Librem 14: PureOS, Qubes and LibremKey

Hello,
on the librem 14, when available, I would like to keep pure OS as the main operating system, but I would also like to play with Qubes. Since Qubes requires a lot of set-ups before it works properly, I don’t think booting from a USB stick is the best solution because I don’t want to redo the whole set-up every time. So it seems that installing it permanently is the solution, but then how to make it work with pureboot? Is it possible to allow the choice between two OS on the booting screen option? And what about the librem Key? I know this question has been asked many times, but I’m not at all familiar with the subject and I’d rather start from scratch. I’m not even sure I understand the answer given. Please be 95% non-technical in your answer.

Also, if you have ideas for other ways to use both pureOS and Qubes I’m listening.

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Hello,

I am also planning to use Librem 14 with Qubes (a first-time user of Qubes). I would be interested to know more about the setup process. My original thinking was that I will install Qubes, and inside the Qubes, I would create multiple VMs. One of those VMs could be running on PureOS. I think that part is easy.
But I always wondered how Librem Key would work with Qubes and what is the setup process?

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I’ve had issues putting other OS’s on my 15v4. I never could figure out if it was the LK or PureBoot, etc. I haven’t tried it again recently since the newer version of PB were released in the last 6-8 months. but, I did get Qubes 4.0.3 installed on the 15v4. It seemed to work fine, and there wasn’t much I had to do, but I was also an experienced Qubes user. I decided against using Qubes on it because the multple VMs seemed to keep the CPU’s busier and the fan would always be running. I just didn’t like hearing that. I do think the 14v1 could be a better option. Also, I’ve noticed running i3wm really is nice, becuase it takes so much load off the CPU for running the desktop. That or xfce.

I’m not answering your question with Qubes and LK with PB. I know it should be fine as I’ve heard others use it, and I did get it running myself on my 15v4.

I’m running Qubes on Librem 15 and it’s pretty quiet after this bug is fixed.

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Good to know @fsflover Thanks for the info!

The Qubes team advises against dual-booting, because so much trust is based on dom0’s security, which could potentially be attacked by someone who compromised PureOS while it was running. I would only recommend dual booting for someone who is already very advanced with Linux and in particular with managing grub. There are guides online you can adapt (in particular one by Micah Lee) on how to share a /boot partition between PureOS and Qubes.

Doing all of that along with PureBoot, would then ratchet up the complexity yet another level, as each time you update the OS in either Qubes or PureBoot you would need to manage resigning files in PureBoot at next boot (plus the added complexity of installing such a dual-boot system in PureBoot, the easiest path would be to set everything up, ignore PureBoot warnings about signatures, and when everything is finally set up, perform an OEM Factory Reset).

My advice if you want to try out Qubes is to go all in and install it by itself. Then after you try it for awhile if you decide it’s not for you, reinstall PureOS on top of it.

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i still think that for libre-hardware and software using TAILS with no persistance is simpler for the average-user than running QubesOS since it’s NOT GPL licensed …

edit : apologies ! yes it is GPL licensed. i wonder how i was left with that impression …

It is GPLv2 licensed: https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/license/

Do you think it is simpler to configure your system every time you reboot? I don’t think so. How do you do secure backups with TAILS?

you don’t. you simply use it as an ultra paranoid discard-able OS that you ONLY use for surfing and making online Monero purchases without giving your real-address …

when banking and the real address is required it makes no sense to use TOR since the Ai can associate between different metadata …

It may be simpler, but Tails is not a replacement for Qubes and are not interchangeable.

Tails attempts to protect your anonymity (and does a good job of that) and takes some steps to protect your security as well (with good defaults, and making it difficult for attacks to persist), but the level of security that Qubes provides for daily desktop use is at a completely different level than Tails.

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