Is Qubes for the Asus X205ta ?

[pierrema...@gmail.com]

Hi, I wonder if the Asus X205ta can handle Qubes ?
Thank,

[Eric Shelton]

On Monday, November 21, 2016 at 12:39:47 PM UTC-5, pierrema...@gmail.com wrote:
> Hi, I wonder if the Asus X205ta can handle Qubes ?
> Thank,

It's not even near a good choice, based on the processor info:

http://ark.intel.com/products/80274/Intel-Atom-Processor-Z3735F-2M-Cache-up-to-1_83-GHz

A lot of issues come from it using an Atom processor, rather than a Core i3, i5, or i7.

First, the max memory size of 2 GB is not going to work out well. At a minimum, you would want 4 GB RAM, and 8 GB would be better.

Second, it will fail the minimum hardware requirements for Qubes 4:
https://www.qubes-os.org/news/2016/09/02/4-0-minimum-requirements-3-2-extended-support/
- Intel VT-x with EPT? Probably missing EPT
- Intel VT-d? Definitely missing.
- 4 GB RAM? No, as discussed above.

Third, it looks like there are problems getting Linux running on these, which does not bode well for getting Qubes to boot:
https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Asus/X205TA

You are going to run into these types of issues with these inexpensive little machines where the manufacturer puts in just enough effort to get Windows running on it. Plus, a good number of these machines have problems booting anything other than the Windows OS it shipped with, as demonstrated by that last link.

Eric

[Chris Laprise]

On 11/21/2016 03:51 PM, Eric Shelton wrote:
> Third, it looks like there are problems getting Linux running on
> these, which does not bode well for getting Qubes to boot:
> https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Asus/X205TA
>
> You are going to run into these types of issues with these inexpensive little machines where the manufacturer puts in just enough effort to get Windows running on it. Plus, a good number of these machines have problems booting anything other than the Windows OS it shipped with, as demonstrated by that last link.
>
> Eric
>

If a computer is not already Qubes certified or on the Qubes HCL, its
good practice to look for it in a Linux HCL as the second step. Although
I'm not aware of many lists that are well-maintained, the Ubuntu HCL
appears to be the most comprehensive by far. One can also check with the
manufacturer to see if a particular model was designed to work with
Linux. Using these resources will improve the chances that Qubes will
work well on a computer model that is not on the Qubes HCL.

Chris

[Me]

pierrema...@gmail.com:

[Ronald Duncan]

I find the latest ubuntu works well with most things. I have an ASUS ROC that I got to run Qubes.

It has 32gb of RAM since I want to be able to have a reasonable collection of VM's.

It ran with kernal 4.4 4.6 and 4.8 under Ubuntu (all ok wifi/ethernet etc). Powermangement etc was better with the latest kernel.

Not yet managed to run qubes on it. Trying to get fedora running so I can build qubes with latest kernel and hypervisor.

Fedora is not behaving off the live cd (will not connect to wifi) or bring up a terminal :( will not comment on Fedora since one of the Dev's kindly supports Qubes.

I liked the few seconds I got with it before it crashed never to recover.

Regards
Ronald

[Eric Shelton]

On Wednesday, November 23, 2016 at 11:26:56 AM UTC-5, Ronald Duncan wrote:
> On Tuesday, 22 November 2016 07:15:38 UTC, Me wrote:

> > p*************@gmail.com:

Although that is made the same manufacturer, it is in an entirely different class than the Atom-based chromebook discussed in the original post.

Eric