Need help with disk in Windows and proxy in Gentoo

Hello. I have used Qubes 4.1 few months, and I am very happy with it. I never can return on mainstream operating system on desktop.

I need some help with Templates. I have installed Windows 10 as StandaloneVM, with QWT 4.1.65, it just works. But I don’t know, how to set disk type to SSD for better speed. I tried to look in QEMU docs, and in dev.qubes-os.org, but I didn’t found anything about it. And I can’t find any option on Windows-side.
Help me please.

And I try to setup Gentoo template for main work. I tried to install and upgrade gentoo-xfce template from community testing repository, but I can’t solve all problems, because I am noob in Gentoo. So, I have installed gentoo-minimal template, and try to understand how it must be configured for me. I seen, that fetching updates and packages from gentoo repositories works out-of-the-box in gentoo-xfce, but it doesn’t work in gentoo-minimal. Connection refused. (Any docs about Qubes-specific packages and features in Gentoo?)

I enable all services in “Services” section of template settings in Qube Manager.

Commenting out Qubes-specific strings in make.conf and enabling sys-firewall as NetVM solves the problem, but it is not qubes way.
Qubes-proxy-config file and Qubes-specific section of make.conf looks similar.

While I wrote it, I checked gentoo-xfce again and look in /etc/portage/package.use/qubes/standard. I see a network-manager USE flag enabled. But emerge’s text (i don’t know right word in English, sorry) doesn’t looks like that enabling this flag can fix qubes-proxy. I can be mistaken.

How to add qubes-updates-proxy.service in gentoo-minimal?

Help me with it please.

When you installed QWT 4.1.65, did you manually enable the Xen PV Disk drivers?

They are faster than the emulated QEMU drivers that are used by default.

B

Should I download Xen PV disk drivers from XenProject website?
I have downloaded Xenvbd drivers, but no changes when I install in on my current Windows VM. I will try to install in on virgin Windows VM tomorrow. I should wait untill gentoo-xfce @world compiling will be completed.

I decided to try again with gentoo-xfce. I will research how qubes-proxy works later.

The QWT 4.1.65 come with the most recent PV disk under V8 (8.22, I think) which play well with the other components. Do not install the V9 driver from the Xen website.

Run the QWT 4.1.65 installer in modify/repair mode and you can choose to add the PV Disk component using the component tree.

Brendan

It works. Thank you very much.