As a newbie, I had to gather information and found it could be useful to summarize the steps to make it easier for others to repeat. Some steps might be not necessary.
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The Salt script will create sys-audio based on fedora-34-xfce. I didn’t have it installed, so decided to do it
sudo qubes-dom0-update qubes-template-fedora-34-xfce
Maybe it is not necessary and Qubes would select the default template (fedora-34) if it was not installed. -
In dom0:
sudo qubes-dom0-update qubes-audio-dom0
In the TemplateVM for sys-audio (fedora-34-xfce):
sudo dnf install qubes-audio-daemon qubes-core-admin-client
This is necessary to get the qvm-start-daemon command in the sys-audio VM. -
Don’t know exactly if it was needed to download the sys-audio.sls and sys-audio.top to /srv/pillar/base/qvm. I did it since haven’t seen those files there. Used the command to copy the files downloaded from github to src-vm to dom0:
sudo qvm-run --pass-io <src-vm> 'cat /path/to/file_in_src_domain' > /path/to/file_name_in_dom0 -
Run the salt script to create the sys-audio VM
sudo qubesctl state.sls qvm.sys-audio
About the policy errors, I got some when I’ve tried running qubesctl before installing the fedora-34-xfce template. Then I removed the created sys-audio qube and the /etc/qubes/policy.d/50-sys-audio.policy file, run the steps above and then the qubesctl command run without errors. I have not investigated further.
After running this, I rebooted and got policy errors when starting qubes. I’ve added the following lines to file /etc/qubes/policy.d/50-sys-audio.policy and got rit of them:
admin.vm.feature.CheckWithTemplate +audio-model sys-audio @tag:audiovm-sys-audio allow target=dom0
admin.vm.property.Get +keyboard_layout sys-audio @tag:audiovm-sys-audio allow target=dom0
admin.vm.property.GetAll * sys-audio sys-audio allow target=dom0
admin.vm.property.GetAll * sys-audio @adminvm allow target=dom0
admin.vm.property.GetAll * sys-audio @tag:audiovm-sys-audio allow target=dom0
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In sys-audio settings, open Services tab and add the audiovm service (a custom service).
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In dom0, run the commands to assign sys-audio as its audiovm.
qvm-prefs <targetVM> audiovm sys-audio
One can also use this one to set sys-audio as audiovm for all other vms:
qubes-prefs default_audiovm sys-audio -
Run sys-audio VM and create the files inside ~/.config/autostart folder
~/.config/autostart/pulseaudio.desktop
[Desktop Entry]
Name=Pulseaudio
Comment=Starts Pulseaudio
Icon=qubes
Exec=pulseaudio
Terminal=False
Type=Application
NotShowIn=KDE;
~/.config/autostart/qvm-start-daemon.desktop
[Desktop Entry]
Name=Qubes Guid/Pacat
Comment=Starts GUI/AUDIO daemon for Qubes VMs
Icon=qubes
Exec=qvm-start-daemon --all --watch
Terminal=False
Type=Application
NotShowIn=KDE;
- Fix sound. So now I could see in the sys-audio pavucontrol the streams coming from other qubes, their sound bars are jumping when playing something in other qubes and stop that when I stop playing. But no sound was coming out. Audio playback started in sys-audio also do not produce any sound (tried both youtube videos or with
aplay /usr/share/sounds/alsa/...). I have tested with headset plugged in and out.
In dom0, I created a file /etc/modprobe.d/50-alsa.conf and audio started working after rebooting:
options snd_hda_intel enable=1 index=0 power_save=0