Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 11

qubesuser11 · October 7, 2023, 2:58pm

Couldn’t make the 4G modem work with Qubes OS. It works with Ubuntu but not with Qubes OS and I don’t know why. Attach the PCI device to any qube and it fails to boot.

user45507 · January 2, 2024, 7:21pm

Hi. Which WWAN module do you have? Fibocom L860-GL-16, right?
Have you try this/seen this page?

abbedda · January 9, 2024, 9:59pm

Thanks!

So I got the gen 11 now too, I can boot from the qubes installer from the flash drive and go through the install, but once its done installing and I’m asked to reboot, nothing happens - I then get stranded in a Lenovo boot menu like no OS is installed.

Any advice? Did you have any similar issues?

apparatus · January 10, 2024, 5:58am

Did you install Qubes OS on removable disk?
If yes then follow these:

github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues

Fall back to UEFI shell if Qubes boot entry is missing

opened 09:26AM - 02 Jun 22 UTC

mehrexe

T: enhancement P: default pr submitted C: boot

[How to file a helpful issue](https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/issue-tracking/) #…## Qubes OS release Latest as of posting, 4.1.0 ### Brief summary I manually unplugged every drive on my computer except for the target drive for the installation, which was all free space unpartitioned. Installer ran typically, chose automatic for the installation type. Booted into the OS' configuration and then the full OS. GRUB is verified to have worked because I managed to see it when initially booting for configuration and because of a later restart due to a display artificating and then system lockup problem I had that I attribute to Nvidia. After using another drive and then unplugging it, and plugging the Qubes drive back, there was no detectable boot source. I booted a live OS and found that the partition structure was intact but didn't investigate further and reinstalled Qubes. I then got the idea to see if this issue happened if I BIOS disabled drives instead of unplugging them. I disabled my Qubes drive and enabled another, and booted into it fine. I then disabled my other drive and reenabled the Qubes drive and the same issue happened again where my system does not see any boot entries. The system does see the drive, and switching on CSM and legacy boot I can boot from the drive but get an error screen saying to boot from proper media. This second time, I _kind of_ fixed it but I must do these steps every time I remove the drive or disable it in BIOS. I lose the option to boot without the Xen hypervisor and the boot hiccups. I essentially have to boot my install media, run Anaconda rescue and: 1. Mount the bootloader partition 2. Copy the contents of /mnt/EFI/qubes/ to /mnt/EFI/BOOT/ 3. Rename grubx64.efi to bootx64.efi 4. Rename grub.cfg to bootx64.cfg 5. efibootmgr -v -c -u -L Qubes2 -l /EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi -d /dev/sda -p 1 ### Steps to reproduce I believe the best way to reproduce this issue is to do a fresh install of Qubes on hardware similar to mine: Asus Prime Z-390-A Motherboard Intel i7-9700K CPU 16GB DDR4 RAM 1TB HDD Most notably, this motherboard. I will be filing a compatibility report soon, but I believe this motherboard may have something to do with how it reads the GRUB bootloader as it's configured for Qubes. Further, these are the only non-stock BIOS settings: - Disabling the Intel LAN Controller (it causes a PCI reset error and ends the last step of the configuration, doesn't matter since I don't use it, and I believe the fact that it's unplugged is the reason this issue happens) - Enabling Virtualization - Enabling Vt-d - Disabling all other drives ### Expected behavior The GRUB bootloader is supposed to appear after the BIOS initializes regardless of whether the drive was previously unplugged from the system or not (safely of course). ### Actual behavior Please read above. After unplugging the drive or disabling it in BIOS, the entry for GRUB is missing.

github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues

Raw disk backup of Qubes EFI is unbootable

opened 02:53PM - 15 Jul 23 UTC

adrelanos

T: bug P: default needs diagnosis affects-4.1 C: boot

### Qubes OS release R4.1 and R4.2 ### Brief summary When making a raw …disk backup from a Qubes installed to an internal hard drive to an external hard drive, the external hard drive is unbootable. raw disk backup means a backup using `dd` or 1 to 1 exact copy. ### Steps to reproduce 1. install Qubes normally on a computer that only support EFI booting on the internal harddrive 2. reboot 3. brief test that Qubes is working normally (yes) 4. shutdown Qubes 5. boot from an external drive, boot a live DVD or live USB such as Debian Live 6. perform a raw disk backup from the internal disk to the external disk 7. unplug that disk and try to boot from it in a different computer (or the same Qubes computer) ([example instructions for raw disk backups](https://www.kicksecure.com/wiki/Raw_Disk_Backup)) ### Expected behavior The raw disk backup of Qubes is bootable. ### Actual behavior The raw disk backup of Qubes is unbootable. ### Additional information According to my research that might be because of missing entries in the EFI firmware's NVRAM which is stored on the motherboard. Unfortunately, the EFI boot process doesn't seem by default to be self-contained on 1 harddrive but require extra settings stored outside harddrives on the motherboard (EFI NVRAM). Using `grub2-install` with options `--removable` / `--force-extra-removable` during Qubes installation might help? > [--removable](https://manpages.debian.org/bookworm/grub2-common/grub-install.8.en.html#removable) > the installation device is removable. This option is only available on EFI. > [--force-extra-removable](https://manpages.debian.org/bookworm/grub2-common/grub-install.8.en.html#force~2) > force installation to the removable media path also. This option is only available on EFI. Qubes does not have good support for multiboot support anyhow: * https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/8351 * https://www.qubes-os.org/faq/#can-i-install-qubes-os-together-with-other-operating-system-dual-bootmulti-boot * It's "patches welcome". (And that's okay.) This ticket is not a feature request to improve multiboot support. Why do I mention this? Because otherwise, when considering options `--removable` / `--force-extra-removable` one *might* argue "but that breaks mutliboot support". I would argue that being able to boot a raw disk backup of Qubes is more important than mutliboot support. [Why do I like full raw disk backups? See this link.](https://forum.qubes-os.org/t/how-do-you-organize-your-backups/3986/16?u=adrelanos) Manually updating the NVRAM can be challenging: * It's vendor dependent because of many different EFI BIOS versions. * Some BIOS don't even have such an option. * Might require booting into an operating system installed on USB and running console commands to fix it. * Difficult, impossible for far most users to do or even to find instructions for it. Qubes with legacy BIOS booting as far as I remember didn't have this issue. However, never notebooks sometimes (or often, dunno) don't even support legacy BIOS booting anymore. Therefore "use legacy BIOS booting" is a non-solution. Also not a good long term solution in either case because of Qubes planned Secure Boot support. This bug might also make Qubes "non-portable". Meaning, Qubes installed to an external drive such as a USB SSD might be bootable on the computer where it was installed but unbootable when attempting to boot the same Qubes USB SSD on another computer. I didn't test this very part mentioned in this very chapter. Anaconda by Fedora might be using `grub2-install` with options `--removable` / `--force-extra-removable` already when installing to external devices (USB) instead of internal harddrive. Where is the Qubes code which defines bootloader / grub2 / EFI installation? Or is this currently all done by upstream's Anaconda?

If it’s internal disk then follow this:

abbedda · January 10, 2024, 10:45am

Thank you! Its installeres on an interval disk, my next question is How to apply these changes, I found the menu but my prompts are not working

apparatus · January 10, 2024, 10:50am

Then follow the second guide, this one:

Not sure what are you talking about. Can you describe in more details?

abbedda · January 10, 2024, 11:40am

I follow the guide, write reboot and it ends up the same place. Here are some pics of what I see

The screen showing when I turn on the computer (before and after following the guide)

abbedda · January 10, 2024, 11:40am

My input and answer when following the guide

abbedda · January 10, 2024, 11:41am

My boot settings

Boot order is:
Harddrive
USB HDD
USB FDD
Windows boot manager

Intel Vt-d is turned on

Boot order lock is on

Boot mode is: Diagnostics

apparatus · January 10, 2024, 11:46am

Did you make sure that /dev/nvme0n1 is your Qubes OS drive?
Did you check it? Using fdisk -l / blkid / tried to mount it / or something else.

abbedda · January 10, 2024, 11:47am

No, im quite new to Linux, how can I do that?

As I see it I can not even boot into the Qubes OS environment from where I can open a terminal

apparatus · January 10, 2024, 11:52am

Run these commands:

fdisk -l
blkid

In the rescue mode shell before running efibootmgr and check the output.
The output of fdisk for your Qubes OS drive with default partitioning should have 3 partitions and look like this:

abbedda · January 10, 2024, 11:57am

It looks like that

Any other suggestions, @apparatus ?
And just so you know it, I highly appreciate your help here - thanks SO much

ChrisA · January 10, 2024, 2:56pm

I assume you have the installation stick around still … so could you try:

Connect the USB installation stick to the computer
Select the Installation stick as the boot medium
When you see the “Install Qubes OS R…”/“Test media and …”/“Troubleshooting - …” menu, hit c to get a grub> prompt
Type configfile (hd0,gpt1)/EFI/qubes/grub and hit the Tab key on your keyboard – did it complete the line to: grub.cfg?
– if so, hit enter … if no, try with: configfile (hd1,gpt1)/EFI/qubes/grub and hit Tab

and report/share the result?

apparatus · January 10, 2024, 4:03pm

The /dev/nvme0n1 is your Qubes OS disk but there is a problem with partition table.

GPT PMBR size mismatch

Did you clone the Qubes OS installed on another disk to this one?
Or you’ve done clean installation on this disk?

abbedda · January 10, 2024, 7:26pm

Clean installation on the disk. Just tried downloadning from torrent this time and installing It with Rufus on another flash drive, this lead to the same “size mismatch” error.

apparatus · January 10, 2024, 7:35pm

Try to run this command to double check and fix the partition table:

parted -l

abbedda · January 10, 2024, 8:07pm

There was no result when I did it with hd0.

When I did it with hd1 I Received the following options:

Possible files are grubx64.efi, grub.cfg, grub.cfg.rpmsave

I tried completing it with .cfg hit enter and qubes started woop woop

What change do I need to make to not have to go through this procedure every time?

ChrisA · January 10, 2024, 8:23pm

You could see if it’s the BIOS failing to find the UEFI path that Qubes OS uses - open a terminal in dom0 and run:

sudo -i
cd /boot/efi/EFI
cp -r qubes/* BOOT
cd BOOT
mv grubx64.efi bootx64.efi
mv grub.cfg bootx64.cfg

and try to reboot.

Note: you’ll have to repeat this, each time Qubes updates grub.cfg in dom0… :-/

If it works, would you be willing to try some alternative ways to get it working?

abbedda · January 10, 2024, 9:17pm

Wild - it works ! Thanks a bunch, @ChrisA and @apparatus !

Yeah sure happy to experiment with other options if it can help the community