Issues installing signal with Qubes 4.1. Bullseye instead of xenial in main?

[cayce]

When installing in debian-11-minimal , most probably the OP would want to consider using --no-install-recommends flag when using apt install .
I’ve seen some installs reduced up to 60% by using it.

Yet more misinformed top posting FUD from champion of …

Please disregard said misinformation as, this will certainly lead to a non-functional install of the Signal Desktop package.

[enmus]

Debian-10-minimal Configuration

There were some small changes to Signal. I was able to get a new Debian 11 Minimal template working with this: template for Signal messenger network nautilus to deal with downloads dunst is needed for signal notifications, if no notification service is provided signal will hang curl is needed to download the key for signal qvm-clone tpl-deb-11-min tpl-deb-11-signal qvm-run --pass-io -u root tpl-deb-11-signal “apt install --no-install-recommends curl qubes-app-shutdown-idle qubes-core-agent…

[cayce]

This has definitely not been verified by the one who speaks much & does little so, yet again, more misinformation …

Should the user’s intent be to minimize install footprint, it ought be noted that the above linked post specifies:

apt install --no-install-recommends curl qubes-app-shutdown-idle qubes-core-agent-networking qubes-usb-proxy qubes-core-agent-nautilus nautilus zenity gnome-keyring policykit-1 libblockdev-crypto2 dunst xfce4-notifyd -y

Which when signal-desktop is included leads to an install footprint of:
774 MB of additional disk space used.

Whereas:

apt install signal-desktop -y

Incurs an install footprint of:
506 MB of additional disk space used.

[anon42456682]

@cayce

Since the last response was overflowing with “helpful” wisdom from the local genius, try this; I hope it will get you on your way.

TL;DR:

Here are commands that will install Signal Desktop in a template which has been derived from the debian-11-minimal template:

(root level permissions are necessary for most of the commands thus, execute from a root shell ( # prompt not $ ) or, should the system in question support the sudo command, append where required)

#!/bin/bash
# 0. Install requirements
cd /tmp
apt install wget -y

# 1. Verify & install official public software signing key
export https_proxy=127.0.0.1:8082
wget -O- https://updates.signal.org/desktop/apt/keys.asc | gpg --with-colons --import-options show-only --import --fingerprint | grep pub
read -p "Accept? (Y/n) " approve; approve=${approve:-Y}; if [[ "$approve" != [Yy] ]]; then exit; fi
wget -O- https://updates.signal.org/desktop/apt/keys.asc | gpg --dearmor > signal-desktop-keyring.gpg
cat signal-desktop-keyring.gpg | tee -a /usr/share/keyrings/signal-desktop-keyring.gpg > /dev/null

# 2. Add our repository to your list of repositories
echo 'deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/signal-desktop-keyring.gpg] https://updates.signal.org/desktop/apt xenial main' | tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/signal-xenial.list

# 3. Update your package database and install signal
apt update && apt install signal-desktop -y

# 4. Remove requirements
apt remove wget -y
apt autoremove

Extra:

To avoid typing/mistyping the commands in the console manually, one can:

• Save the commands to a file on a qube that supports “Copy to other AppVM”
  • example: install_signal.sh
• Right-click file and, “Copy to other AppVM”
  • Enter awesome-signal-template as the target
• Select awesome-signal-template and, “Open console in qube”
  • Login as root user
• Enter the following string of commands:

mv /home/user/QubesIncoming/*/install_signal.sh /tmp; cd /tmp; rm -rf /home/user/QubesIncoming; bash install_signal.sh

Detailed walk-through:

1. Open Qubes manager
2. Locate & select debian-11-minimal template
3. Clone debian-11-minimal to something like awesome-signal-template or, any other name that suits you
4. “Clone qube” function can be found within the “Qubes” menu item or by right-clicking on the qube ( debian-11-minimal in this case)
5. Locate & select your new awesome-signal-template
6. Update awesome-signal-template
7. “Update” function can be found via the “Update” button or by right-clicking on the qube ( awesome-signal-template in this case)
8. Either option ought launch a new console window titled: [awesome-signal-template] update
9. When the update is complete, there ought be a prompt within the update console shell which says: Press Enter to shutdown the template, or Ctrl-C to just close this window Press Ctrl-C as, we do not want to shutdown just yet
10. Back in Qubes manager, locate & select awesome-signal-template & “Open console in qube”
11. “Open console in qube” function can be found via the “Open console in qube” button or by right-clicking on the qube ( awesome-signal-template )
12. Enter the commands mentioned above
13. Poweroff/Shutdown awesome-signal-template
14. Create AppVM and/or associated DispVM based on awesome-signal-template

Awesome cayce!!! Gonna try it out. Hope you have a good week. Peace out and thanks very much for the detailed answer. That helps. Awesome.

[anon42456682]

So yeah… i just casually deleted a debian-minimal template hehe… Doh on that one… But yeah i’m fixing update issues…
Are they installed by default? How do i create a new one in the easiest way? I have not tried this yet, i’m about to… I just deleted an debian minimal… Gotta restore it. thanks
edit: found my answer… sudo qubes-dom0-update qubes-template-debian-11-minimal

thanks anyways

[enmus]

@cayce

Whereas:

apt install signal-desktop -y

Incurs an install footprint of:
506 MB of additional disk space used.

Hey, I meant of this part of the quoted message above,

@pr0xy

update & install

qvm-run --pass-io -u root tpl-deb-11-signal “apt update && apt full-upgrade -y && apt install --no-install-recommends signal-desktop -y && poweroff”

which produces

user@disp5812:~$ sudo apt install --no-install-recommends signal-desktop
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
  libnspr4 libnss3 libxss1 libxtst6
Recommended packages:
  libappindicator3-1
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libnspr4 libnss3 libxss1 libxtst6 signal-desktop
0 upgraded, 5 newly installed, 0 to remove and 20 not upgraded.
Need to get 122 MB of archives.
After this operation, 426 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] 

And I meant on not increasing attack surface unnecessarily, not to minimize install footprint.

[Sven]

@cayce

Since the last response was overflowing with “helpful” wisdom from the local genius, try this; I hope it will get you on your way.

@cayce I think you should really go and read this. It’s obvious that you have good intention and are contributing to the community, why can’t you manage to see comments from others (like @enmus) in the same light?

Your posts have great value and they would be even better if you could just stop talking down to people. I don’t know how old you are or which culture you come from, but around here no one will respect you MORE for this – quite the opposite.

[cayce]

@cayce

Since the last response was overflowing with “helpful” wisdom from the local genius, try this; I hope it will get you on your way.

Maybe you selected the wrong text to quote?

Reads very clearly as polite positivity falling well within the CoC …

If you won’t believe me, than believe the results of an objective sentiment analysis tool.

@Sven

I don’t know how old you are or which culture you come from

Whereas this does not …

[cayce]

The above post violates the exact same "standards" it's trying to call for?

@Sven

@cayce I think you should really go and read this.

@Sven I think you should really go and follow that … as opposed to trying/failing to shame me by publicly trolling without value add to the conversation instead of a PM in violation of the exact standards you’re waving a flag about.

@Sven

It’s obvious that you have good intention and are contributing to the community, why can’t you manage to see comments from others (like @enmus) in the same light?

@Sven It’s obvious that you too have good intention and are contributing to the community, why can’t you nanny moderate comments from others (like @enmus) which clearly violate the “Improve the discussion” guideline in the same light?

Your posts have great value and they would be even better if you could just stop talking down to people.

If this isn’t the pot calling the kettle black, please lead by example; enough with this “do as I say, not as I do” and stop trying to bait me by trolling.

I don’t know how old you are or which culture you come from, but around here no one will respect you MORE for this – quite the opposite.

Just WOW dogging age AND culture in direct violation of Our Pledge of the CoC in a single line? Immmmmpressive, bravo, well done!

Forget about MORE respect; this garners NO respect where “I come from”.

Per “Our Pledge”:
“In the interest of fostering an open and welcoming environment, we as contributors and maintainers pledge to make participation in our project and our community a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of age, body size, disability, ethnicity, gender identity and expression, level of experience, nationality, personal appearance, race, religion, sexual identity and orientation, or other characteristic.”

The experience thus far has been fairly welcoming by most users aside from @mods and the single user they encourage & support as they troll and spread FUD & dis/misinformation against forum guidelines & CoC. Quite the contrary for you lot; solid hypocritical, biased, nanonannying toward myself while while championing valueless posts, FUD & trolling by example. TBH, it’s kind of doing me head in.

If you want me to edit every post I ever made, then give me the ability or kindly stop whining over spilled milk.

[SteveC]

By putting helpful in quotes that way, you’re making it look as if it isn’t helpful–in that context it’s equivalent to allegedly or so-called as in so-called help.

(Yes, I know some people think the quotes add emphasis…that’s a mistake on their part.)

Also “local genius” came across as sarcasm.

[cayce]

Amazed at how a technical (did I do my emphasis properly there?!?!) forum is over the top with it’s focus on cliques and etiquette; beyond reproach, beyond comical, beyond it’s own standards.

[cayce]

@enmus

And I meant on not increasing attack surface unnecessarily, not to minimize install footprint.

Great job @enmus! This will certainly “not increasing attack surface unnecessarily”! You are 100% correct, you win!

Because execution of `signal-desktop` errors out with:

signal-desktop: error while loading shared libraries libatk-1.0.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

@enmus

Recommended packages:
  libappindicator3-1

Thanks SO much for the inspiration! I’ve often been suspicious that libappindicator3 had some RCEs in there somewhere …

[Sven]

age & culture

Ok, that’s a good example. You can read that two ways…

a) me trying to cut you some slack and looking for ways to explain your behavior (which frankly leads to lots of off-topic discussion no one including myself is very interested in)

b) me trying to use age or culture as something negative

The only difference between these two is your view of the world and everyone in it. There is a certain kind of personality that is very quick in identifying issues with others and how that is affecting them while being entirely unaware or disinterested in how their own behavior is received by others.

[cayce]

Dude, seriously:

Enough with the passive aggressive bullying.
It’s okay to be human.
It’s okay to be wrong.

• Have a glass of water
• Have a cigar
• Take some breathes
• Take a chill pill
• Take a long look in the mirror

[anon42456682]

@cayce

Since the last response was overflowing with “helpful” wisdom from the local genius, try this; I hope it will get you on your way.

TL;DR:

Here are commands that will install Signal Desktop in a template which has been derived from the debian-11-minimal template:

(root level permissions are necessary for most of the commands thus, execute from a root shell ( # prompt not $ ) or, should the system in question support the sudo command, append where required)

#!/bin/bash
# 0. Install requirements
cd /tmp
apt install wget -y

# 1. Verify & install official public software signing key
export https_proxy=127.0.0.1:8082
wget -O- https://updates.signal.org/desktop/apt/keys.asc | gpg --with-colons --import-options show-only --import --fingerprint | grep pub
read -p "Accept? (Y/n) " approve; approve=${approve:-Y}; if [[ "$approve" != [Yy] ]]; then exit; fi
wget -O- https://updates.signal.org/desktop/apt/keys.asc | gpg --dearmor > signal-desktop-keyring.gpg
cat signal-desktop-keyring.gpg | tee -a /usr/share/keyrings/signal-desktop-keyring.gpg > /dev/null

# 2. Add our repository to your list of repositories
echo 'deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/signal-desktop-keyring.gpg] https://updates.signal.org/desktop/apt xenial main' | tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/signal-xenial.list

# 3. Update your package database and install signal
apt update && apt install signal-desktop -y

# 4. Remove requirements
apt remove wget -y
apt autoremove

Extra:

To avoid typing/mistyping the commands in the console manually, one can:

• Save the commands to a file on a qube that supports “Copy to other AppVM”
  • example: install_signal.sh
• Right-click file and, “Copy to other AppVM”
  • Enter awesome-signal-template as the target
• Select awesome-signal-template and, “Open console in qube”
  • Login as root user
• Enter the following string of commands:

mv /home/user/QubesIncoming/*/install_signal.sh /tmp; cd /tmp; rm -rf /home/user/QubesIncoming; bash install_signal.sh

Detailed walk-through:

1. Open Qubes manager
2. Locate & select debian-11-minimal template
3. Clone debian-11-minimal to something like awesome-signal-template or, any other name that suits you
4. “Clone qube” function can be found within the “Qubes” menu item or by right-clicking on the qube ( debian-11-minimal in this case)
5. Locate & select your new awesome-signal-template
6. Update awesome-signal-template
7. “Update” function can be found via the “Update” button or by right-clicking on the qube ( awesome-signal-template in this case)
8. Either option ought launch a new console window titled: [awesome-signal-template] update
9. When the update is complete, there ought be a prompt within the update console shell which says: Press Enter to shutdown the template, or Ctrl-C to just close this window Press Ctrl-C as, we do not want to shutdown just yet
10. Back in Qubes manager, locate & select awesome-signal-template & “Open console in qube”
11. “Open console in qube” function can be found via the “Open console in qube” button or by right-clicking on the qube ( awesome-signal-template )
12. Enter the commands mentioned above
13. Poweroff/Shutdown awesome-signal-template
14. Create AppVM and/or associated DispVM based on awesome-signal-template

Thanks again… I tried this now and i got signal to install actually! But it has no internet… It should not matter what i put in the settings right, on the AppVM am i right?
I just need to get internet to signal, then it will work. Any ideas? Thanks

edit: I saw you wrote some about the attack surface… Is this insecure compared to installing signal in a normal debian template or what…
Anyways… did i miss to install some proxy or something… Why don’t signal connect… The appVM should just be able to use anything i choose right? Or do i need to install some network tools because it’s a minimal template perhaps? Thanks

[cayce]

Great, I knew it’d work out for you.

@anon42456682

It should not matter what i put in the settings right, on the AppVM am i right?

You do have to select the NetVM of choice for either the AppVM/DispVM based on the awesome-signal-template.

Ah, one package that’s not install installed by default for minimal is qubes-core-agent-networking, you’ll definitely want that if you would like to use as opposed to just install (for debiuging/reversing etc.) signal-desktop.

So, within awesome-signal-template you can run the following with root level permissions:

apt install qubes-core-agent-networking -y

Re: `attack surface`

Never mind the about that non-sense mentioned up-thread, those postulations are baseless FUD born of confusion.

[anon42456682]

@cayce

qubes-core-agent-networking

Thanks. Saw you updated your reply. thanks! Gonna try it out

[cayce]

De nada, just passing along a few commands; all praise and thanks go to Moxie (zomg, no more dreads!) & the Open Whisper team.

Happy privacying!

[anon42456682]

@cayce

De nada, just passing along a few commands; all praise and thanks go to Moxie (zomg, no more dreads!) & the Open Whisper team.

Happy privacying!

Thanks! Yeah i like signal. Moxie seems cool… whisper systems, etc. But i have issues still with my system setup… When i try to pass the built in mic i get this message: “pulseaudio agent not running”

I also have issues with usb on this laptop… I have some usb device when i start that says:
sys-usb;5-2 Generic _USB2.0-CRW_456789087 and a bunch of numbers…

Have i unplugged some usb cable or what… I just have issues with usb on this laptop… Any ideas? pulseaudio and usb issues… thanks again!

[anon42456682]

The best solution would be if i could just get the debian normal template signal commands on here… That would solve the issue… And get signal working, and that one has all of the “drivers” and such…
I could try and copy out them of the post that is written also, but yeah…
If someone feels like typing out the right commands or copy them here instead that would be the easiest solution really… to tired for this now… computers… fcuks sake. Something this easy, taking time… hehe
But i’m doing allot of other stuff at the same time so yeah… that’s that…
Signal could have some Qubes commands on their site also i guess…
“Signals official Qubes install guide.”

Mic issues… yeah i did install signal… but yeah… computers…
Kinda annoying… until you get them to work like you want to… and find a flow… I’m gonna quit re-installing stuff…