Following on from here:
I reinstalled Qubes. Updated my VM’s, transferred files, restarted, everything fine, then updated dom0.
This is exactly what happened before - I updated dom0 and then Qubes would not even reach the disk unlock screen. It is happening again on a fresh install.
Why is this happening and what can I do to fix this? If I can’t update dom0 without it making Qubes completely unusable, then Qubes is insecure for me and I will have to use something else.
Understand your anger.
Established a Qubes test system on a spare disk for that kind of scenario.
This. It is unfortunate but i couldn’t imagine being a qubes user without having multiple computers running it. Things break quite often and workarounds and/or dev fixes take time or cause other issues
Is this a newer laptop ? Unfortunately support can be spotty for the first year or so. Have you tried with latest or testing release for dom0 ?
Also wifi cards are notoriously picky about kernels and qubes runs older kernels which dont have support for newer wifi cards.
Hi, I did a third (and final) fresh install, and the same thing happened.
Yeah, it is a new laptop, released mid-late 2025 I believe, however it was working fine for around 2 months before this latest dom0 update last week.
I tried older kernel on the qubes startup settings but no luck.
I do fortunately have a backup laptop that a fresh install seems to be working on, so I’ll be using that for now.
I would like to use my new laptop in future - should I wait a month or so and try a fresh install again basically?
Yes i think that is a good plan. I wouldn’t expect a change until a new kernel.
Did you try kernel-latest ? There is also unstable repo in global settings and that might have even newer kernel-latest
It is more unusual for a new laptop to start working with qubes but then a kernel upgrade to break it again.
If i was you, i’d just use the new laptop with the older dom0… booting from old kernel at grub. I don’t consider it that dangerous for dom0 to be on an older kernel but your threat model might require it
Hi,
The issue with this if I accidentally once select dom0 to update in the update manager I’m locked out again haha!
Is it really ok to not update dom0 at all after downloading 4.3 would you say?
I think I’ll just try again in a month or something.
If you accidentally update you can still use grub to boot to old kernel. Did you try that earlier or did it not work ?
I’ve been forced to do this (well to use grub to boot earlier kernel) for a few months in the past (for nvidia bug). As were quite a few other people. It depends on your threat model and what you are storing on Qubes. I wouldn’t do it if i was storing a crypto wallet keys