A question for the Qubes community: multiboot documentation

[Blacklight447]

Hello Qubes users,

A while ago, a issue was raised on the Qubes github issue page: https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/3373
This issue described the lack of documentation how to multiboot qubes. I have decided that i will be writing it, but as described in the issue above, I need some user feedback.


The main part is that I want to know what documentation users expect. I can imagene the following layouts:

Option number 1 would be to write a paragraph about a specific OS(for example, Windows). And then describe on how to add both a efi and/or bios entry for windows in GRUB.


Option 2 would be to split the page in two halves, one paragraph describing the process for all OS's with EFI and one paragraph describing the BIOS option.


Further more i would like to know which OS's are wanted in the documebtation. Does it have to be only windows and linux? Or also more rare systems like *BSD's.
How would you, as a user, as a user, expect to see this documentation.


Friendly greetings,
Blacklight

[Unman]

I'd favour an option 3:
Split the page by UEFI/BIOS , and in each section give examples for
Windows and Linux.

There's a real difficulty in pitching it between "do this" and "learn
this". I'd say that the questions that come up either show that users
read but did not understand what is there now, or didn't read it at all.
(Of course, there could be many users who read, understood and did, and
never posted here.)

[cooloutac]

I guess try to include all the diff ways/options possible, might be user preference. But should be discouraged no?

[Blacklight447]

Thats ofcourse an option to, all ideas and input are welcome.

Also cooloutac, believe me, I will make sure to put some big warning at the beginning to advise against this, and inform them of the dangers.

[Sven Semmler]

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On 01/11/2018 07:15 AM, 'Blacklight447' via qubes-users wrote:
> This issue described the lack of documentation how to multiboot
> qubes. I have decided that i will be writing it, but as described
> in the issue above, I need some user feedback.

Great! Would you consider including instructions on how to multiboot
between Qubes OS 3.2 (main system) and Qubes OS 4 (test/future system)?

I'd love to test and play with 4RCx but need to have a stable
environment for work (3.2).

/Sven

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[Unman]

On Thu, Jan 11, 2018 at 05:50:27PM -0600, Sven Semmler wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA256
>
> On 01/11/2018 07:15 AM, 'Blacklight447' via qubes-users wrote:
> > This issue described the lack of documentation how to multiboot
> > qubes. I have decided that i will be writing it, but as described
> > in the issue above, I need some user feedback.
>
> Great! Would you consider including instructions on how to multiboot
> between Qubes OS 3.2 (main system) and Qubes OS 4 (test/future system)?
>
> I'd love to test and play with 4RCx but need to have a stable
> environment for work (3.2).
>
> /Sven
>

It's really easy to do this Sven.
Install 4 with its own /boot and system partitions, leaving the 3.2
/boot as it is: Let's say the /boot for 3 is sda1 and for 4 is sda3.
Then you can either install grub to sda or to sda3.

If you do the former, then on restart you will boot in to Q4.
If the latter, then on restart you will boot in to Q3, as before.

In either case, mount the OTHER /boot partition and copy the section
from THE OTHER /boot/grub2/grub.cfg starting
"menuentry 'Qubes....' {
.
.
.
}
and paste it in to THIS /boot/grub2/grub.cfg in the section headed
### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/40_custom
(You MUST include the closing brace.)

You can edit the menuentry title so it's clear to which version it
relates. (e.g menuentry 'Qubes 4.0rc3').
On reboot you should now see the entry you've just inserted and be able
to boot that version.

Once you are happy, make the same change in /etc/grub.d/40_custom. If
you don't, your custom menu entry will disappear the next time you update
grub, perhaps with dom0 update.

I suggest you take a backup of /boot/grub2/grub.cfg before you start
editing. If it all goes pear shaped you can boot from a live distro and
copy the backup back into place.

unman

[Sven Semmler]

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On 01/11/2018 06:48 PM, Unman wrote:
> It's really easy to do this Sven.

I will try this next week ... not sure though if grub is even used. I
am booting via EFI. But I got the basic idea and will do some
google-ing. And of course make backups of everything first.

One of the things I love about Qubes is that "if things go
pear-shaped" I can always wipe, install and then restore all my qubes
from backup. Takes about 3 hours and I'm back in business.

I do a full backup every lunch break. ;-)

/Sven
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[Blacklight447]

Great! Would you consider including instructions on how to multiboot
between Qubes OS 3.2 (main system) and Qubes OS 4 (test/future system)?

I'd love to test and play with 4RCx but need to have a stable
environment for work (3.2).

I can see where your coming from, but I dont know if it would be practicel to include documentation for something that will only be used so shortly, because it wont be long before qubes 4 gets released, and writing the documentation correctly takes some time.
Anyhow, people are always free to contribute it if people deem in neccesary :).

[Sven Semmler]

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On 01/12/2018 12:41 AM, Sven Semmler wrote:
> I will try this next week ...

I'll wait for "R3.3" and R4rc4 to be released.
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