Qubes 2 doesn’t require VT-D to make things work. It can get the devices and separate them without it.
And it allows for attaching of physical drives as it doesn’t have the blockages that the recent versions do, which I still don’t understand why such a stupid thing was done.
Also, Qubes 2 runs in less RAM than Qubes 4.
Qubes 4 requires 4 times as much RAM to run properly.
Qubes 1 ran in almost no RAM.
Qubes 3.2 was probably the best so far as it had the best of everything. It had brillient security, ran Windows seamlessly (in all forms), and ran whatever unix distribution I wanted, or even OSX. I could also insert my HDs and just run off them instead of having to image them to the drive to run things, or do things in a such a stupid way to attach them then detach them to boot and all it isn’t funny…
So 3.2 was the best overall.
The only problem with the pre-4 versions, they require a different GPU when I’m doing the install. Because they just won’t work with the NVIDIA cards. I have to install a 20 year old GPU instead of a 15 year old GPU.
4+ has a lot of issues that have never been resolved since 4.0 RCs
4+ doesn’t allow for drive usage.
4+ doesn’t have an easy way to configure things in the setup like the others did.
So for this case, I need Q2 since the motherboard doesn’t have VT-D on it. The CPU does, and it should be working, but it doesn’t see it or find it or use it. So the old CPU that had no VT-D on it, still couldn’t install newer than version 2 and have the NIC added to a guest.
So this is just something that is there in 2 that isn’t there in 4, the better compatability.
Since the machine is an old AIO I can’t just upgrade the board like I normally would.
It’s just a small machine that I want to get things working on to be able to take somewhere to use to be able to perform certain tasks and maintain security.
I also want to install it on my old thinkpad as well and have the security on there. As that has the full portability and secure hardware.
So I hope that that explains my thoughts, reasonings and feelings on the differences.
I use 4.3 on my main PC, and still wish that I had the ability to use the drives like I could in 2, but I can’t, so I manage to work around things like that on this hardware as I have dedicated PCIE SATA card that I can hotswap the drives on that is set for the specific virtual and ignored by Qubes so it doesn’t attach the drives to it. It’s an expensive workaround, but it works… I have a 6 port card on my server that runs Qubes so that I have the NAS virtualised on there.
So I’m not sayign that any are unworkable and things don’t work for many peoples usages, as just the way that things are is fine for most people, I just have uses for the system that people don’t normally think about, and that people have removed from the operating system over time without a way to override it or use certain things the way that you used to be able to.
Which I have been querying about disabling certain features on a per guest basis in other threads as well.
The AIO just needs to have WhoNix gateway on it as well as basic systems that can perform accurately. So I can fix much of that as the inbuilt systems are mainly acting as networking. I have my own update server for it so I can update from installer to the final before removal from the Qubes Update servers at least.
I’ll post more shortly if you need more information. I have to get the little one in to bed and sleeping.
VERY old airgap?
Like a nice steak sauce or something.