Until now, Whonix 17 has been available only on Qubes OS 4.2. Since Whonix 16 reached EOL (end-of-life) on 2024-01-18, this left users still on Qubes OS 4.1 without a supported way to use Whonix. In an effort to accommodate this group of users, the Whonix and Qubes teams have now made Whonix 17 available for Qubes OS 4.1.
There are two ways to upgrade to Whonix 17 on Qubes OS 4.1:
Advanced: Perform an in-place upgrade from Whonix 16 to Whonix 17. This option will preserve any modifications you’ve made to the templates, but it may be more complicated for less experienced users.
If you wish, you also still have the option of performing a clean installation of Qubes OS 4.2.0, which comes with Whonix 17 templates preinstalled (if selected during installation).
Great news and a big thank you to those who made this possible!
But it is not possible to install Whonix 17 templates on Qubes OS 4.1 while strictly following the documentation. It is recommended to install the new templates alongside the old, but the documentation doesn’t show the proper command how to do this.
In step 4 there are two tabs with different commands: R4.1 and R4.2
Copying the command in R4.1 and changing the numbers from 16 to 17 doesn’t work. The templates names are different (not just the versions) in the R4.2 tab. I’m a bit hesitant to simply copy these and install them in 4.1 when it is so explicitly stated it is only meant for R4.2. Am I missing something? Borking the system is something I prefer to avoid.
Seconded. As @Kurt writes, the documentation is utterly confusing. I was able to install on my test laptop, and would have never tried directly on any “production” machine.
Please note that the Qubes OS Project does not maintain the Whonix Project’s documentation. I suggest you post this on the Whonix Forums instead.
(CC: @adrelanos)
I updated the Whonix templates by strictly following the documentation, now all went perfectly fine. Thank you for still supporting Qubes 4.1 @adrelanos
I’m using Qubes for work, it does everything I need and 4.1 has been rock solid on my machine the past year, so I prefer to stay on this version as long as possible.
Just wanted to add my thanks here to all involved, having the ability to move Securedrop Workstation users to Whonix-17 while we work on other changes in the 4.2-compatible version is a big relief!