Lacks features required: IOMMU/VT-d/AMD-Vi

[Jinxed]

Hi, complete noob here. Im new to Linux.
Tried to install qubes in a gnome box, OS is fedora 40, system76 pang12.
AMD Ryzen 7 6800U.
Error message lacks required features IOMMU?VT-d/AMD-Vi

If this is very complicated, (beyond noob level) then suggest an alternative for me?

Thankyou.

[OvalZero]

Install Qubes on bare metal with the above mentioned features. They are required by Xen (i.e. the hypervisor Qubes runs on). While it’s not impossible to “virtualize” Qubes, it’s a hassle to get there (and the results are far from pleasing, with most hardware that is). Just an example:

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…

[Jinxed]

Hi, thankyou.
I realise this is the qubes forum, but…
Will i have the same problem with every OS I try to install in a gnome box?
Will whonix work? What about Tails? Silverblue?
thanks

[OvalZero]

No. You won’t have the same problems, since those you mentioned don’t rely on virtualisation themselves. Whonix e.g. even offers it’s own VM image (VirtualBox IIRC).

[solene]

@Jinxed

Error message lacks required features IOMMU?VT-d/AMD-Vi

Did you see this message immediately when booting the Qubes OS iso or after the Qubes OS installation?

In the first case, this mean you must enable these features in your system firmware (usually F8 or a F key at boot), in the latter case this is just because Qubes OS does not work well in an virtual environment as it is an virtualization hypervisor itself.

[FrancisKing381]

I had the same issue. I have two available Xeon workstations (these are inexpensive on eBay):

• Lenovo Xeon workstation, 64 GB EEC DDR3
• Dell Xeon workstation. 32 GB EEC DDR3

On the two workstations, the Lenovo workstation is the better one. It is newer (10 years old vs 12 years old). It has more memory, and a much better graphics card.

I enabled the virtualisation features in both machines, in the BIOS. The Dell workstation has two things to enable, the Lenovo workstation just had one virtualisation option (as far as I can tell). The Lenovo workstation thinks that I have VT-x enabled, and VT-d disabled, but no obvious way to enable VT-d.

Installing Qubes, the Dell workstation worked perfectly, and that is now my Qubes box. The Lenovo workstation showed a desktop, but any attempt to start an application created a number of errors, and the application failed to start.

[Jinxed]

I think it must have been after or during.

[Jinxed]

Thankyou for the helpful replies.