Template switcher

User Support General
1

It’s been 5 months since I have been using Qubes, and I am happy with it. I also think that I got a bit of a gim about updating qubes and templates, and backing up.

Now I detected something new (for me at least): templates become OBSOLETE. For example, I can see in Qube Manager that my sys-net VM is based on fedora-39-xfce, and I can see in Qubes Update that it has become OBSOLETE.

Using Qubes Template Manager, I have installed fedora-40-xfce.

I can see also that a tool called Qubes Template Switcher exists. What I cannot find anywhere in the (generally excellent) Qubes documentation, is any article explaining anything about this tool, neither a explanation about the life cycle of templates. So I do not feel safe to use Qubes Template Switcher. Call me a coward. I only (yet) have only one Qubes machine, so I do not want to mess up, indeed.

Any explanation, hint or help will be greatly appreciated. I.m.h.o. a page in the docs about template life cycle and Qubes Template Switcher (if it really does not yet exist) would be just fantastic for the foolish beginners like me.

Happy new year.

2

The template switcher is meant to provide a convenient way to switch the template of multiple Qubes at once.

The app lists the current template of each Qube and has a drop down with options for changes. You can also select multiple Qubes and use the drop down at the bottom to pick a new template.

You can switch your Qubes to use the Fedora 40 template instead of the older one since you’ve already downloaded it.

3

Can I somehow keep the current template updated so I won’t need to replace it when the new version comes?
Otherwise it’s very inconvenient to reinstall all the software and so on.

4

If switching the template is a hassle, you can try doing in-place upgrades instead.

New major releases are infrequent for most distros; You’ll only need to upgrade the templates at most once or twice per year. IMO I think this is a good opportunity to revisit any changes you have made and start with a clean slate. There are many tools to manage your packages, configurations, etc.

5

How?

6

Try this: How to upgrade a Debian template in-place | Qubes OS

7

Thanks!

8

My two cents here, I find the Qubes manager GUI to as practical for the task:

  • sort rows by template name
  • select lines of qubes you want to switch, you can press ctrl to add / remove lines or shift to select a range
  • right click on a selected line and choose a new template, all selected lines will be affected