Qubes Running on GPD products

General Discussion
1

Hey everyone, I’m planning to buy a GPD laptop to run Qubes on it and have a very portable work station.
The main reason is to have my password manager and others stuffs quickly available anywhere I am.
I will not run heavy software or VM.

Anyone with an experience running Qubes on any GPD laptop is welcome (same for other very small machine)

I search a small laptop or 2 in 1 laptop who can fit in my sling bag

(Actually I’m running Qubes on a Slimbook Pro X 15 AMD since Qubes 4.1 was released and everything works out of the box)

2

I don’t have a gpd device, so I can’t say anything.

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Yes I saw Liteqube but I can’t find feedback so I don’t know If I can trust them

4

They’re fantastic little machines. I was looking for something small, but with the specs of a real computer. Everything I found was either underpowered, had terrible I/O (especially no RJ45 Ethernet), had terrible system resources, or was too big.

I uploaded HCL entries for every GPD Win Max model, and for the GPD Pocket 3.

I haven’t had any experience yet with other models, but I really want to.

My honest opinion is to go for the AMD GPD Win Max 2021.

A laptop with 16GB of RAM, a Ryzen 7 4800U, RJ45 Ethernet, 2 x USB-C with Thunderbolt 4, 2 x USB-A 3.2, full-size HDMI 2.0, AX210 Wifi 6, an M.2 slot for internal storage, a built-in Xbox 360 gamepad, PS/2 keyboard and trackpad, and multitouch touchscreen, crammed into a package just smaller than an A5 piece of paper?

Yes please! :drooling_face:

It’s got two fans instead of one, and using the gamepad for the mouse is a lot nicer than using a trackpad.

They also haven’t appeared to lock down the AMD BIOS at all, and you can customise everything, including things you probably shouldn’t unless you really know what you’re doing….

The only caveat is that Xorg seems to crash if you resume it from S3 sleep. If you can live without sleeping your laptop (until a fix is worked out), then it’s an absolute beast.

As for every other aspect of Qubes OS, absolutely flawless.

Battery life depends on what you’re using it for, but I usually get at least 5 hours off a full charge. Mind you, I’ve usually got 10+ VMs open….

Happy to answer any questions you might have.

5

Wahou that’s the type of feedback I searched on Internet, yeah I hesitated between the pocket 3 and Win Max (the pocket 3 because it’s smaller and have different module I can switch).

Yeah like I said I will not do so much work on it just having a small Qubes machine I can take everywhere and used it when needed.

Did you try liteqube on it ?
What’s your taught about the pocket 3 ?

6

Why on earth would I settle for a lesser experience on hardware that is most definitely worthy of fully-blown Qubes OS :joy:

Ok, but in all seriousness, no I haven’t tried liteqube on it. I’ve never even considered it, because I never ran out of resources.

I can’t stress this enough. GPD hardware is on par with some NUCs and mid-range desktops. They’re whole mantra is to have powerful hardware inside small packages.

I do have some other machines that I now might consider giving liteqube a go, but the GPD Win Max isn’t on that list :sunglasses:

Go the Win Max, 100%.

The Pocket 3 has an aluminium case which can get VERY VERY hot. It only has one fan in it (the Win Max has two, and has the same CPU in it), so if you’re performing world updates inside your Gentoo template, there is actual potential to burn your hands.

Pros and Cons

Win Max 2021 - AMD Ryzen 7 4800U

Pros

  • Two fans for an 8-core CPU, which means the case doesn’t get very hot, even at full load
  • All the ports you could ever need (no, seriously!)
  • The American Megatrends BiOS has every option unlocked

Cons

  • The aforementioned Qubes OS Xorg bug when resuming from S3 sleep (which is slowly getting fixed
  • Touchscreen only does 1280x800 (but it does it extremely well), and no stylus input
  • Ethernet is gigabit (but fully supported by Linux)
  • The sound card is on the USB bus (I am working on a salt script to get this set up properly with sys-audio in Qubes OS)

Win Max 2021 - Intel i7-1195G7

Pros

  • No difference to the AMD version in terms

Cons

  • It appears to have completely different internal components to the AMD Win Max

Pocket 3 - Intel i7-1195G7

Pros

  • Larger screen with finger and stylus input (nice if you do any sort of stylus-based work, like drawing
  • Aluminium case (looks premium, but I’ll get to the cons later)

Cons

  • SEVERELY locked-down BIOS
  • Only one fan for the same CPU as the Win Max, and that has two fans, so it does get EXTREMELY hot
  • Intel AX210 chip does NOT seem to like being virtualised through Xen (but Intel will probably fix that soon…)
  • Trackpad does not click, so no feedback when you tap to click
  • Display rests on a single swivel hinge in the middle of the panel, which could potentially snap off very easily (I haven’t tested it, and I don’t plan to :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:)
  • VARIOUS BIOS/KERNEL BUGS:
    GPD Pocket 3 S3 sleep "waiting for kernel fix" - #9 by alzer89 - Hardware - Ubuntu MATE Community
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In addition it appears the pocket 3 keyboard/pointer is usb connected, which isn’t great for qubes. Not sure about the other GPD models.

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Awesome thank you guys, I think I will wait for a new small laptop powered by AMD, or if you have any recommendation for laptop 2 in 1 also (tablet) not so big maybe 12inch max

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The Win Max keyboard and trackpad are PS/2, with an option for USB in the BIOS.

The Pocket 3 keyboard and trackpad appear to be USB only though (at least with the OEM BIOS).

——-

I will post a full HCL when I get my hands on the Win Max 2, hopefully in a couple of months.

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I suspect that is in order to support the “pocket 3 as keyboard/screen for server” connection mode. It’d be nice if the limitation was firmware changeable (like on the other GPD unit) but I do not hold out hope.

11

It’s funny that you say that. It turns out that’s basically a PCI slot, and you can pass it through to VMs like any other PCI device. The only catch is that you need to reboot if you swap out the card.

It’s definitely a firmware thing. Not a limitation because the hardware is incapable of those functions, but because “software says: DENIED” :disappointed: