Manually created commands (e.g. using qvm-run) in xfce4-panel dom0 Launchers do not work (Workaround inside)

User Support
1

Problem

I have a problem with launching applications using qvm-run qubes app via Launchers on xfce4-panel.
When I click any item in Launcher of XFCE panel, it does nothing.
It happens if launcher uses qvm-run with actual executable command.

E.g., such Command in Launcher does nothing:

qvm-run myqube firefox

While this one works:

qvm-run -q -a --service -- myqube qubes.StartApp+org.mozilla.firefox

Workarounds

  1. [Bad] If I check “Run in terminal” checkbox for Launcher command - it works. But it shows terminal window and keeps it open until app is running. Not something that one would want.

  2. [Good] I found a real workaround to make it work (almost impossible to find) - such commands work:

bash -c '2>/dev/null qvm-run myqube "firefox"'

Note, that both “calling via bash” and “redirecting stderr” is REQUIRED to run the command, otherwise nothing happens when I click the icon.

Any ideas what is happening? Is it a bug?

2

While I don’t really know why the first approach doesn’t work, I believe the second one (with --service) is the recommended way of launching applications in qubes.

1 Like
3

I cannot use --service calls for arbitrary commands - like running own scripts or some apps from flatpak or appimage.

Approach with limited list of applications based on some desktop files does not work for such cases, as I understand.

4

I can’t reproduce this with a new AppVM based on an unmodified fedora-43-xfce (4.3.0-202601041226) or debian-13-xfce (4.3.0-202512040043).

1 Like
5

Thank you, I will try to investigate and post here the results.
In my case there are 2 possibly relevant differences:

  1. I recovered dom0 user from R4.2 to R4.3 (including panel configs).
  2. I use my own KDE templates based on fedora-minimal.
6

The reason seems to be my templates. They are fedora-42-minimal-based and worked fine in Qubes OS R4.2, but when I transfered them via backup-restore to R4.3, I have these issues.

So, probably, the “solution” in this case is to create new fedora-43-minimal-based templates in R4.3.
I checked that qubes based on such templates work fine with xfce4-panel Launchers in R4.3.

7

I created new templates based on fedora-43-minimal and it works fine with them. The reason why it was broken for fedora-42-minimal migrated from Qubes R4.2 is not clear, but I am closing it as solved for me.

1 Like