Looking for some background about the disposable implementation

General Discussion
1

I’ve been looking for some background about the disposable implementation, I’ve searched:

  • the docs
  • the news
  • qubes-devel
  • the forum

But nothing really answers my questions. I would like to know if a reversed approach has been considered. Currently:

  • creating/managing named disposables is quite identical to creating a regular app qube
  • creating/managing unnamed disposables requires making some changes on another app qube

I don’t like how it is handled in the app menu, and I think that having to create an unnamed disposable, like we do for named disposables, would be a way to fix this. But the probability of me reinventing the wheel or not considering major issues already studied somewhere else is high.

2

Actually, creating a named disposable also requires making a change
in another qube, or the disposable template wont appear in the drop
down list.

I dont understand this. Once you set the “template for disposables”
property then you may or may not create unnamed disposables. In what
sense would you be “creating an unnamed disposable”? What problem would
this solve?

I never presume to speak for the Qubes team.
When I comment in the Forum I speak for myself.

3

I wonder if, instead of having the disposable template creating unnamed entries, we could have to create a “default-disposable” qube to get menu entries.

That’s an extra step but it would allow one to customize the app menu shortcuts, to prohibit the start of the disposable template if appropriate and to use 2 different names to limit the confusion when starting “default-dvm” instead of “new disposable qube from default-dvm” in the app menu or when forgetting to use --dispvm in the command line.

4

Is the separation between disposable template and disposable launcher
not clear enough in the Qubes Menu? One is under templates, and the
other under APPS (horrible and inconsistent).
In the KDE menu, the items are even easier to distinguish by name.

There are many cases where it’s important to be able to start and
configure the disposable template.
I’m still unclear what is the problem you want to solve.

I never presume to speak for the Qubes team.
When I comment in the Forum I speak for myself.

5

Sent by mistake. I will repost the full answer.

6

It is very easy to make a mistake when using the search function, but that’s a specific use case.

Some of the issues I personally encounter:

  • after the initial configuration of a disposable template, I rarely want to start it. But:
    • I have to keep the applications I want to use in disposables also in the disposable template to get them in the app menu
    • if I prohibit the start of the disposable template, I can’t start the disposables too
  • starting the web browser or running some command in the disposable template without noticing that I’m not in the disposable

That’s not a big deal but I wonder how to solve that.

7

I usually delete .desktop files for all applications in disposable templates so that I don’t start applications in the wrong qubes by accident. Maybe this works for you as well.

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