I have a Xeon-based HP Microserver Gen 10 plus that is between jobs at present, and I wondered if it would be a suitable platform on which to experiment with Qubes.
It has the TPM 2.0 module, 32GB of RAM, a pair of Intel 240GB SSDs, and a pair of WD Gold 2TB SATA drives. I’m intending to install a multi-display low-profile graphics card as the onboard Intel graphics don’t support extended desktops.
I’m aware that separate USB controllers would be good, but the server doesn’t have them as far as I can tell and no spare slot in which to install one, so that will necessarily be one of the compromises discussed in the hardware support section of this forum.
I’d appreciate some opinions on this idea, because I don’t want to waste time and resources on a project that isn’t going to work well or indeed at all.
The long story short is that if it’s not in the HCL, no one knows for sure. In theory it could work well, but have weird hardware and not like Qubes. The main things to look for are the system requirements. Does it have VT-d, VT-x, SLAT, etc.? If you can’t answer these questions, you’re probably better off waiting.
Thanks for your reply. The Xeon E-2224 CPU installed in the server supports VT-x and VT-d, and Extended Page Tables - the Intel equivalent of SLAT. If there are other specific must-have bells and whistles it would be helpful to know what these are.
Well, according to that summary, my HP Microserver Gen 10 Plus ticks every box and then some. I’ve also just seen the recommended system requirements shown on the page below the minimum listed above and my box comfortably exceeds those as well. However, as you suggest, any difficulties will be in the detail and I have to accept that there is rarely gain without pain.
HP might well use other hardware such as storage controllers in these machines which is intrinsically Qubes-hostile, and if this is the case then I’d like to know before I commit!