Ultra minimal systemd-free Qubes

James369 · October 8, 2025, 1:17am

I have been researching to make the most minimal, systemd-free lightweight Qubes-VMs and am looking at Alpine-minirootfs downloads | Alpine Linux or TinyCoreLinux Downloads Tiny Core Linux. Both are less than 100mb and could even be configured to run a browser or networking related tasks.
I am curious if anybody has experimented with either build and if these could be used as templates?
There seem to be many advantages i.e small footprint, minimal attack-surface and minimal resource usage.

Reduce memory footprint: TinyCore Linux, Alpine Linux, Micropython

opened 08:20PM - 25 Feb 20 UTC

mfp20

C: other P: default

**The problem you're addressing (if any)** QubesOS major disadvantage is resour…ce consumption, and above all RAM utilization. This create problems for most of the potential users out there, especially the ones using laptops; considering a couple of (4GB+) internet browsing machines, those on laptops are often limited to 3-4 app VMs at max, and very little compartmentalization advantages. By using extreme resource optimized linux flavors it is possible to mitigate this problem and unleashing Qubes' full potential. The same applies for qubes specific tools written in python: micropython runs on less than 1MB of RAM. **Describe the solution you'd like** **Ideally** moving dom0, system VMs (net, usb), and internet browsing machines, to a musl/uclibc based distro (ex: Alpine Linux) would do the trick, but usually moving out from glibc brings to a subset of available packages, more effort to port any exotic package, and limited support from upstream distribution teams because of a smaller users number for those less popular distributions. Moreover, Alpine linux can run from a squashfs read-only fs, overlay-ed with a read-write fs (alongside a traditional rw install); it's way more flexible (and safe) than current /rw method. Another good optimization could be to slowly shift qubes specific tools to Micropython and get rid of libvirt (and its python tools). But as a start **introducing a TinyCore template would be enough** to start experimenting and give some more juice to low-RAM systems. **Where is the value to a user, and who might that user be?** Low-spec systems, laptops, are the ones to benefit most; but I'd benefit too despite my 16 cores and 64GB of RAM, as I'd be able to increase the compartmentalization level multiplying the number of concurrent VMs. **Describe alternatives you've considered** Honestly I haven't been searching for alternatives in recent times. In the past there used to be 2-3 tiny Linux distros (ex: something like "Linux On Floppy"). Some of those could be alive.

MellowPoison · October 8, 2025, 3:05am

James369 · October 8, 2025, 3:14am

Thanks, I have that installed and its great! Alpine even has a very easy way to install LibreWolf
FWIW I have tried to use his repo to make a minimal-version based on the minirootfs but failed. Then I tried stripping his version of unnecessary packages and also didn’t get the desired result. I.e. too many unnecessary packages remained and Alpine is quite funny about what it lets you remove, even with
apk del --force-broken-world

I am surprised nobody seems to have worked with tinycore yet. It seems like it would be great in Qubes.

unman · October 8, 2025, 11:22am

I have a number of core qubes, as I’ve mentioned before… But they lack
any of the Qubes integration, which is somewhat limiting.

I never presume to speak for the Qubes team.
When I comment in the Forum I speak for myself.

James369 · October 8, 2025, 11:35am

Interesting, If you don’t mind me asking, what do you use them for, was it easy to setup or do you have any tips or examples that could help me out kind sir?

arkenoi · October 16, 2025, 6:51am

liteqube is closest thing, but there is still systemd (also why not NixOS? i am thinking about moving everything to NixOS)