Request for Templates

Wasn’t quite sure where to put this. I need TL Linux and/or CSILinux templates for work. Do they exist, if not, how do I make one, or can someone else do that or something?

In don0 terminal:

qvm-template-gui

1 Like

Here You have list of maintained templates: Templates | Qubes OS. There is one that is not listed: Kali. Ubuntu and Arch You have to build by yourself. Other can be installed from repo. There are also unoficial templates provided by @unman Index of /Templates_4.1 . As for more exotic OSes like this one You mentioned (or Caine and Skywave which I hope that will be avaliable someday somehow) the only option is creating template on your own. Unfortunately I don’t found any guide yet which can show me how to start.

1 Like

the closest thing I could find to such a tutorial was this https://github.com/Qubes-Community/Contents/blob/master/docs/building/building-non-fedora-template.md but that’s beyond my skillset. If you can figure it out, the better for both of us I guess.

For many of these OS, they are based on, or forked from, some distro
that is already supported in Qubes.
This means that it is relatively simple to build such new templates.
I’ve posted in the forum about how to proceed.
You need to be able to build the “base” packages and template - look at the docs

Then you need to identify how your target is built off the base -
sometimes it is obvious, or there are scripts that run to convert the
base in to the target distro, or there are packages that need to be
added.
In this case, you create a “flavor” of the base.
So Mint is a flavor of Ubuntu - you can build it by adding the Mint
repositories to the templates, and installing Mint packages - this is
already documented in the Mint docs. In Qubes builder, you create a
directory to hold the Mint related files, and package lists that are
specific to Mint.
Then you edit builder.conf to build focal+mint.

Kali is bookworm+kali
ParrotOS is bookworm+parrot
Skywave would be (some version of Ubuntu)+skywave

I’ve posted to the Forum with more detailed instructions for doing this.
Read that post.

If the target distro is new to Qubes (and I mean new), then you have to
build the Qubes tools for that distro, or OS, and then build the
template.
This is where the guide in the community docs comes in.
It’s somewhat out of date, but if you read it and compare to the
existing build mechanisms, you should be able to see the way forward.
(If you cant do this, then perhaps it’s best to stop right now, and save
yourself grief. No shame in recognising your current limits.)

2 Likes

Thanks for hints :slight_smile: . If building Skywave was better documented on their side I will probably try to morph existing focal template some time ago. I know they provide bunch of scripts on their github, but can’t find any details which are crucial. For now I just tried to morph focal into REMnux but it fails. And I was not able to find the reason. Also I understand that for distros that using bare github repositories to update tools, I have to enable internet connection to template, or add proxy for http/https?

I’m always doubtful if I can’t find how to build for myself.

You don’t need to add a proxy to a template - there is one installed by
default which you can access in templates at http://localhost:8082. There
are many threads here about (ab)using that proxy.
Alternatively you can access GitHub to build whatever is needed and
qvm-copy the result in to the template. (Or qvm-copy the repository in
to the template and build there.)
There is almost never a need to enable an internet connection in a
template.

If there are Vagrant or virtualbox images, I have a script that will attempt to
convert them to a standalone - you can find it in the forum or on GitHub

1 Like

Yes, I was thinking about passing that proxy to update scripts.

Unfortunately I don’t find any info about such proxy for windows templates, so my windows template has internet connection.