Why Use Minimal Templates?
Even though minimal templates are, ceteris paribus, more secure, I contend that most novice users shouldn’t try to use them. Why not? Because many novice users end up tying themselves in knots, breaking their own installations, and probably decreasing their own security through excessive tinkering. These users should first focus on learning the basics.
For some reason, minimal templates seem to be fetishized. That is, the amount of attention they receive, and the fervor with which users (especially novice users) pursue them, seems disproportionate to their value. This isn’t to denigrate their value. Like any tool, they are precisely as useful as they are. As a matter of perception, however, many novice users seem to think they’re far more important than they are, often to the point of conceiving of them as mandatory.
I see many new users jump immediately from installing Qubes to wanting to do advanced things that they think are mandatory for their privacy and security but that almost never really are. (If those things were truly mandatory, they would probably be included in the base installation by now.) These users often exhibit the attitude, “If I can’t do this advanced thing, then I might as well not use Qubes at all.” Of course, this is precisely backward. The bulk of the benefit comes from using Qubes at all, even in its default configuration. Everything after that is of comparatively minor benefit. In terms of the 80/20 principle, this would be like saying, “If I can’t have the remaining 20%, then I might as well not have the first 80%.” This is exactly what it means to make the perfect the enemy of the good.
There are always more things you can do for incremental increases in security. That doesn’t mean the juice is always worth the squeeze. After a certain point, it’s probably not, especially when excessive tinkering out of your depth jeopardizes prior fundamental security gains. Prioritizing security is, by its very nature, a conservative approach that’s generally at odds with the more popular “move fast and break things” ethos. Neither one is inherently superior. Each has its place. But attempting to combine them in a single endeavor courts self-contradiction.