Hello,
this is my first and probably last post in the Qubes forum. I installed Qubes v4.2.3 on an USB-stick intended for a ten year old Intel laptop, which worked like a charm. But recently I bought an new laptop, with AMD CPU and GPU, and I had some problems installing Qubes v4.2.4 on an USB-stick. The problems were solved (I guess), but this took several days/weeks. The following manual is indended to spare you the trouble. The manual might not be complete but I hope it helps to give you some clues.
Firstly, as already mentioned, the laptop has an AMD CPU as well as some AMD GPU. Additionally, it has no ethernet port. There are two USB-A and two USB-C/thunderbold ports (one for energy supply). So if your laptop is similar, then you might succeed installing Qubes following this manual.
The main installation works in two stages. Stage one writes the OS to the device, the second stage installs the virtual machines. Both stages take some time. The last, third stage installs the ethernet-adapter, if no ethernet port is available. The third stage is described a little bit sloppy, but if you managed to get there, you will be able to finish it too.
Stage 1
- Burn the Qubes installation image to a 25 GB Blu-ray disc (DVD is to small) or write it to an USB-stick via dd.
- Boot from the corresponding USB-device.
- In the grub menu, add the following kernel parameters:
module_blacklist=ucsi_acpi,amdgpu, the first is necessary for getting the image to boot, the second is needed to get the graphical installation menu working (otherwise you will get stuck with a black screen). - Boot the installation image.
- When the installation menu opens, insert the USB-stick, where Qubes should be installed.
- When configuring the partitions, click on “refresh” so that the USB-stick is detected.
- Configure everything as needed, also language and so on.
- Install Qubes to the device.
Stage 2
- After the installation finishes, reboot from USB-device. Here, I cannot remember whether it is necessary to add or remove the module blacklisting from the boot parameters in the grub menu to start Qubes. So maybe you have to repeat step 3 or it works out of the box.
- When the installation menu opens, which asks for further installation settings (fedora, debian and other things), leave the default values. IMPORTANT: you won’t be able to change any of the USB-settings since you are installing on an USB-device.
- Finish the installation.
- Reboot and log in.
- Correct boot parameters:
- open dom0-terminal
sudo nano /etc/default/grub- remove
amdgpufromGRUB_CMDLINE_LINUXline - exit nano
sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg
- Reboot and log in.
Stage 3
- If your computer has an ethernet port, you are done, otherwise the following steps are necessary.
- Firstly, you need an USB-ethernet-adapter. Here an USB-C-adapter was used, since Qubes was installed on an USB-A-device.
- Insert the adapter (I think this was necessary), internet connection is not necessary. IMPORTANT: If you inserted the adapter, do not remove it, because this might lead to switching off the computer (I do not know why, maybe a Qubes developer can elaborate on that, since this does not happen for other Linux distros) and this might damage Qubes on the USB-devices. In the worst case one has to start at step 1 of stage 1 (the very beginning) again.
- Try to identifiy the USB-controller of the ethernet-adapter using dom0-terminal via
lspci,lsusb -v,lsusb -t,dmsg | grep usband similar. The controller identifiers are similar toc2:00.1,c2.00.2,c2.00.3,c2.00.4depending on your hardware. - Correct boot parameters again:
- open dom0-terminal
sudo nano /etc/default/grub- add
rd.qubes.hide_pci=c2:00.1,c2:00.2,c2:00.3,c2:00.4to theGRUB_CMDLINE_LINUXline - exit nano
sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg
- Shutdown the computer and when the computer is off, remove the ethernet-adapter.
- Reboot and log in.
- Run Qubes manager.
- Stop sys-whonix, sys-firewall and sys-net.
- Right click on sys-net and do “settings” → “Devices” and add
c2:00.1(not the thunderbold one, but maybe this works too). - Restart sys-net, sys-firewall and sys-whonix.
- Plugging in the ethernet-adapter should trigger a message and network should be available now.
Some final words: This manual is not complete with respect to each single possible step, there might be variations. Also the hardware identifiers will vary. Please feel free to complete the missing parts or help out with references to single steps.
Have fun using Qubes.