My first days with Qubes R4.2 rc1 install

[rustybird]

@logoerthiner

1. I wonder whether swap partition is required in the install, and I wonder why the swap partition is not under the same luks subtree as the main partition, causing two luks partition under the same device (cannot it be merged into one?). In R4.1 swap partition does not exist;

It’s not a difference of R4.1 vs. R4.2, but rather of the installer’s partitioning style for the LVM Thin layout vs. the Btrfs layout. FWIW the latter has the advantage of making it easier to use an ephemeral swap encryption key, although that’s not yet done automatically:

Randomized Swap

Not yet: But it’s straightforward to set this up if you’re on the Btrfs installation layout. I’ve been using a converter script since Qubes R3.0:

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@logoerthiner

3. maybe related to btrfs. The disk usage for sys-net incorrectly accounts for the template vm size - it shows 4575MB of usage while it only has 2GB of private storage

Yep, the file-reflink driver (for Btrfs) and the lvm_thin driver have a different approach of accounting for disk usage, and it can look a little odd in Qube Manager:

Confused About Disk Usage Listed in Qube Manager - Not Adding Up

Qube Manager is a bit confusing about Disk Usage. Maybe it should be changed to just ignore the “root” volume for AppVMs: That volume only exists on disk while they are running, and because it’s a snapshot (of the TemplateVM’s “root” volume) it doesn’t really use all that much disk space. You’ll get more meaningful results by looking at the individual volumes, e.g. qvm-volume info debian-11:private qvm-volume info debian-11:root qvm-volume info A:private qvm-volume info A:root qvm-volume info …