Qubes OS updates Weekly Review - Y2025-W06

General Discussion
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Qubes OS updates Weekly Review - Y2025-W06

Introduction

Weekly review of new packages uploaded to Qubes OS repositories. Link to previous version here.

Alphabetically sorted list of new packages uploaded to Qubes OS repositories 
i3_4.23-2+deb12u1_amd64.deb
i3-4.23-2.fc37.x86_64.rpm
i3-4.23-2.fc40.x86_64.rpm
i3-4.23-2.fc41.x86_64.rpm
i3_4.23-2+jammy1_amd64.deb
i3_4.23-2+noble1_amd64.deb
i3-devel-4.23-2.fc37.x86_64.rpm
i3-devel-4.23-2.fc40.x86_64.rpm
i3-devel-4.23-2.fc41.x86_64.rpm
i3-devel-doc-4.23-2.fc37.noarch.rpm
i3-devel-doc-4.23-2.fc40.noarch.rpm
i3-devel-doc-4.23-2.fc41.noarch.rpm
i3-doc-4.23-2.fc37.noarch.rpm
i3-doc-4.23-2.fc40.noarch.rpm
i3-doc-4.23-2.fc41.noarch.rpm
i3-wm_4.23-2+deb12u1_amd64.deb
i3-wm_4.23-2+jammy1_amd64.deb
i3-wm_4.23-2+noble1_amd64.deb
i3-wm-dbg_4.23-2+deb12u1_amd64.deb
i3-wm-dbg_4.23-2+jammy1_amd64.deb
i3-wm-dbg_4.23-2+noble1_amd64.deb
libqrexec-utils4_4.3.2-1+deb12u1_amd64.deb
libqrexec-utils4_4.3.2-1+deb13u1_amd64.deb
libqrexec-utils4_4.3.2-1+jammy1_amd64.deb
libqrexec-utils4_4.3.2-1+noble1_amd64.deb
libqrexec-utils4-dbgsym_4.3.2-1+deb12u1_amd64.deb
libqrexec-utils4-dbgsym_4.3.2-1+deb13u1_amd64.deb
libqrexec-utils-dev_4.3.2-1+deb12u1_amd64.deb
libqrexec-utils-dev_4.3.2-1+deb13u1_amd64.deb
libqrexec-utils-dev_4.3.2-1+jammy1_amd64.deb
libqrexec-utils-dev_4.3.2-1+noble1_amd64.deb
python3-qrexec_4.3.2-1+deb12u1_amd64.deb
python3-qrexec_4.3.2-1+deb13u1_amd64.deb
python3-qrexec_4.3.2-1+jammy1_amd64.deb
python3-qrexec_4.3.2-1+noble1_amd64.deb
qubes-core-qrexec_4.3.2-1+deb12u1_amd64.deb
qubes-core-qrexec_4.3.2-1+deb13u1_amd64.deb
qubes-core-qrexec-4.3.2-1.fc40.x86_64.rpm
qubes-core-qrexec-4.3.2-1.fc41.x86_64.rpm
qubes-core-qrexec_4.3.2-1+jammy1_amd64.deb
qubes-core-qrexec_4.3.2-1+noble1_amd64.deb
qubes-core-qrexec-dbgsym_4.3.2-1+deb12u1_amd64.deb
qubes-core-qrexec-dbgsym_4.3.2-1+deb13u1_amd64.deb
qubes-core-qrexec-devel-4.3.2-1.fc40.x86_64.rpm
qubes-core-qrexec-devel-4.3.2-1.fc41.x86_64.rpm
qubes-core-qrexec-dom0-4.3.2-1.fc41.x86_64.rpm
qubes-core-qrexec-libs-4.3.2-1.fc40.x86_64.rpm
qubes-core-qrexec-libs-4.3.2-1.fc41.x86_64.rpm
qubes-core-qrexec-vm-4.3.2-1.fc40.x86_64.rpm
qubes-core-qrexec-vm-4.3.2-1.fc41.x86_64.rpm
qubes-core-qrexec-vm-selinux-4.3.2-1.fc40.x86_64.rpm
qubes-core-qrexec-vm-selinux-4.3.2-1.fc41.x86_64.rpm
qubes-vm-qrexec-4.3.2-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst

Highlights

  • Major qrexec performance improvements

Details

In addition to the usual minor fixes and patches (full list here):

  • core-admin v4.3.17 (r4.3)
    . This one is actually released today. See epilogue for more information.
    . qrexec policy evaluation will use cached data. This will have considerable performance improvements. The cache will be invalidated on specific events. Examples are starting/shutting-down domains, adding/removing tags, changing domain labels, …
    . Fixing Thunderbird support on Fedora 41

  • (qubes) manager v4.3.8-1 (r4.3)
    . While this was released at the latest hours of 2025-W06, build of actual packages happened today.
    . Mostly bug fixes. Notable one is fixing a bug in cloning Qubes to other storage pools. The CLI counterpart (qvm-clone) was not affected.
    . The old Qt based qubes-vm-create dialog is deprecated.

  • core-qrexec v4.3.2 & v4.3.3 (r4.3)
    . Yet another SELinux patch for the Fedora 41 memory ballooning issue.
    . Only for Qubes OS R4.3, RPC calls will be directly executed from c code and qubes-rpc-multiplexer is no longer used. It will remain for legacy use cases. This will have some considerable performance improvements.

  • desktop-linux-i3 v4.23-2 (r4.2)
    The patch from May 2024 which has been tested on R4.3. Allowing i3 users to change default border width (default is 3 pixels).

Epilogue

Since major qrexec improvements are somewhat related, I decided to include both of them in this week’s report. Even though the core-admin one is actually released today.

15 Likes
2

It’s a bit sad. It was the best qube creation menu of the 2 currently available.
As an i3wm user, the usability of the “modern” qube creation menu is not good compared to the “old” one:

  • Load bar on startup
  • Always start in full screen (old menu doesn’t)
  • qube name does not autofocus when menu appears (old menu does)
  • Networking requires a click to drop down the options, which seems useless (keep the radio buttons visible without the drop down menu)
  • Lots of unused space which makes the window bigger
  • Hitting “enter” does nothing (old menu validate qube creation)
  • After clicking “Create” a new window appears and has to be closed each time

Since its addition in R4.2, I used it once and went back to the old menu.

5 Likes
3

Since I was involved in retiring the old dialog (although I did not make the final decision), I should take some responsibility.

  • Load bar on startup will be much faster and almost not noticeable due to qrexec speed improvements. Even on my Elitebook 820 G1 i5 4300u test machine. It is around 1500ms.
  • The full screen should be i3wm specific. It is not full screen on XFCE.
  • I will assure Name: will get focus. This is a good suggestion. I will submit a PR for this.
  • Not sure about Networking.
  • The unused space was explained during Marmarta presentations. It has some security benefits for beginner users.
  • I guess adding an accelerator for hitting “enter” should be OK. I will work on it.
  • Some users might like the dialong on successful qube creation. Some might not like it. Some users do not care. It is hard to keep everyone happy.
6 Likes
4

Thanks, some of these changes might make things better.

I can agree with that, but the old menu didn’t need any special rules to stay in a floating state under i3. I’ll probably set a rule in my config to make it similar to the previous behavior, but I guess it should be the same as on xfce or any other DE by default.

Currently the user has to click on “Network connection:” to open the different options. I think it would be better to make the radio buttons accessible without having to click anything first. The selection is pretty clear just by looking at the buttons, and would look something like this:
image

1 Like
5

Now I understand. There is an unfortunate problem here. If you always expand Network connection options, the entire window won’t fit on smaller displays (e.g. the common 1366x768 resolution). The developer had to decide. If the dialog has to be optimized for Full-HD and higher resolutions or take the lower resolutions into consideration. And since many Qubes OS users might user the older systems, the choice was to collapse the choices.

1 Like