What would you like to see improved in Qubes OS?

General Discussion
45

this would be a shell completion script (like bash completion), this could be made part of qubes projects, so it shouldn’t be a security risk if integrated into qubes source code.

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46

You mean bash-completion? Can’t you already use it as it is?
If you want completion for qubes tools then it’s a work in progress:

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47

Sorry, I was not clear.

By intuitive. I meant it is easy for a newcomer to see how to accomplish without going back to read documentation site.

This is something Apple excels at. Like they know how people think.

By security hazard. Installing a program which has closed source and/or will have updates that are not monitored.

Like a newcomer wants to install a video chat. And wants to have a tab to start it easily.

Some of us might say. Insecure potential. But. Just making it hard on newcomer to start distracts from.
It is likely a security hazard.
Run it in a Qube by itself.

Consider having a qube with a tab with librewriter.
It is doable now. But not intuitive like right click. Add to list of programs available in this Qube.

Or. Facebook?

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48

I don’t understand what do you mean by “tab”.

Qubes OS would definitely benefits from UX work, but it seems there are not many working on open source projects.

Maybe the application “Software” should be in the Fedora template menu entry for the default installation, so newcomer can easily figure how to add programs.

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50

I have 2 qubes installs. One is actually for privacy, and the other is a test lab. I think qubes is a fun virtualization lab, where you can be operating in a GUI locally and interacting with your VMs. I wish more UX attention was focused on this. I desperately need folders in my qubes manager or some better organizational system, ive resorted to giving them symbolic prefixes to make filtering easier.

Also, while this is possible, ive noticed no OS is really tinkering with it: The 11th+ gen i915 gpus support true SR-IOV and intel has posted some stuff in github to indicated that the VFs can be assigned to outputs, even ones that don’t exist physically (they might electrically). If you combined this with the dummy monitor driver that the looking-glass dev is tinkering with I think you could accelerate 3-7 qubes on the i7/i9 gpus. You can either go the IVSHMEM or h264/h265 streaming route. At the very least you could just use it for ffmpeg in a qube

I’ve successfully gotten it work work in a windows VM using patched i915 kernel module on arch linux

1 Like
51

  • Move back to KDE as default.

  • Tap the full speed of external drives. Rework sys-usb, removing speed bottleneck.

  • Rework sys-usb to play well with external peripherals like drawing tablets.

Productivity boosters:

  • Make an API such that 3rd party runners like Krunner, Ulauncher can make plugins that access appvms.

  • A more robust native runner that runs in Dom0, and streamlines tasks in appvms.

  • Streamlined attached/detach USB devices. Make it easier to script:

  • Direct calls to get drive data:

  • Direct calls to get drive description and UUID of attached devices.

  • Direct calls for sys-usb device ID.

  • Integrated Appimage, Snap, Flatpak support. Make it easy to install these containers and keep them updated in appvms thru the updater.

And last but not least…

Peace of mind when crossing boarders in the modern dystopia the world is spiraling into.

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52

I’m still pretty new to Xen, but couldn’t spice channels provide better USB speed than the current USB/IP method? Perhabs an IVSHMEM device could provide better drawing tablet functionality.

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59

Solene, thank you for what you are doing.

My use of the term Tabs is a bit like Favorites in a browser. With a quick click or two, one creates Tab for a specific webpages. But a Tab for quick access to a program.

I wanted to work up some examples with exact description, but I have been hampered by storms which have made power - intermittently available, internet less available, my need to do errands for other people. I am both old and lazy.

Thank you, Solene for your efforts.

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61

Could we move the backup thread into a separate thread?

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62
  • Easier handling of HiDPI displays (and multi-screen multi-DPI setups).
  • Easy switching for light and dark mode
  • Gnome as DE
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63

Done @solene, the thread was fairly long and the topics sometimes entagled, I did the best I could for both threads to still make sense.

6 Likes
64

Better hardware compatibility. I have 3 laptops, all made between 2019-now, from different manufacturers, and I have only been able to get one to work with Qubes (although with no external monitors). Too bad it’s the only laptop I have that is powerful enough to play games on… I could dual boot or get a new system, but I’d either need to buy more storage or buy a new laptop.
That being said - I also understand the incompatibilities are a result of the very specialized requirements. I just really like the idea of Qubes and would love to try and use it as my main OS.

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65

It’s not the question with Qubes if it wouldn’t want it. It’s just that isn’t about like “there’s no drivers yet for these devices”. It is about device features by design that doesn’t fit Qubes security philosophy/findings.
You don’t buy hardware first then discover Qubes. it has to be the opposite.

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66

sys-usb speed, huh? I tested USB block devices and they seem to run on full 3.2 speed. Did not have a chance to try 4.0 however.

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67

What’s your CPU model, and what’s the load for sys-usb? I suspect it to use a lot of CPU, and maybe slower CPUs are bottleneck for sys-usb speed.

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68

Template-wise I would love to see:

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69

A couple of minor things:

  1. yes this has to do with backup but it belongs here. When you back up one qube, the dang thing insists on printing a list of qubes you AREN’T backing up. I’d like a flag that suppresses that. I’m using backup as a means of moving qubes between machines, and this message is really distracting (with the number of qubes I have the meaningful info flies off the top of my screen).

  2. Many of the qvm utilities will print a message instructing you on how to use the command if you type a non-existent vm as the VMNAME parameter. How about just printing “no such vm” instead of assuming the user doesn’t know the basic command syntax? In one case, I’m looking for the status and I may be checking to see if the qube even exists from inside a script; an error message there telling me I don’t know how to use the command is completely inappropriate in this case.

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70

I would like to have a video training course and a book available. The help provided in this forum is not always easy to follow for everyone.

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71

I’ll throw out a variant. A qvm-type command to test for the existence of a qube, that won’t throw an error if it doesn’t exist. qvm-check throws an error and writes out “you idiot you got the command syntax wrong” error message.

The lack of such a thing is really messing up my salt scripts. I want to do something ONLY IF a qube exists and it’s NOT in fact an error if the qube does not exist…but salt pukes up an error anyway. (There are “only if” qualifiers in some salt states, but as far as I know there’s no way to check the existence of qube in them…again, without erroring out.)

1 Like
72

It seems to exist already

[solene@dom0 ~]$ qvm-check backup
qvm-check: backup: exists
[solene@dom0 ~]$ echo $?
0

[solene@dom0 ~]$ qvm-check backu
usage: qvm-check [--verbose] [--quiet] [--help] [--all] [--exclude EXCLUDE]
                 [--running] [--paused] [--template] [--networked]
                 [VMNAME [VMNAME ...]]
qvm-check: error: no such domain: 'backu'
[solene@dom0 ~]$ echo $?
2

edit: I didn’t read completely, but qvm-check errors with 2 if a qube doesn’t exist, so you can discard its output and just look the exit error code :slight_smile:

3 Likes