Hello, my dears
i’m brand new to using qubes and would like to deal with it a bit. I recently wanted to download Electrum Wallet, which also worked, but unfortunately I can’t start Electrum because I don’t even know where to find it. Is that why there is a page somewhere where you can learn how to use qubes from scratch? I am also interested in a VPN that then has access to several VMs in qubes. Where can I get that knowledge?
Hello brother.
At first it seems hard to get around Qubes but it is very satisfying to learn.
The documentation on qubes-os.org is really good but it is not like a chronological user guide. You will have to learn some stuff by yourself.
So the basic ist that you understand that dom0 is like an “interface” which manages everything - partly in the background partly by the User (you could say it is the ManagementVM - the “Boss-qube”)
You do all your work in the User-VMs.
The UserVMs are seperated into TemplateVMs and AppVMs.
AppVMs are usually based on a template but there are also StandaloneVMs. If you don’t understand TemplateVMs read the documentation on that. It is crucial to using Qubes to understand that.
Next thing is: You can manage a lot gui-wise in Qubes. I did not reckon with that kind of gui-friendliness when I started using Qubes. Essentially you manage everything from dom0. Click the Qubes button on the left corner and under system tools you’ll find some configurations. However keep in mind some only affect dom0.
The most important tools are the tools from QubesOS itself, and the most important one of them is the “Qube Manager”. With that you can control a lot of settings of your User-qubes/VMs (that are TemplateVMs, APPVMs and standalone VMs).
Also very important are in the right top corner the symbols. When you click there on the Qubes-Symbol you can see the RAM and CPU usage of your VMs/qubes. You can especially shut them down from there most comfortably.
That was my quick tutorial. I hope it helps.
You really must read the documentation on Templates and installing software and on networking and handling of devices. Keep in mind sys-net, sys-firewall and sys-usb are just APPVMs based on the fedora-template. However, they are special ones because they have “special jobs” assigned to them like handling the network devices or handling the network-traffic between Qubes or handling the USB devices.
Learn these crucial features so you can use Qubes like a normal Operating System. Some things won’t work as neatly as on your previous OS. E.g. Qubes needs a lot of resources for Video-Streaming and stuff like that. Gaming … most likely forget that except pinball games 
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I will try to make a quick tutorial, too. Qubes OS provides a number of independent VMs (“qubes”), which are isolated from each other for security. “TemplateVM” qubes provide root filesystem for AppVMs. So you should install software inside TemplateVMs (by default they are Fedora and Debian). Those TemplateVMs have no networking, for security. You can download software inside an AppVM and transfer it to TemplateVM for installation.
The docs are here:
You are always welcome to ask any questions and the community here will try to help you.
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