Issues 3.2

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drew....@gmail.com

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Sep 29, 2016, 9:00:29 PM9/29/16
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Hi folks,

I'm still having a few issues with the freezing of the system, and requiring some information regarding Windows Tools.
I'm getting nowhere in the user area, so I'm here to find out the answers to these questions as no dev has answered this on there and all I get is attacked by people that think I know nothing and am wrong.

But anyway...

I hope that I can start afresh here and we can get things sorted calmly and well. People there troll me and I go off the deep end. So I'm fed up with them and am here to get things working properly.

I have an issue with freezing of my PC after it's put on the screen saver and sits for a time.

I have a TOP and DF logging every 5 minutes so that I can see the state of the PC every 5 minutes, logged.
Attached is the log from 0745 on 30/09/2016.
This is the last log before it locked and froze. No logs were found after this time until I rebooted the PC.


Another of my issues is I've been trying to find out if there are any version requirements for Windows Tools in relation to Windows itself.
Yes, they confuse version with Edition in the qubes-users forum.
While I know it's needing to be 64 bit, if there are things that are incompatible with certain version of Windows, then that could cause issues with the tools and may be what I am experiencing, which no-one has been able to resolve in the past in qubes-users and still have no interest in resolving.

Also in my inquiry is why they don't have the certificates and such on them for windows to allow them to be installed?
Is it the pricing of such a feature or is it just difficult to do?

Hope that I can help in any way needed with Qubes. I do use the PC differently to many other people that use it, and perhaps that is the reason why I'm having more difficulties with some things? Because I am not an "end-user"?

I hope to have a prosperous future with Qubes.
However I am unsure about it due to the new requirements of Qubes 4.
If I can find new Twin CPUs for this PC, I can upgrade them and then have the requirements for Qubes 4+, but I don't think they will ever make a CPU for this socket type that will have those requirements.

Any help you could provide regarding the serious issue I've had for some time now that noone has been able to resolve would be greatly appreciated.

If you need further information, just let me know.

Sincerely,
Drew.

log_20160930-0745.res.log

Outback Dingo

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Sep 29, 2016, 9:12:26 PM9/29/16
to drew....@gmail.com, qubes-devel
On Thu, Sep 29, 2016 at 9:00 PM, <drew....@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> I'm still having a few issues with the freezing of the system, and requiring
> some information regarding Windows Tools.
> I'm getting nowhere in the user area, so I'm here to find out the answers to
> these questions as no dev has answered this on there and all I get is
> attacked by people that think I know nothing and am wrong.
>
> But anyway...

Yeah good luck with that, unfortunatley Qubes support appears to
royally suck.... Ive been trying to get some answers on why XEN
passthru is still broken
after 6+ months, and nothing, no response..... nice idea, badly
implemented, terrible support......
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drew....@gmail.com

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Sep 29, 2016, 9:28:50 PM9/29/16
to qubes-devel, drew....@gmail.com


On Friday, 30 September 2016 11:12:26 UTC+10, Outback Dingo wrote:
On Thu, Sep 29, 2016 at 9:00 PM,  <drew....@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> I'm still having a few issues with the freezing of the system, and requiring
> some information regarding Windows Tools.
> I'm getting nowhere in the user area, so I'm here to find out the answers to
> these questions as no dev has answered this on there and all I get is
> attacked by people that think I know nothing and am wrong.
>
> But anyway...

Yeah good luck with that, unfortunatley Qubes support appears to
royally suck.... Ive been trying to get some answers on why XEN
passthru is still broken
after 6+ months, and nothing, no response..... nice idea, badly
implemented, terrible support......

I've found the support to be fine, when the devs get involved to answer the questions you ask.
Marek has always been able to answer me just fine.
99.9% of the time resolved the issue very easily.

XEN Passthru has been in development. That's why it's not working 100%.

I don't use USB passthru much.
It's never realy worked properly.
Maybe it's the way I'm expecting it to work, and it doesn't.
I've asked questions regarding it, but those people on the qubes-users forum just hate me most of the time because they don't read what I ask and just misinterpret me.

If you need support, I'd be more than willing to help where I can.
But I'm not a dev of Qubes, not yet.
However I do find a lot of bugs that are there, that need to be resolved, and I report them.
Even if people do comment and cause information to get lost.

When the passthru is complete, perhaps then it will be finished and working and not broken.

All I can say right now is just to wait until it's fully working since it was only really mostly working in 3.2.

Have patients. The support here is good, the users community has several people that are very salty, but some do actually help, some try and fail. Some just pawn you off.

Just give it time.

Sincerely,
Drew.


 

drew....@gmail.com

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Sep 29, 2016, 10:20:18 PM9/29/16
to qubes-devel
Next issue that is under discussion is RAM utilization..

1.txt : taken 11 mins after boot.
2.txt : taken 1 hour 20 minutes after boot.

Some things I want to enquire about...

after 11 minutes I have only used ~2 Gb RAM in the Dom0 Assigned RAM
after an hour, and I'm still barely even using the PC, I've only got ~30 Mb free.

an icon-receiver, using ~32 Mb RAM...
  - Why is it so high?
  - What is it actually requiring access to for that much RAM to be used?
I mean I know it needs some RAM, but I'm told all it does is listen for icon and put it to the panel.
But why does it need 30+ Mb?
Is there just things it's got loaded that it doesn't actually need to have loaded to be able to function properly?
Or things that it doesn't need loaded all the time and can just create on the fly to reduce it's footprint?


This pacat-simple-vchan process...
   - What is it exactly?
   - What is it that it does?
 




Next question...

Will Qubes work without SystemD?
Will it run if it's built on a system that has no SystemD?
1.txt
2.txt

drew....@gmail.com

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Oct 6, 2016, 8:23:31 PM10/6/16
to qubes-devel
Heyas,

This morning my machine would not "wake up" again from screen-lock.
I've posted about this before, but just keeping you updated that it happenned again.

This time, everything was still running in the background, but wouldn't respond to me.

I could not see anything out of the ordinary in my process logs.

Any advice and assistance on this matter would be appreciated.

7v5w7go9ub0o

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Oct 6, 2016, 8:36:16 PM10/6/16
to qubes...@googlegroups.com
I infrequently experience this, but find that disconnecting/reconnecting
my usb keyboard and mouse will bring things back to life.

HTH

drew....@gmail.com

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Oct 6, 2016, 8:47:35 PM10/6/16
to qubes-devel


On Friday, 7 October 2016 11:36:16 UTC+11, 7v5w7go9ub0o wrote:

I infrequently experience this, but find that disconnecting/reconnecting
my usb keyboard and mouse will bring things back to life.

HTH


I've had both PS2 AND USB keyboards and mice plugged in at the same time.
Neither the USB or PS2 allowed the PC to come back to life.

drew....@gmail.com

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Oct 7, 2016, 2:21:37 AM10/7/16
to qubes-devel
Well, the PC just locked up again.
It was not working hard at all.

I only had 7 guests running along with Dom0.

top - 17:10:01 up  6:56,  5 users,  load average: 0.12, 0.16, 0.15
Tasks: 398 total,   2 running, 396 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
%Cpu(s):  0.5 us,  0.5 sy,  0.0 ni, 98.7 id,  0.1 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.0 si,  0.2 st
KiB Mem :  4021248 total,    33392 free,   857876 used,  3129980 buff/cache
KiB Swap:        0 total,        0 free,        0 used.  3039808 avail Mem



drew....@gmail.com

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Oct 12, 2016, 1:26:46 AM10/12/16
to qubes-devel
Any updates yet for these issues? (as in updates I don't mean software updates/patches/fixes, but information on tests done or requests for more details)

Ivan

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Oct 12, 2016, 6:52:40 AM10/12/16
to qubes...@googlegroups.com
Given the small size of the Qubes dev team, how busy they seem to be,
the randomness of your problem, and its specificity (you seem to be the
only one encountering that issue), I wouldn't count too much on getting
dedicated help. Until Qubes' user base reaches a critical mass where
there is enough advanced users or devs with time to debug specific
issues like yours, it makes sense for the current dev team to focus on
more critical stuff like fixing issues many people encounter or going on
with the development roadmap, which ends up benefiting the whole Qubes
community.
Granted, someone could have answered that they don't have time working
on your issue though.

That said you may get some help if you could reproduce the bug reliably
and show that the bug you're encountering is really because of Qubes,
and not because of XEN or because of your hardware (RAM corruption, bad
PSU, you name it). That would mean wiping Qubes, installing the same XEN
version Qubes uses and setting up a virtualized fc23.
But since your bug is random you'll probably end up spending a lot of
time on trying stuff without any guarantee that your issue will be fixed.

If Qubes is critical for you I would advise buying a laptop/PC that you
know will work with Qubes (that's what I've done - I bought a thinkpad
t450s after spending too much time trying to have Qubes working on my
older t400).

All of that probably doesn't help you much. It would probably be a good
idea to have "Why does nobody pay attention to my bug report" section in
the wiki/FAQ somewhere.

Ivan

drew....@gmail.com

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Oct 12, 2016, 11:07:11 PM10/12/16
to qubes-devel, iv...@c3i.bg


On Wednesday, 12 October 2016 21:52:40 UTC+11, Ivan wrote:


On 10/12/2016 08:26 AM, drew....@gmail.com wrote:
> Any updates yet for these issues? (as in updates I don't mean software
> updates/patches/fixes, but information on tests done or requests for more
> details)

Given the small size of the Qubes dev team, how busy they seem to be,
the randomness of your problem, and its specificity (you seem to be the
only one encountering that issue), I wouldn't count too much on getting
dedicated help. Until Qubes' user base reaches a critical mass where
there is enough advanced users or devs with time to debug specific
issues like yours, it makes sense for the current dev team to focus on
more critical stuff like fixing issues many people encounter or going on
with the development roadmap, which ends up benefiting the whole Qubes
community.

Many people have this bug. There are several instances of it in Qubes-Users forum.
There are many people having the issue. SOME can get around it, SOME can't.
So, I'm NOT the only one, as you thought (based on only qubes-devel).


 
Granted, someone could have answered that they don't have time working
on your issue though.

I merely queried if there was an update.
If the answer was a no or they didn't have enough time, as last time, they wouldn't have responded.
And I would have just checked in again in another couple of weeks, and I would keep providing more details as to the frequency and all of the instances when it happens to me.


 
That said you may get some help if you could reproduce the bug reliably
and show that the bug you're encountering is really because of Qubes,
and not because of XEN or because of your hardware (RAM corruption, bad
PSU, you name it). That would mean wiping Qubes, installing the same XEN
version Qubes uses and setting up a virtualized fc23.
But since your bug is random you'll probably end up spending a lot of
time on trying stuff without any guarantee that your issue will be fixed.

IF I was able to replicate it reliably, then I would know what was wrong and be able to investigate and provide information for a patch, or even provide a patch myself. The reason I provide the information and details is so that the devs can examine to find similarities between my instance of the issue, and other peoples instances if the issue.

Comparing that to those that can actually get out of the the issue and those that can't.
 


 
If Qubes is critical for you I would advise buying a laptop/PC that you
know will work with Qubes (that's what I've done - I bought a thinkpad
t450s after spending too much time trying to have Qubes working on my
older t400).

Well good for you. I am very happy to see that you are an IBM/Lenovo man. Good machines those. Best I know of.
The 450 runs Qubes quite well as far as I can tell.


 

All of that probably doesn't help you much. It would probably be a good
idea to have "Why does nobody pay attention to my bug report" section in
the wiki/FAQ somewhere.


Why does noone pay attention to it?
There are many reasons why...
Sometimes too busy.
Sometimes it's missed in the mass of mail that the devs get from qubes-users.
Sometimes it looks like it's from a different thing, not what they were looking for.
Sometimes it's just put on the back burner as a low priority.
Sometimes it's set as a "keep an eye out for more incidents like this before taking action"


I know all the ins and outs Ivan, don't get me wrong.
I was just asking if there were any insights or updates at this time, for all the things that I posted and put there.
It's no big deal, as I said earlier.
I just messaged to see if there were any updates.

They may have been investigating and looking into the problem, and just not replied yet, and my contacting may have triggered them as to remembering that they needed some more information or even a log file, or something else maybe. Who knows...
If they havn't looked into it yet, then such as life, it's a low priority, as I am keeping an eye on it and keeping watching it to find out what actually causes the issue to occur.
At this time, I am changing things around to the methodology of what is done to find out what the issue actually is.

Every 5 minutes, I create a log of all the stats.
Every night that is backed up.
When I can't wake the PC, I leave it 10 minutes, turn the PC off, wait 10 minutes, turn it back on... Meaning there should be a gap of 2 log files.
Sometimes the system keeps logging while it's frozen, sometimes it's totally frozen and there are hours of missed logs.
So don't think I'm enquiring for no reason. I'm enquiring so as to find out information if there is any available for this issue that I am still working out why it happens to me. IF they had found anything out thus far, they could say X and Y, and I could check it and test it to see if it was the same here on my end or not.
As a programmer myself, I am knowledgeable on the ins and outs of things.

At this point, I'm still learning their code for everything in Qubes. Memorising every line of code to know what every line does and what it affects.


So as you said, no, it doesn't help me much.
I hope that what I have stated here explains why I was just querying, and that I didn't think it was ignored or anything, nor that I expected to get a response, but if I did then good, if not then oh well I'd check back later.
And you are right, I have spent a lot of time trying to work this bug out. And I spend that time while I'm working, doing every day things. Because I log everything. When it happens, I just check the logs.

Manuel Amador (Rudd-O)

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Oct 13, 2016, 9:47:44 AM10/13/16
to qubes...@googlegroups.com
On 09/30/2016 02:20 AM, drew....@gmail.com wrote:
>
> Next question...
>
> Will Qubes work without SystemD?
> Will it run if it's built on a system that has no SystemD?

systemd (not SystemD) is integral to the operation of Qubes OS,
especially on dom0 and ServiceVMs. The way that boot-up events are
ordered relies on the dependency and ordering engine of systemd, as well
as other features of it. You are not going to have a good time removing
the hard dependency on systemd.

--
Rudd-O
http://rudd-o.com/

Manuel Amador (Rudd-O)

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Oct 13, 2016, 9:49:42 AM10/13/16
to qubes...@googlegroups.com
On 10/12/2016 10:52 AM, Ivan wrote:
>
>
> On 10/12/2016 08:26 AM, drew....@gmail.com wrote:
>> Any updates yet for these issues? (as in updates I don't mean software
>> updates/patches/fixes, but information on tests done or requests for
>> more
>> details)
>
> Given the small size of the Qubes dev team, how busy they seem to be,
> the randomness of your problem, and its specificity (you seem to be
> the only one encountering that issue), I wouldn't count too much on
> getting dedicated help.

Seconded. Drew seems to have a problem that merits JTAG / serial port /
netconsole debugging. This is not something a Qubes OS dev can even do
for Drew.

If I were Drew, I would install vanilla Fedora and see if my machine
locks up with that. I would also try a more modern vanilla Fedora
kernel on dom0, to see if that solves the issue.

--
Rudd-O
http://rudd-o.com/

drew....@gmail.com

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Oct 14, 2016, 2:42:29 AM10/14/16
to qubes-devel, rud...@rudd-o.com

Well won't it be FUN when THAT changes?
Systemd is on it's way out.. It's one of the most hated things... and I'm going to build Qubes without it.

That way, it's not like I'm using Windows any more, but actually using Linux again.

Systemd doesn't really do that much differently, other than being a central point that is only a point of vulnerability and failure for the system.

I just want to remove this MAJOR security hole. And I will, because it can be easily done. Then I just have to build qubes on it and alter things to not use systemd. Piece of cake.


 

Ivan

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Oct 14, 2016, 3:41:45 AM10/14/16
to qubes...@googlegroups.com


On 10/14/2016 09:42 AM, drew....@gmail.com wrote:
> Systemd is on it's way out.. It's one of the most hated things... and I'm
> going to build Qubes without it.
>
> That way, it's not like I'm using Windows any more, but actually using
> Linux again.
>
> Systemd doesn't really do that much differently, other than being a central
> point that is only a point of vulnerability and failure for the system.
>
> I just want to remove this MAJOR security hole. And I will, because it can
> be easily done. Then I just have to build qubes on it and alter things to
> not use systemd. Piece of cake.

It's a pretty heavy-handed opinion, but if you have time/fun tweaking
Qubes to work without systemd then good for you. Following your logic,
you could also remove the DE you're using in dom0 as it probably has
major security holes too, as well as a pile of other stuff that will
make your system really secure^Wempty.
By the way, aren't you using Qubes because its architecture was made to
cope with unsecure software in the first place ? (rhetorical question).

Manuel Amador (Rudd-O)

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Oct 15, 2016, 10:21:21 PM10/15/16
to drew....@gmail.com, qubes-devel
On 10/14/2016 06:42 AM, drew....@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
> On Friday, 14 October 2016 00:47:44 UTC+11, Manuel Amador (Rudd-O) wrote:
>
> On 09/30/2016 02:20 AM, drew....@gmail.com <javascript:> wrote:
> >
> > Next question...
> >
> > Will Qubes work without SystemD?
> > Will it run if it's built on a system that has no SystemD?
>
> systemd (not SystemD) is integral to the operation of Qubes OS,
> especially on dom0 and ServiceVMs. The way that boot-up events are
> ordered relies on the dependency and ordering engine of systemd,
> as well
> as other features of it. You are not going to have a good time
> removing
> the hard dependency on systemd.
>
>
> Well won't it be FUN when THAT changes?
> Systemd is on it's way out.. It's one of the most hated things...

You mean "it's one of the things *I* hate the most".

> and I'm going to build Qubes without it.
>

Best of luck.

> That way, it's not like I'm using Windows any more, but actually using
> Linux again.
>

Ah, yes, the good old "we finally got an Apple launchd style init system
on Linux, it's like we're all using Microsoft Windows now!" non-argument.

> Systemd doesn't really do that much differently, other than being a
> central point that is only a point of vulnerability and failure for
> the system.
>

Which vulnerabilities and failures? Unpatched CVEs please. Thanks.

> I just want to remove this MAJOR security hole.

Which hole? Time after time systemd haters have failed to prove this
contention of theirs. Allegations and allegations, nothing concrete.

> And I will, because it can be easily done.

I will be happy to see you succeed. I think you will fail miserably,
but if you succeed, more power to you.

> Then I just have to build qubes on it and alter things to not use
> systemd. Piece of cake.

Looking forward to seeing your GONEME clone of Qubes OS.

--
Rudd-O
http://rudd-o.com/

drew....@gmail.com

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Oct 17, 2016, 8:35:48 PM10/17/16
to qubes-devel, iv...@c3i.bg
On Friday, 14 October 2016 18:41:45 UTC+11, Ivan wrote:
It's a pretty heavy-handed opinion, but if you have time/fun tweaking
Qubes to work without systemd then good for you. Following your logic,
you could also remove the DE you're using in dom0 as it probably has
major security holes too, as well as a pile of other stuff that will
make your system really secure^Wempty.
By the way, aren't you using Qubes because its architecture was made to
cope with unsecure software in the first place ? (rhetorical question).

Well, SOMEONE has to be the "Devils Advocate". Otherwise nothing moves forward.

People like Manuel Amador (Rudd-O) are just haters, and hate that people know more than them and see the flaws where there are flaws that are unseen by those that are trusting, just like Manuel seems to just trust everything.

I'm paranoid. I don't even trust Qubes 100%. There is nothing in this world, software wise, that I trust 100%, UNLESS I write it myself or can see every piece of code that is there. If there are things that are propriety that I can't see the code of, then how can I fully trust it?

If I write it myself, I know what it does and know how it works. That's one reason why I like Qubes, I can see the code and know what everything does Qubes wise. But something like SystemD, I don't trust it. It can be broken, and if it breaks they have access to everything, INCLUDING the tunnels between the Guest and Dom0. This is ONE reason why I disable SUDO and have the root account passworded and secured fully.

Yes, it's architecture is made for that, and it's great for what it does.
There are so many things wrong with the Fedora templates that I have had to erase and install and change so many things just to make then actually usable. (Not saying they aren't good for others, just for my security and piece of mind and the tools that are needed by me since they are things that should be on there anyway.

Qubes allows me to do many things, but there are things that are wrong that happen for an unknown reason, and have been doing so for a long time, and have not been explained and the developers have not looked into it, or just not responded. Whether they have not had the time or availability of man power or whatever the reason is I don't know. As I have said before, it's something that I understand and am fine with, and I'm sure they will get around to it when they get the chance, since it's a bug that is in the full release of 3.2.



drew....@gmail.com

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Oct 17, 2016, 8:39:02 PM10/17/16
to qubes-devel, drew....@gmail.com, rud...@rudd-o.com
On Sunday, 16 October 2016 13:21:21 UTC+11, Manuel Amador (Rudd-O) wrote:
On 10/14/2016 06:42 AM, drew....@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
> On Friday, 14 October 2016 00:47:44 UTC+11, Manuel Amador (Rudd-O) wrote:
>
>     On 09/30/2016 02:20 AM, drew....@gmail.com <javascript:> wrote:
>     >
>     > Next question...
>     >
>     > Will Qubes work without SystemD?
>     > Will it run if it's built on a system that has no SystemD?
>
>     systemd (not SystemD) is integral to the operation of Qubes OS,
>     especially on dom0 and ServiceVMs.  The way that boot-up events are
>     ordered relies on the dependency and ordering engine of systemd,
>     as well
>     as other features of it.  You are not going to have a good time
>     removing
>     the hard dependency on systemd.
>
>
> Well won't it be FUN when THAT changes?
> Systemd is on it's way out.. It's one of the most hated things...

You mean "it's one of the things *I* hate the most".

Me and millions of others...

 
> and I'm going to build Qubes without it.
>

Best of luck.
Thanks.
 
> That way, it's not like I'm using Windows any more, but actually using
> Linux again.
>

Ah, yes, the good old "we finally got an Apple launchd style init system
on Linux, it's like we're all using Microsoft Windows now!" non-argument.

Apple is just as bad as Microsoft.

 
> Systemd doesn't really do that much differently, other than being a
> central point that is only a point of vulnerability and failure for
> the system.
>

Which vulnerabilities and failures?  Unpatched CVEs please.  Thanks.

SystemD gets hit, the whole system becomes vulnerable because they aren't all separate any more.

 
> I just want to remove this MAJOR security hole.

Which hole?  Time after time systemd haters have failed to prove this
contention of theirs.  Allegations and allegations, nothing concrete.

Everything goes back to one point. not good.

 
> And I will, because it can be easily done.

I will be happy to see you succeed.   I think you will fail miserably,
but if you succeed, more power to you.

You can think what you want, but I know I will succeed, because I think positively, which is why I'm so good.

 
> Then I just have to build qubes on it and alter things to not use
> systemd. Piece of cake.

Looking forward to seeing your GONEME clone of Qubes OS.

It will still be QubesOS, just without SystemD. Won't be a clone at all.
Just a different Dom0 and Guests.

 

Eric Shelton

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Oct 30, 2016, 12:12:25 AM10/30/16
to qubes-devel, drew....@gmail.com, Outback Dingo
On Thursday, September 29, 2016 at 9:12:26 PM UTC-4, Outback Dingo wrote:
On Thu, Sep 29, 2016 at 9:00 PM,  <drew....@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> I'm still having a few issues with the freezing of the system, and requiring
> some information regarding Windows Tools.
> I'm getting nowhere in the user area, so I'm here to find out the answers to
> these questions as no dev has answered this on there and all I get is
> attacked by people that think I know nothing and am wrong.
>
> But anyway...

Yeah good luck with that, unfortunatley Qubes support appears to
royally suck.... Ive been trying to get some answers on why XEN
passthru is still broken
after 6+ months, and nothing, no response..... nice idea, badly
implemented, terrible support......

Outback Dingo:

I am going to repeat a suggestion I made back when I tried helping you out, as it seems like you never tried it and it is a fairly inexpensive, simple, and effective solution.

Get rid of the Realtek network adapter.  With the exception of the venerable RTL8139, I have found their ethernet adapters to be a consistent pain under Linux; you often need firmware blobs, etc.  I imagine their wifi adapters are even worse.  Not every piece of hardware is going to work under open source.  Years ago you had to be careful to pick and choose hardware components with Linux compatibility in mind, and sometimes you still have to.

My experience is that it is pretty easy to open up a laptop/notebook with a #0 Philips head screwdriver (or a pentalobe driver for a Mac) and swap out a MiniPCIE wifi or wifi/bluetooth adapter.  It's usually right next to the RAM (not that there is much room for it to go anywhere else).  You can get a compatible replacement wifi adapter for about $25 on eBay.  Get an adapter that is not bleeding edge - Broadcom and Atheros (and maybe Intel) chipsets seem to consistently work well - there are plenty of compatibility reports out there to work with.  Some laptops (for example, some Lenovo machnes) present BIOS whitelisting difficulties (although there is often a replacement BIOS to handle that), but in general it is really simple.

If you are unwilling to do this, then I suppose you are just being stubborn.  Although being stubborn can be OK - open source has benefited from lots of stubborn people who constructively direct that stubbornness into dogged effort at investigating and solving such problems - it's not so great when it instead results in complaining, trashing people, and demanding others do that effort instead.  If you really want to insist on that particular wifi adapter working under Qubes, maybe it will be more productive to direct your grief at the party that's actually responsible - Realtek - since other companies' wifi adapters end up doing PCI passthrough OK, but apparently not theirs.

Eric
(who thinks your issue got a good bit more than "nothing, no response")

Chris Laprise

unread,
Nov 1, 2016, 6:37:41 AM11/1/16
to Eric Shelton, qubes-devel, drew....@gmail.com, Outback Dingo
On 10/30/2016 12:12 AM, Eric Shelton wrote:
>
> Outback Dingo:
>
> I am going to repeat a suggestion I made back when I tried helping you
> out, as it seems like you never tried it and it is a fairly
> inexpensive, simple, and effective solution.
>
> Get rid of the Realtek network adapter.

I agree. Realtek is second-tier and can be a real pain even on Windows,
depending on the product and version.

Receiving a stamp of "Windows compatible" doesn't make a piece of
hardware a good example of being "PC compatible" and playing well with
other OSes. PC compatible doesn't really exist, so it is better to focus
on brands that are 1) known for quality and 2) have good
relations/popularity with the FOSS community.


@Drew,

Are you still using the Dell T5500? I noticed that Dell certifies it
(only) for RHEL, which is a server OS. Ubuntu certified a number of Dell
T-series workstations according to their HCL, but they skipped over the
T5500 for some reason?

https://certification.ubuntu.com/desktop/models/?query=precision&category=Desktop&category=Laptop&level=Any&vendors=Dell

One thing you should consider is running with Intel or AMD graphics.
Nvidia have a bad compatibility record and I wonder if that is the main
factor in your screensaver lockups.

As for systemd, its not as big or complex as you seem to think. And it
makes Linux run /much/ better on PCs. I can imagine a future where a
dom0 Linux has many fewer systemd modules, but not going back to init.

Chris

Outback Dingo

unread,
Nov 1, 2016, 8:07:33 AM11/1/16
to Eric Shelton, qubes-devel, drew....@gmail.com
Its a laptop, and its onboard, it is not removable



> My experience is that it is pretty easy to open up a laptop/notebook with a
> #0 Philips head screwdriver (or a pentalobe driver for a Mac) and swap out a
> MiniPCIE wifi or wifi/bluetooth adapter. It's usually right next to the RAM
> (not that there is much room for it to go anywhere else). You can get a
> compatible replacement wifi adapter for about $25 on eBay. Get an adapter
> that is not bleeding edge - Broadcom and Atheros (and maybe Intel) chipsets
> seem to consistently work well - there are plenty of compatibility reports
> out there to work with. Some laptops (for example, some Lenovo machnes)
> present BIOS whitelisting difficulties (although there is often a
> replacement BIOS to handle that), but in general it is really simple.
>
> If you are unwilling to do this, then I suppose you are just being stubborn.
> Although being stubborn can be OK - open source has benefited from lots of
> stubborn people who constructively direct that stubbornness into dogged
> effort at investigating and solving such problems - it's not so great when
> it instead results in complaining, trashing people, and demanding others do
> that effort instead. If you really want to insist on that particular wifi
> adapter working under Qubes, maybe it will be more productive to direct your
> grief at the party that's actually responsible - Realtek - since other
> companies' wifi adapters end up doing PCI passthrough OK, but apparently not
> theirs.
>
> Eric
> (who thinks your issue got a good bit more than "nothing, no response")
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "qubes-devel" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to qubes-devel...@googlegroups.com.
> To post to this group, send email to qubes...@googlegroups.com.
> To view this discussion on the web visit
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/qubes-devel/3daf86e5-7d16-452f-9b2a-6e25205ce3e3%40googlegroups.com.

Outback Dingo

unread,
Nov 1, 2016, 8:22:30 AM11/1/16
to Eric Shelton, qubes-devel, drew....@gmail.com
On Sun, Oct 30, 2016 at 12:12 PM, Eric Shelton <knock...@gmail.com> wrote:
as for the wireless it is a 03:00.0 Network controller: Qualcomm
Atheros QCA6174 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter (rev 32)
for which only a recent fedora actually has drivers for lately, like a
late F24, and now F25 the issue is its core dumping on the lan
module, i would maybe guess due to the shared pci bus, however like i
explained before F24 and XEN EFI worked fine. I shouldnt
have to butcher my laptop when plainly put this is a qubes issue and
has been for months. It just needs to be fixed.



> If you are unwilling to do this, then I suppose you are just being stubborn.
> Although being stubborn can be OK - open source has benefited from lots of
> stubborn people who constructively direct that stubbornness into dogged
> effort at investigating and solving such problems - it's not so great when
> it instead results in complaining, trashing people, and demanding others do
> that effort instead. If you really want to insist on that particular wifi
> adapter working under Qubes, maybe it will be more productive to direct your
> grief at the party that's actually responsible - Realtek - since other
> companies' wifi adapters end up doing PCI passthrough OK, but apparently not
> theirs.
>
> Eric
> (who thinks your issue got a good bit more than "nothing, no response")
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "qubes-devel" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to qubes-devel...@googlegroups.com.
> To post to this group, send email to qubes...@googlegroups.com.
> To view this discussion on the web visit
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/qubes-devel/3daf86e5-7d16-452f-9b2a-6e25205ce3e3%40googlegroups.com.

drew....@gmail.com

unread,
Nov 3, 2016, 3:05:34 AM11/3/16
to qubes-devel, knock...@gmail.com, drew....@gmail.com, outbac...@gmail.com, tas...@openmailbox.org


Yes, I still use the T5500. And I'm not changing any time soon.
RHEL = After Fedora / Before CentOS

I don't know why they skipped over it. Maybe they couldn't get one?
It's a great PC... 24 threads, 36 Gb RAM... Can't really go wrong.
I can get more RAM into it too..
I think I can't get any more threads though. But I might be wrong.

Why it locks up, who knows?
The whole PC locks up...

It's something to do with XEN and the Guests.


I have 1 VM that I use to access the forum here, and if I have this one running over night, sometimes even locks the PC up when I'm just running it and working.
The VHD and HDD and SSD (s) are not getting full.. I have my script running on every virtual every 5 minutes to tell me how much space is available, what VMs are running, the processes that are running and everything else I can find out. All up, about 15-20 MB worth of logs a day. Compressed, less than 300kB.

I can't find anything that is out of the ordinary.
I'm thinking of increasing the amount up to every 60 seconds, then if I can't find anything in that, then every 30 seconds.
But I'm trying different things at the moment.

All I can conclude is it's something in XEN itself that is overloading or dying or just can't keep up.

I'm not pushing it hard. I only have 5 Guests running all the time, and I start and stop 10 others at times.
Mostly they use 2 or 4 GB RAM. I don't like balancing, so I have static since Fedora runs at 4 GB as soon as it starts (when balanced and it has min of 300 MB and max of 4 GB)
Mostly I have things set at 2 GB, and Windows at 4 GB. If they need more than 2, I give them 3.. but all depends how hard I'm pushing it...
If 2 threads, then 2 GB RAM. if 4 threads then 4 GB RAM. If 2 threads and high memory usage applications, then 4 GB.

So I'm not really pushing the Workstation hard.
The lockups, they happen. I don't know why, and I can't find anything in the logs because the PC does and can't log anything because it's dead. (Dead as in locked up/ not responding)

Noone here is having this issue. I have 2 of these. 1 isn't having the issue, 1 is. Mine is having issues, the other one isn't.
They are both almost identicle.

I run my own admin app for Qubes these days, since the qubes-manager is so ram-heavy and is always consuming more.
At one point I thought it was qubes-manager that was causing the lockups...

PID USER      PR  NI    VIRT    RES    SHR S  %CPU %MEM     TIME+ COMMAND
2697 root      20   0  569052 153648  41432 S   0.0  2.0  50:13.29 /usr/bin/X -background none :0 -seat seat0 -auth /var/run/lightdm/root/:0 -nolisten tcp vt1 -novtswitch
 1330 root      20   0 1259916 144800   7692 S   0.0  1.9 223:57.19 /usr/sbin/libvirtd
 2828 {user}    20   0 1172800 131268  39352 S   0.0  1.7 168:24.17 /usr/bin/python2 /usr/bin/qubes-manager
 8113 {user}    20   0  284380  20064  13840 S   0.0  0.3   0:07.70 qtasker

That's the current RAM usage for those things.
qtasker is mine. It does most of the things that qubes-manager does, and many things that it doesn't.
That top one though...
"usr/bin/X -background none"  ... What is that, and why is it so high in RAM usage?
qubes-manager is almost as high as it..





I use Realtek adaptor because Linux doesn't have the BroadCom drivers, nor does it know how to use it, nor does XEN pass the device to the guest properly.

I tried attaching it to a Windows HVM, and I installed the drivers and all, but the device could not be started.
Yes, it's all plugged in and should work fine.  But I want to use it on a NetVM, Linux.

Realtek works fine and well though. And is completely compatible.




 
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