How to enable the (new) GUI VM?

[tempmail]

Maybe my experience can add some value for those having dGPUs.

[Workaround] How to use external monitor in NVidia Optimus mode

For dual Intel/Nvidia GPU notebooks, as I understand it’s not possible to use external monitor/TV while in Nvidia Optimus mode because HDMI/DP ports are directly tied to Nvidia card. So we are doomed to Discrete mode, meanning using only Nvidia card which is very bad for the battery, or… Here I discovered that I can create sys-gui(-gpu) and attach only Nvidia card to it in Optimus mode even without hiding it from the dom0 and sys-gui-gpu is passed to external monitor, while using iGPU on the la…

[janglingquo_575]

Yeah anybody have experience with using iGPUs like Intel HD?

[janglingquo_575]

qvm-run -p --no-gui --service sys-gui-gpu qubes.GuiVMSession

this command returns:

Timed out waiting for Xorg display:1

does the lightdm service have to be disabled?

Also, with the sys-gui-gpu saltstack state, the usb-keyboard/mouse no longer attach to dom0.

[barto]

Date: 29/12/2023
Test System: clean install of R4.2 with all the updates applied on a T480 with 32Gb of RAM.

Result:
Following the instructions for sys-gui at https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/gui-domain/ results in a perfectly unusable sys-gui.

After running:

qubes-prefs default_guivm sys-gui

as suggested by @Raphael_Balthazar in an earlier post, the system is still pretty much unusable as no apps can be run in any other DomU than sys-gui, and Dom0 is only reachable through text console (Ctrl-Alt-F2). Bonus: US keyboard hard-coded and (seemingly) immutable in sys-gui.

[janglingquo_575]

My current attempt is using the sys-gui-gpu Salstack forumula. My USB devices are no longer working in dom0 and when I try to switch to the sys-gui-gpu VM using:

qvm-run -p --no-gui --service sys-gui-gpu qubes.GuiVMSession

it returns:

Timed out waiting for Xorg display: 1

[tempmail]

@barto

the system is still pretty much unusable as no apps can be run in any other DomU than sys-gui, and Dom0 is only reachable through text console (Ctrl-Alt-F2).

I am sorry that I don’t understand, but isn’t that the point of sys-gui(-xxx) at all? Not to have any domU out of it? Just dom0? Isn’t sys-gui supposed to be new “dom0”, that is AdminVM? In which you’d have to recreate all new set up - templates, appVM and all other qubes?

Ref:

How to create an AdminVM in R4.1?

Following an older post from Joanna https://www.qubes-os.org/news/2017/06/27/qubes-admin-api/ that I invite you to read first in order to understand what is an AdminVM, in this little post I want to give you some hints on how to create an AdminVM as you would expect it to manage/create/delete VMs as if you would do usual actions in dom0. In the template that you will use to create the VM, ensure to have installed qubes-core-admin-client. This packages installs most of the qvm-* tools. Create a…

Introducing the Qubes Admin API

[Raphael_Balthazar]

@tempmail

I am sorry that I don’t understand, but isn’t that the point of sys-gui(-xxx) at all? Not to have any domU out of it?

Exactly! (I know these were rhetorical questions)
For me this is working with the limitations I described above.

@janglingquo_575
The command is only for sys-gui, I think this has been explained already somewhere in this thread.

[renehoj]

I can run apps just fine in sys-gui, I have access to the same VMs and apps as I do in dom0.

@tempmail

I am sorry that I don’t understand, but isn’t that the point of sys-gui(-xxx) at all? Not to have any domU out of it? Just dom0? Isn’t sys-gui supposed to be new “dom0”, that is AdminVM? In which you’d have to recreate all new set up - templates, appVM and all other qubes?

@tempmail no, that isn’t the point of sys-gui, you don’t have to recreate anything you can use the VMs you already have.

[tempmail]

Of course I can use the VMs I already have. I posted a link few posts above that I actually already deploy it as practically having 2 Qubes OS’ on a single machine. Having templates both in dom0 and inside sys-gui (in the latter with proper tags). It’s clearly stated there.

[barto]

Date: 10/01/2024
Test System: clean install of R4.2 with all the updates applied on a T480 with 32Gb of RAM. [same as before]

Result: following the instructions for creating a sys-gui-gpu qube results in the system crashing and rebooting as soon as sys-gui-gpu starts up.

Conclusion: this whole sys-gui stuff is utterly experimental and dangerous; should be clearly marked as such, something like “Think 10 times before trying this on a production machine”.

[aronowski]

I may try and write a walkthrough on how to enable it “my way”, despite certain things not being yet implemented for practical usage - though might take a look and implement some, when having lots of free time.

The crashing thing may be related to the fact that the graphics drivers gets loaded by dom0, rather than sys-gui-gpu and it has to be denylisted first (module_blacklist=i915).

I’ll paste what I wrote some time ago on the public chat:

The upgrade to 4.2 went smoothly! Furthermore, sys-gui-gpu works on my trusty T480!

Though I’m kinda confused - how do I do anything from sys-gui-gpu in the context of dom0? I’m primarily thinking about simple things like shutting down my laptop, but simply using a poweroff command results in a black screen. Or tweaking anything in dom0 without having to use qubes.skip_autostart and removing module_blacklist=i915?

and later, after some more experiments:

The bad news

• Audio doesn’t work out-of-the-box, may be related due to the fact I haven’t touched anything related to audiovm
• Tray icons do not show up by default, need to manually recreate the application entries in templates, disposable templates and AppVMs
• 4.2-exclusive administrative graphical tools crash before they are fully loaded
• Only dom0 and sys-gui-gpu are visible, other qubes are not - need to manually run $ qubes-prefs --set default_guivm sys-gui-gpu
• On the XFCE4 taskbar in the “Windows Buttons” widget only “cute qube” icons showed up, that is no incoming-sanitized-colorized X11 application icons
• Some anomalies related to power management:
  • brightness options are not persistent, the default “very dim” level is used
  • selecting the Power Manager Plugin setting “Show label: Percentage” does nothing

The good news

• When from dom0 the policy qubes.InputMouse * sys-usb sys-gui-gpu ask is written, then input proxying works
• Mirroring and extending displays works with HDMI
• Emulated hardware acceleration with llvmpipe should work inside qubes

[barto]

Thanks @aronowski!
After adding module_blacklist=i915 the system does not crash on boot anymore.
But… the system is not usable either, because I ran into all the troubles that you mentioned … dim display (to the minimum, not adjustable), the menu is crashing on startup, only sys-gui-gpu is visible, system crashes instead of powering off or rebooting.
All in all… the sys-gui-gpu setup is still unusable.