I only have dom0, no other qube, I can't create a new qube. Help for beginners

[universish]

I installed Qubes OS 4.2.3 in virtualbox virtual machine but there is no qube except dm0. I try to create a new qube, I can’t because I can’t access the internet. I can’t update dm0. I can’t install fedora-40 template qube. I tried from terminal, no luck. I wonder why there is only dm0. Shouldn’t the others be installed by default? I can’t have installed it wrong. I installed it with the default options. I don’t even know if it’s a problem that only dm0 is there. Where did I go wrong or is there something wrong? Is this the way it should be? And how can I install another qube if there is no other qube than dm0? Is there a manual for usage, installation and post-installation? I couldn’t find any documentation on how to create a qube.

[Fan]

Qubes is what’s called a type 1 hypervisor. That means it is itself an “OS” built to run virtual machines.

It’s not designed to be used inside a type 2 hypervisor like VirtualBox or VMware.

It’s built to be run on bare metal so it can talk directly with the hardware.

Without a lot of troubleshooting, Qubes will not run as a VM because its supposed to be the thing running the VMs.

[otter2]

There is a community guide for running Qubes in Virtualbox. Have you tried it?

How to install and use Qubes OS inside VirtualBox

A blatant copy-paste of the walkthrough I wrote and posted here. Why bother? Why not? It’s a fun project. Despite the final effect being an unsupported configuration and lacking essential security features for production use, there are still some cases, besides having fun, like testing out the workflow of this system when no supported hardware is present. Or developing software for Domain-0, which is better suited for testing on a living system, rather than with mocks. Or learning some…

But it is a pretty janky configuration. I dig it though. It would be really nice to have nested virtualization in Qubes.

[aronowski]

Just want to mention that these processes were written as part of an older release and are not guaranteed to work with the current releases of Qubes OS, even with the minor version being updated.

I suppose this case counts as non-commercial stuff, therefore I’d instead recommend the free version of VMware Workstation, on the courtesy of Broadcom. I use it myself and things work without having to tweak the installed Qubes OS like in the mentioned guide - just some virtualization-related options in the VMware Workstation service console for that specific VM need to be enabled. Maybe I’ll get back with more details, once I have the opportunity to check things out myself.

[universish]

I tried to install it with vmware workstation pro, I failed, because even though I had VT-x enabled, it was giving errors and trying to shut down and run VT-x, it was not working. Virtualbox, on the other hand, with its new version, prevented direct intervention in the VT-x setting and it was turned off by default. I was able to unblock it with code and enable VT-x, so I was able to install it.

[universish]

I read the article. Thank you for your work. I realized how much vulnerabilities and problems installing Qubes OS on Virtualbox causes, so I decided to delete my virtualbox qubes and install it on the machine to use it as a 2nd OS.