a template in the sense that additional packages can be added to it, and those will persist.

Does one have to add packages to perhaps the /usr/local/bin folder ?

4

The point of it is to be able to customize your disposables. For example:

  • Install browser in template.
  • Customize browser in disposable template (e.g., change browser settings, maybe install extensions).
  • Use browser in disposable.
1 Like
5

I reviewed the docs. I now have a better understanding of templates. I installed Chromium in a new template and am using it now as a disposable.

6

So yesterday I created the new disposable template with Chromium, everything worked. But today, the Chromium disposable crashes when started. The following cmds are run in the dom0 window.

When I run:
(where disp123 is placebholder vmname; chromium-browser is name of link to the same named bash shell; dvm-fed40-chromium is the disp template under Templates/Apps Tab)
$qvm-run -v --dispVM dvm-fed40-chromium disp123 chromium-browser
Running chromium-browser on $dispvm:dvm-fed40-chromium
disp3283: command failed with code: 127

Exit code 127 could mean ‘command not found’.

I also tried:
$qvm-console-dispvm disp1811 (where disp1811 is the chromium qube starting up).
A console log type window pops up and crashes immediately.

It is hard to identify what went wrong after all worked perfectly yesterday.

Is this memory related. Here are my mem specs:
Basic tab: Private Storage max size: 10G (initial was 2 G); System storage max size: 20G
Advanced tab: CPU/Memory initial mem: 400MB; max 4000MB.

Thanks,
flc

7

If you want to run chromium-browser in a new disposable then use this command:

qvm-run --dispVM dvm-fed40-chromium chromium-browser

If you wan to run the chromium-browser in the existing disposable disp123 then run this command:

qvm-run disp123 chromium-browser