Quick Quality-of-Life Improvements

[fiftyfourthparallel]

@solene

SMT is off by default

Typo; good catch

[Zeno]

Would be helpful to add Qubes version next to each tip.
Something like:
[Tested for 4.2]

Good guide.

[adw]

This is more of a “Fedora tip” than a “Qubes tip,” but it seems like a lot of people don’t know about dnf history, which is useful in dom0:

How long since last dom0 update?

You can easily see which dom0 updates you have received in the past with this command (in dom0): dnf history This will give you a numbered list of events, including the date and time of each event. By default, the most recent event is at the top. You can then view the details of any event with this command: dnf history info <ID_NUMBER> For example, if you wanted to view the details of event 25, the command would be: dnf history info 25 This will show you a detailed view of that event, incl…

[fiftyfourthparallel]

@Zeno

[Tested for 4.2]

Good idea, but we’ll do the negative version of this to save words: Whenever a new release comes around, everything gets tagged with Untested for R4.X which get removed as tip creators/users report failure or success

@adw

This is more of a “Fedora tip” than a “Qubes tip,”

Nice tip–added.

[Zeno]

@fiftyfourthparallel

Good idea, but we’ll do the negative version of this to save words: Whenever a new release comes around, everything gets tagged with Untested for R4.X which get removed as tip creators/users report failure or success

Then you’ll have to repeat it each time, for each new version.
Even more wording

[barto]

@renehoj

If you are running your system with SMT enabled, you need to add the following lines to /etc/default/grub

GRUB_CMDLINE_XEN_DEFAULT="$GRUB_CMDLINE_XEN_DEFAULT smt=off"
GRUB_CMDLINE_XEN_DEFAULT="$GRUB_CMDLINE_XEN_DEFAULT smt=on"

It’s the only way to keep kernel updates from disabling smt, by automatically adding the smt=off line to the end of the file.

Good idea to leave the default line and override it!
I always add “sched-gran=core” with “smt=on”; it avoids running different VMs on the same core, mitigating some (potential) data leaks between different VMs.
So the last line would be:

GRUB_CMDLINE_XEN_DEFAULT="$GRUB_CMDLINE_XEN_DEFAULT smt=on sched-gran=core"

[Lace]

Can someone here tell me how to “undo” pkill? I didn’t know I could set a timer on it, as shown in the script here on this thread, so I did it without a timer and I did it globally to an admin user … because I didn’t know how to change the admin user name without killing the 3120 process running and thought maybe pkill everything would be easier and well it was and was not because I got to change the user name but now can’t use that admin user anymore until I resume all the processes for that account and I have no idea how

Quick Quality-of-Life Improvements

I added my personal favorite, which is massively convient and should be integrated into the OS by the devs This script shuts down the VM that’s currently selected. Since dom0 responds to all key presses, I strongly suggest mapping this to an uncommon key combination. E.g. Someone who mapped this to “Ctrl + C” will shut down the qube he’s using whenever he presses the standard shortcut to copy. This also makes it a great way to prank Qubes users around you. Also, a sleep value of 4 is just a …

[ruza]

Root terminal keyboard shortcut in focused VM

Using i3 there is an way how to open terminal in the VM of the focused window ($mod+Enter by default).

Sometimes you’d want to be root in that terminal easily. You can define yet another keyboard shortcut to do so ($mod+Shift+Enter in the following example).

in dom0:~/.config/i3/config:
bindsym $mod+Return exec qubes-i3-sensible-terminal
bindsym $mod+Shift+Return exec qubes-i3-sensible-terminal.root

[fiftyfourthparallel]

Added; thank you

Would you or anyone else happen to know how to do the same without i3?

[apparatus]

Terminal in the same disposable

Better late than never: Create a script at /home/user/bin/open_terminal.sh #!/bin/bash ID=`xdotool getwindowfocus` QUBE=`xprop _QUBES_VMNAME -id $ID|cut -f2 -d\" ` if [[ "$QUBE" == "_QUBES_VMNAME: not found." ]]; then exit else qvm-run $QUBE /usr/bin/qubes-run-terminal & fi Make script executable sudo chmod +x /home/user/bin/open_terminal.sh Create shortcut In KDE: * SystemSettings->Shortcuts->“Custom Shortcuts” * Edit-New->Global Shortcut->Command/URL * Optionally Provide …

[fiftyfourthparallel]

Thank you; added.

@unman, @ruza, and/or anyone else should double check my interpretations of the above two entries.

After much deliberation, I decided to place @ruza’s i3 version under “etc.” because I feel a tip for i3 isn’t mainstream enough to warrant prominent placement.

[ruza]

@ruza

qubes-i3-sensible-terminal

Sure, anyone could use favourite window manager to assign keyboard shotcuts to run corresponding commands.

[ruza]

Having a monitors with a multiple inputs (i.e. HDMI and DisplayPort) you can switch monitor inputs using a keyboard without a need to do so physically on the monitor.

GitHub - ruzaq/ddc_switch: Monitor Input Toggle Script

[steffen]

Screenshot

• Lets the user take a screenshot based on rectangular selection and sends it to the currently focused VM

#!/bin/sh
# lets the user take a screenshot based on rectangular selection and sends it to the currently focused VM

CUR_WIN_ID=`xdotool getwindowfocus`
CUR_VM=`xprop _QUBES_VMNAME -id $CUR_WIN_ID | cut -d \" -f 2`

if [[ "$CUR_VM" != "_QUBES_VMNAME:  not found." ]]; then
	xfce4-screenshooter -r -o "qvm-copy-to-vm $CUR_VM"
	notify-send "Screenshot sent!" "Your selection has been sent as a screenshot to $CUR_VM!"
fi

From here:

[Contribution] qvm-screenshot-tool

[fiftyfourthparallel]

Thanks; added

[renehoj]

Open terminal for the template of the active windows.

#!/bin/bash

CUR_WIN_ID=`xdotool getwindowfocus`
CUR_VM=`xprop _QUBES_VMNAME -id $CUR_WIN_ID |cut -d \" -f2`
CUR_VM_TEMP=`qvm-prefs $CUR_VM template`

qvm-run -q -a --service -- $CUR_VM_TEMP qubes.StartApp+qubes-run-terminal

exit 0

[apparatus]

You can use qubes.StartApp+qubes-run-terminal (or /usr/bin/qubes-run-terminal) instead of specifying gnome terminal/xterm/etc:

Terminal in the same disposable

Better late than never: Create a script at /home/user/bin/open_terminal.sh #!/bin/bash ID=`xdotool getwindowfocus` QUBE=`xprop _QUBES_VMNAME -id $ID|cut -f2 -d\" ` if [[ "$QUBE" == "_QUBES_VMNAME: not found." ]]; then exit else qvm-run $QUBE /usr/bin/qubes-run-terminal & fi Make script executable sudo chmod +x /home/user/bin/open_terminal.sh Create shortcut In KDE: * SystemSettings->Shortcuts->“Custom Shortcuts” * Edit-New->Global Shortcut->Command/URL * Optionally Provide …

[renehoj]

Didn’t know that was an option, I changed the command.

[fiftyfourthparallel]

Thank you; added

[renehoj]

Prevent resizing windows from crashing xorg in qube

Window Manager > Advanced > Hide content of windows: When resizing

The problem described in this GitHub issue can happen to any application, not just the terminal, if you resize windows using the mouse.

You can do it with any window if you repeatedly resize it a few times, the qube will use a lot of CPU, and if it also uses all its memory OOM killer will kick in and kill xorg.

Hiding the window content when resizing solves the issue.