I have a few computers to try Qubes, I know that there is an option in the boot to test the hardware before installing it, however most of my hardware fails this test and in one of the computers I am unable to run it as it restarts at some unexpected point of the process. That leaves me with 2 options: forget about Qubes until I can have new hardware (which I see a distant event) or installing it anyway with the warning. I took this last option and I have it running in one of the computers, now I am thinking of just connecting this SSD disk that only has Qubes on it, to the other computers I have and see if I get warnings. My questions for you are: is this a good idea/way of doing it? or this OS installs things depending of the detected hardware? is it guaranteed that will I get the warnings while loading the OS or do I need to click somewhere to see this warnings (or make sure there are none)? what year is the oldest motherboard (you know of) manufactured that can run Qubes? Is it any video/book training available somewhere?
The Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) is updated regularly and I believe is the best place to find an answer to this question. You’ll find the motherboards towards the end of the list.
Hello Marcelo -
You dont say if your Qubes install is working fine or not: depending on
what the fault was, there will be some security features that are not
available.
I have often plugged a Qubes install in to another computer - sometimes
it will work out of the box, sometimes it needs some work.
The issue you may face is that Qubes identifies devices on install and
(by default) allocates some to sys-net and sys-usb. On the next
computer the same identifiers may lead to different devices. This may
be disaster if (e.g) the PCI of the disk controller is allocated to
sys-net.
You can mitigate this by making sure that none of the qubes are set to
autostart, booting the machine, and checking device allocations before
starting sys-net and sys-usb.
You wont (I think) see any warning on loading - once you are up you can
run qubes-hcl-report in dom0, and see what Qubes thinks of the new
system.
The oldest mother board I personally use now is from 2008.
You can check the Hardware Compatibility List) for helpful information.
I never presume to speak for the Qubes team.
When I comment in the Forum or in the mailing lists I speak for myself.
Thanks for the replies. How do I make sure that none of the qubes are set to
autostart?, How do I check device allocations before
starting sys-net and sys-usb?
I’ve looked into the HCL but not all the hardware is listed there.
Is it any video/book training available somewhere? Any plans to make them?
