Split GPG and split GPG2

General Discussion
1

Can you explain the difference between Split GPG and Split GPG2?
Why is version 1 still around even though version 2 exists?

It seems version 1 is installed by default—should I uninstall version 1 before installing version 2?

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Can you explain the difference between Split GPG and Split GPG2?
Why is version 1 still around even though version 2 exists?

It seems version 1 is installed by default—should I uninstall version 1 before installing version 2?

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Bump. I am curious and periodically become confused about these points as well.

3

As far as I am concerned, from a user standpoint, it is mainly about the gpg version.

Split gpg 1 uses gpg1 and split-gpg2 uses gpg2 . The latter has a lot more features, and can be invoked directly with the gpg command from the client qube, unlike the former, which can only be invoked with qubes-gpg-client.

If you do not have a specific legacy requirement for gpg1, then just use gpg2. Do not be lazy and learn how subkeys work. Configuration is a bit more involved than gpg1, but it is not very complex or hard to set up.

You do not need to uninstall gpg1, just install gpg2. Check this forum for guides on how to set it up. The documentation is also good.

4

Are you sure about that? gpg ans gpg2 have the same output in my templates.

From the REAMDE of Split GPG 2:

Since GnuPG 2.1.0, secret keys are handled by gpg-agent. This allows to split gpg (the cmdline tool, which handles public keys and the actual OpenPGP protocol) and gpg-agent (which handles the private keys). This software implements this for Qubes. This mainly consists of a restrictive filter in front of gpg-agent, written in a memory safe language (Python).

Split GPG 1 seems to be a different implementation with a different programming language (and a mandatory wrapper?). It is not a different version of the same program.

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If you do not have a specific legacy requirement for gpg1, then just use gpg2. Do not be lazy and learn how subkeys work.

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But I am already using subkeys with my split-gpg1 setup on my qubes os
4.3. What gives?

6

Sorry, I was wrong about this. They both use gpg2. Docs say:

Throughout this guide, we refer to gpg, but note that Split GPG uses gpg2 under the hood for compatibility with programs like …

I think @parulin’s answer is better.

Anyway, I remember options like --encrypt-to and --hidden-encrypt-to not working with split-gpg1…