QubesOS freeze, crash and reboots

User Support General
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AFAIK neither AwesomeWM nor DWM provide compositing so like i3wm you’d need to install a compositing manager. But more importantly, I don’t think AwesomeWM / DWM are supported by Qubes OS - eg. you won’t see the qubes’ window colors/labels which is a no-go for most security-conscious users.

Do these window managers require the (now commonplace) fix: I3 not working properly video/graphic issues - #4 by bungali

If you don’t install a compositing manager and you experience tearing, then yes (but then there’s a chance you’ll be hit by bugs/crashes in intel). If you have compositing then fbdev is OK.

To summarize, those are the two workarounds:

  • fbdev (which is Qubes’ default) with compositing. i3wm users will have to install compton or picom (both are packaged in f32 so can be installed in dom0 as any other package). This should fix tearing (I have yet to read from a i3wm user with this fix - if you give it a try please send a PM or reply here).

  • intel with “UXA” acceleration method instead of the the default, newer “SNA”. “UXA” fixes some crashes (like the one @qub411 had) but introduces others (eg. when suspending my T450s laptop). YMMV.

Because if I am understanding you correctly, you suggest that this fix put more pressure on intel CPU with graphics processing, which the old thinkpad x220 CPU has troubles with and freezes.

It’s a software bug - overloading your x220 (CPU and/or GFX) should only make your laptop sluggish, not trigger a crash. FWIW I’d expect the intel driver to be more efficient / less resource intensive than fbdev.

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