Proposal for re-organizing the HCL

[fsflover]

@balko

Yes, at least several Lenovo models work quite well, including S3 sleep. New user will never know about such cases with the current recommended list, which is almost a copy of certified list with online-delivery-available laptops only.

Did you see the criteria of laptop inclusion in the list? Show me two independent, appropriate HCL reports and I will add the laptops.

[balko]

@fsflover

Did you see the criteria of laptop inclusion in the list?

Yes. I think at least these 2 are bad:

• Qubes OS installs without any workarounds
• Graphics, networking, audio & suspend work without troubleshooting

Workarounds and troubleshooting are fine for users if there is information how to solve the problem. I believe there are/were some issues with the certified laptops (like NV41 required installation with kernel-latest only), intel graphics workarounds also apply and etc. It is all solvable, it is all almost the same as some of modern Thinkpads.

@fsflover

Show me two independent, appropriate HCL reports and I will add the laptops.

First of all, I do not think it is a good idea, to add something without proper details and listing all available and working/not working features. Even certified laptops lacks such information, so I do not consider it to be a great list.

Secondly, what do you think about this laptop (proposal by @moonlitOrca:

Short list of laptops/desktops that work well with Qubes OS

I would like to propose adding the Framework laptops to the recommended list. I have been using one (original 11th Gen Intel) for more than a year with QubesOS and have gone through all the growing pains with it. I have posted my suggestions and guide here on GitHub for new users to Qubes OS on Framework. Initially there were some challenges with hardware recognition in the Xen kernel for wifi and s3 sleep especially, but at this point from my experience and the HCL reports, it seems that eve…

Short list of laptops/desktops that work well with Qubes OS

Yes, I did read through the requirements before posting, and the Framework (11th gen at least, since that’s what I can speak for directly) requires only one thing to meet them all in Qubes OS 4.2: the kernel argument mem_sleep_default=deep in order to enable S3 sleep (but I think that every laptop requires that for S3 sleep, so that’s not a workaround, right?), To make everything work in 4.1 correctly, it needs the above mentioned kernel argument, but also a later kernel than shipped with the o…

How can laptop like that not be on the recommended list? It looks to me million times better than any other option from the “recommended” list, because people can (could) actually go to the shop and buy it.

Add some kernel options, change some config and have great Qubes OS laptop. Users do this for GNU/Linux all the time, why it should not be the case for Qubes OS.

[tempmail]

@balko

Add some kernel options, change some config and have great Qubes OS laptop. Users do this for GNU/Linux all the time, why Qubes OS should be not the case.

Well, I think we all are basically “now thinking with Qubes”, when outcome is. The way I see current situation is - today’s computers are immensely more compatible with Qubes than before. So I imagine we should encourage users towards that direction.

I bought my last laptop with multiple minor issues regarding either by design (no external display via iGPU, or is it Linux actually? This info you can get only by try-n-tell, no company will get you this info), or regarding Qubes, but I adjusted it (and myself in terms of habits) so I could virtually flawlessly using it with Qubes, never thinking some other OS could be on it.

[Div]

As @renehoj mentioned above, the T480 is presumably such a laptop?

Lenovo ThinkPad T480

Remarks Overall works very well, Have not tested the microphone or camera, however both are listed Qubes Devices. Attachments Qubes-HCL-LENOVO-20L6S1UM00-20210316-025858.yml (852 Bytes)

[FranklyFlawless]

If nothing has been done at this point for this issue, you may as well create your own database, table and HCL report script, then share it with the Qubes community to prove your implementation works.

[gonzalo-bulnes]

@Theseus

Number of USB Controllers - 2 x USB 3.2 Gen. 1 port (Type A), 1 x USB 3.2 Gen. 2 port (Type C), 1 x USB 3.2 Gen. 2 port (Type C)

@balko I believe that the difference between USB controllers and ports is (still) a difficulty. (I’ve no doubt you’ve noticed.)

As my two cents: I find the “how to check” that you did for checking if the touchpad/keyboad are connected over PS/2 very straightforward, if you know how to do a similar one for USB controllers, I believe that would help getting more data on this section.

[balko]

I agree. I do not have guide how to check it properly, but, I hope, I will be able to do it for my laptop and will make a straightforward instruction.

[moonlitOrca]

Quick question: with the HCL reports, I never submitted one because one already existed for my laptop. Are users meant to submit a HCL report for machines that already exist to double-confirm the functionality? That seems reasonable to me, but I never realized.

Anyway, I just did submit mine finally for the 11th Gen Framework: Framework Laptop - #34 by moonlitOrca

[moonlitOrca]

I don’t have any stake in Framework other than being a user, but I do think it’s a great option for recommending to the community, and so I have just checked on the Framework 13th gen HCL page and it seems there are now at least 2 successful HCL reports: Framework Laptop 13th Gen, Intel - #3 by b34
and
Framework Laptop 13th Gen, Intel - #17 by leee

Both require a kernel argument for S3 sleep, and it seems there is a workaround for brightness hotkeys (my 11th gen doesn’t need that), but everything else seems fully working. Does that help with recommendations?

[Sven]

Everyone, the idea behind the community recommended list was to have a list of computers that doesn’t require any workarounds or troubleshooting to run Qubes OS. That this list ended up having certified machines on it is kind of obvious as those must by definition be “just works”.

However there are other non-certified machines (P51, Librem and some more). That the list is short and contains older machines has two reasons:

1. Qubes OS will always work best on machines that are 2+ years old – by design. I get that some people don’t like that, but that’s just what it is. The forum is full of threads examining why that is.

2. I’ve not had any time in the last year to actively search the HCL for candidates. It’s quite possible that there are several computers that fulfill all the requirements but are not yet added to the list, which by the way is a Wiki.

To me once again this is one of those threads filled by well intentioned people that love to complain and through out ideas but it hasn’t occurred to anyone to invest a few hours to do research and maybe update the list. I can’t find the time for that right now myself, but then again that’s why it’s the community recommend list and not the Sven recommended list

[leee]

Both require a kernel argument for S3 sleep

I’m not sure where you got that idea from my report, @moonlitOrca. All I mentioned was suspend seems to work at first glance out of the box.

The criteria for community-recommended computers seem clear to me. The device should be able to install Qubes without any workarounds and the installation work out of the box. There should be multiple reports of such.

Coreboot plans being vaporware aside, I’m happy to advocate Framework for inclusion as a community-recommended computer.

But as far as I’m aware, clean Qubes installs only started working for Framework devices since one of the 4.2 release candidates. My report is the only one for 4.2.0, and there needs to be more of the same before you can nominate for inclusion.

There’s also the matter of USB GBASE-T adapters not working, but I’m not sure if that’s part of the criteria or not, as built-in wireless works fine out of the box.

[moonlitOrca]

@leee I am happy to hear that S3 works without any kernel arguments on the new hardware! I actually did not get the kernel argument from your report anywhere; it was my understanding that fedora always requires “mem_sleep_default=deep” to default to S3 on standby for any machine. If it works for you out of the box then I am mistaken.

[moonlitOrca]

I actually did not know the Community list was a wiki…I probably should have looked first… Thank you for popping in to clarify

[nealr]

I think job #1 should be doing what Flavio said - this business of “install Qubes to get an HCL report to find out if your computer can install Qubes” is unproductive. There should be a simple thing - maybe an Alpine based ISO - that does nothing but boot and inspect a machine’s hardware. There would need to be some way to forward the report, maybe by saving it to the thumb drive used to boot?

[renehoj]

@nealr

There should be a simple thing - maybe an Alpine based ISO

How would that be useful?

Pretty much every system works with Linux, but that doesn’t mean it works with Qubes OS, which is why the HCL exists.

[nealr]

If you have a computer in front of you and you are not a hardware wiz, how do you know if it’ll run Qubes? Wading through the HCL and trying to work out if you can use it? Or a simple tool that gives you a yes/no answer in short order.

[renehoj]

Saying that people should just use the “simple tool that gives you yes or no” sound like you haven’t even spend 2 secs reading the support forum.

There are a wide range of issues from UEFI to Xen compatibility, it’s clearly not as simple as Yes or No.

[nealr]

And it’s not simple for a non-technical person to wade through all that and decide if the hardware they have will work. “Evaluate your machine for Qubes use” would be a useful tool to have.

[leee]

@moonlitOrca

@leee I am happy to hear that S3 works without any kernel arguments on the new hardware! I actually did not get the kernel argument from your report anywhere; it was my understanding that fedora always requires “mem_sleep_default=deep” to default to S3 on standby for any machine. If it works for you out of the box then I am mistaken.

I didn’t see this yesterday, but realized this was indeed the case when I poked a little more at the laptop yesterday, and updated the thread. Thanks for the catch!

[balko]

@nealr

And it’s not simple for a non-technical person to wade through all that and decide if the hardware they have will work.

Well, I see your point, but do we really need non-technical person to do this in the first place? Why not accept reports only from advanced users? It is not like we do need as many as possible. The quality of reports, being reliable and detailed is way more important, to my opinion.