Installing Chrome

3,379 views
Skip to first unread message

Ted Brenner

unread,
Sep 29, 2016, 9:09:43 PM9/29/16
to qubes...@googlegroups.com
There are two programs I'd like to install to make Qubes more usable. First, I'd like to install Chrome. Second, I'd like to install Flash (though maybe I won't need that if I'm using Chrome?). I've searched and searched and I know that I just need to authorize the repository in my firewall. But I'm not sure how to do that. Is there instructions for how to install Chrome? Specifics with how to allow the repository in your firewall? I assume something similar would need to be done for Flash?

Thanks in advance!
Ted

--
Sent from my Desktop

Andrew David Wong

unread,
Sep 30, 2016, 6:10:14 AM9/30/16
to Ted Brenner, qubes...@googlegroups.com
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512
Try this:

1. In your Fedora TemplateVM, edit this file:

/etc/yum.repos.d/google-chrome.repo

2. Change "enabled=0" to "enabled=1".

3. Run this command:

$ sudo dnf install google-chrome

- --
Andrew David Wong (Axon)
Community Manager, Qubes OS
https://www.qubes-os.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
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=sd1w
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Ted Brenner

unread,
Sep 30, 2016, 8:04:02 PM9/30/16
to Andrew David Wong, qubes...@googlegroups.com
Thanks for the help. Unfortunately, it didn't work. Here's what I got:

[user@fedora-21 ~]$ sudo dnf install google-chrome
Fedora 21 - x86_64                              3.2 MB/s |  39 MB     00:12   
Fedora 21 - x86_64 - Updates                    5.2 MB/s |  22 MB     00:04   
Qubes OS Repository for VM (updates)            313 kB/s | 769 kB     00:02   
Failed to synchronize cache for repo 'google-chrome' from 'http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/rpm/stable/i386': Cannot download repomd.xml: Cannot download repodata/repomd.xml: All mirrors were tried, disabling.
Using metadata from Fri Sep 30 19:00:22 2016 (0:01:40 hours old)
No package google-chrome available.
Error: no package matched: google-chrome


Here's my file:
[google-chrome]
name=google-chrome - $basearch
baseurl=http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/rpm/stable/$basearch
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/google-linux_signing_key.pub
[google-chrome]
name=Google Chrome 32-bit
baseurl=http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/rpm/stable/i386

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Ted

Michael Carbone

unread,
Sep 30, 2016, 9:27:26 PM9/30/16
to qubes...@googlegroups.com
Andrew David Wong:
> On 2016-09-29 18:09, Ted Brenner wrote:
>> There are two programs I'd like to install to make Qubes more usable.
>> First, I'd like to install Chrome. Second, I'd like to install Flash
>> (though maybe I won't need that if I'm using Chrome?). I've searched and
>> searched and I know that I just need to authorize the repository in my
>> firewall. But I'm not sure how to do that. Is there instructions for how to
>> install Chrome? Specifics with how to allow the repository in your
>> firewall? I assume something similar would need to be done for Flash?
>
>> Thanks in advance!
>> Ted
>
>
> Try this:
>
> 1. In your Fedora TemplateVM, edit this file:
>
> /etc/yum.repos.d/google-chrome.repo
>
> 2. Change "enabled=0" to "enabled=1".
>
> 3. Run this command:
>
> $ sudo dnf install google-chrome

FYI if you use the Debian 8 template you can install Chromium (the free
and open source version of Chrome) with:

sudo apt-get install chromium

--
Michael Carbone

Qubes OS | https://www.qubes-os.org
@QubesOS <https://www.twitter.com/QubesOS>

PGP fingerprint: D3D8 BEBF ECE8 91AC 46A7 30DE 63FC 4D26 84A7 33B4


signature.asc

Clark Venable

unread,
Sep 30, 2016, 10:15:53 PM9/30/16
to qubes-users
Great tip, Michael. Thank you.

raah...@gmail.com

unread,
Oct 1, 2016, 12:32:06 AM10/1/16
to qubes-users
If I understand you correctly though you want the flash from google-chrome. Go to their website in a disposable vm. download the file for fedora and then transfer it to your template vm and install it. I believe it automatically verify it but check to be sure.

raah...@gmail.com

unread,
Oct 1, 2016, 12:34:41 AM10/1/16
to qubes-users, raah...@gmail.com
https://www.google.com/chrome/browser/desktop/ chrome automatically has flash. I would run chrome in the untrusted vm. chromium with apparmor on debian8 in the trusted one.

Ted Brenner

unread,
Oct 2, 2016, 8:12:16 PM10/2/16
to raah...@gmail.com, qubes-users
Ah! The problem with my file was that it specified i386 which is no longer supported. Once I change the base url to x86_64, it worked. Thanks for the help everyone.

On Fri, Sep 30, 2016 at 11:34 PM, <raah...@gmail.com> wrote:
https://www.google.com/chrome/browser/desktop/      chrome automatically has flash. I would run chrome in the untrusted vm.   chromium with apparmor on debian8 in the trusted one.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "qubes-users" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to qubes-users+unsubscribe@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-users/0a1428ac-0e90-467a-9ff5-1737fa3582c8%40googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

rory...@gmail.com

unread,
Feb 26, 2018, 5:42:59 AM2/26/18
to qubes-users
Hey there, I know this is a really old post but I'm hoping you still see it Could you show us a copy of the new file with the new baseurl?

I'm having the exact same problem.

Thanks

Yuraeitha

unread,
Feb 26, 2018, 6:38:35 AM2/26/18
to qubes-users

The different methods you can find on Googles website, over here
https://www.google.com/linuxrepositories/

I'm not familiar with the Google repositories. Seemingly it doesn't have any official repository for "just Chrome" but instead a full Linux package with all other Linux Google apps included within. Maybe you can fetch Chrome that way. Otherwise you can get the GUI installer, which will configure the repositories automatically as well.

As for your core issue, I suspect you're referring heavily to codecs for brwoser choice here? Choices between Chromium/Google-Chrome/Firefox?

Chromium is a difficult choice unless you know how to compile it from scratch to include the build-in codecs. Whereas google has already done it with Google Chrome for you.

To my knowledge, both Chromium and Google Chrome rely on build-in codecs, while Firefox relies on upstream packages which can be installed from the terminal. You can easily make Firefox play anything, except, Firefox is tricky to use when you encounter Microsofts Silverlight or other DRM content. Though Firefox will chew Netflix just fine, in my experience there is no issues here. Firefox is mostly an issue if you run into Silverlight (or in other words websites that uses garbage, *cough*).

Google Chrome can play everything Firefox can play, and then also Silverlight content. But you sacrifice privacy, the code isn't open despite it being based on Chromium. Google could have altered the release version closed code in whatever way they desire, even if its based on open code.

Essentially what I do is I play everything in Firefox, and then I use Google Chrome for whenever I encounter Silverlight, and sometimes if having DRM issues although it's mostly only Silverlight being an issue.

I recommend using Fedora, even though Debian works better out of the box, Fedora is quickly fixed with working codecs. Here's how.

1) Clone the default fedora-26 template, so you don't introduce new packages, and in particular other repositories and non-free packages, into your mission critical clean fedora-26 template. I.e. run in dom0: qvm-clone fedora-26 fedora-26-apps

2) Enable RPMFusion in your new cloned fedora template. Run in fedora terminal.
sudo dnf config-manager --set-enabled rpmfusion-free rpmfusion-nonfree
sudo dnf upgrade --refresh

3) Now you can install HTML5 (Which DRM can be run on too) and VLC/other codecs etc.
sudo dnf install FFmpeg <--- that's your HTML5 codec.
sudo dnf install vlc

4) Now you can run HTML5 and HTML5 DRM protected content) directly in Firefox. To verify if it works, visit www.youtube.com/html5 which will tell you if it works or not.

Then you can put Google Chrome in same or different template, depending on how critical you feel about the untrusted Google code.

You may not feel the need to use Firefox, in which case a lot of what I said is pointless anyway, since Google Chrome can chew most things. Just be aware that Chromium isn't "easy" to get to work for the parts it can't chew, although it does support more formats out of the box, it does not easily support all formats that Google Chrome does out of the box, and it doeens't support the same as you can easily archive on Firefox with a few commands.

Essentially all 3 choices has downsides in either privacy or codecs/protected-content availability, none of them is perfect. Personally I just ditch Chromium altogether, and use Firefox for most things, and if I encounter a video I can't pkay, then I just quickly open Google Chrome for the few rare occasions I need to do that, i.e. when I encounter some useless website using MS Silverlight.

I'm not a professional, I'm a learner. Since I'm a bit in a hurry I wrote a bit straight forward/quickly/tired, my bad if I wrote any errors. Though the fedora approach has never failed me, except when encountering protected content, although DRM protected content works "okay" fine in the recent year or so, for the most part, i.e. Netflix never seem to fail.

[799]

unread,
Feb 26, 2018, 11:48:12 AM2/26/18
to yura...@gmail.com, qubes...@googlegroups.com
Hello,

I haven't fully understand what the first post was about, but if it is about how to install chrome... Don't look further, it's all covered:

https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/multimedia/

The last point covers the complete installation, including setting up the directories and downloading & verifying the public signing keys.

[799]

awokd

unread,
Feb 26, 2018, 11:56:21 AM2/26/18
to [799], yura...@gmail.com, qubes...@googlegroups.com
Thanks @praschdorff and reviewers for putting that document together!


Yuraeitha

unread,
Feb 26, 2018, 6:59:02 PM2/26/18
to qubes-users

It is by no means a complete guide as you make it sound though, it's relying overly much on closed code, and Chromium is no good here to look into Google Chrome. I wouldn't call it the "go to" guide to get everything working.

Also as far as my opinion goes, Google Chromes one and only strong point is the support of Silverlight content, which is not a technical strength, but monopolize of pure power on a free market in a democracy. It just downright sucks.

Firefox will play everything around, as long as the content delivery isn't scamming their customers by using platform monopolized Silverlight. Just because Google got a piece of the Silverlight working in their closed code version (which funnily enough is not included in the open source Chromium version), just smells a thousand miles away of these companies scr*wing over Linux & Linux users, on purpose. Microsoft's hate towards Linux seems as strong as ever, despite their so called claims for otherwise.

If possible, we really shouldn't support scumbag companies doing something as manipulative like this, which is on a level only a real psychopathic sick person would pull off.

The fact that Firefox isn't even mentioned in that "between the lines self-proclaimed all solution page guide", makes me a bit sad and disappointed in Qubes. I hope this is a mistake.

[799]

unread,
Feb 26, 2018, 7:21:11 PM2/26/18
to yura...@gmail.com, qubes...@googlegroups.com
Hello,

-------- Original-Nachricht --------

An 27. Feb. 2018, 00:59, Yuraeitha schrieb:

> It is by no means a complete guide as you
> make it sound though, it's relying overly much
> on closed code, and Chromium is no good
> here to look into Google Chrome. I wouldn't
> call it the "go to" guide to get everything
> working.

Seriously? Do you know how much time it takes to write a how-to? To test all steps and to use the feedback from other committed users to make it better?
And as mentioned the guide is written for a special use case, playing multimedia on Qubes as I wanted an OS which I can use for everything I'm using a laptop for.


> Also as far as my opinion goes, Google
> Chromes one and only strong point is the
> support of Silverlight content, which is not a
> technical strength, but monopolize of pure
> power on a free market in a democracy. It just
> downright sucks.

The good thing is that you are totally free to use whatever you want to choose.
And yes it would be better if all content and app providers are offering solutions for "the rest of us", but they aren't and the workarround using chrome is good for everyone who likes to use Netflix & Co. I don't think that sucks. It's better (for some) to use chrome on qubes instead of Windows to stream video content.
But yes, if we could use a default Linux installation to do all this task, this would be great.


> Firefox will play everything around, as long as
> the content delivery isn't scamming their
> customers by using platform monopolized
> Silverlight.

Doesn't make sense to me, as you're saying Firefox plays everything, as long ...
The fact is: currently Firefox is not playing all content. And yes it sucks.


> Microsoft's hate towards Linux seems as
> strong as ever, despite their so called claims
> for otherwise.

Any evidence for this strong argument? As far as I know Microsoft is even using some Linux technologies (Linux on Windows / Linux on Azure / ...)


> If possible, we really shouldn't support
> scumbag companies doing something as
> manipulative like this, which is on a level only
> a real psychopathic sick person would pull
> off.

the good thing is ... You don't have to.


> The fact that Firefox isn't even mentioned in
> that "between the lines self-proclaimed all
> solution page guide", makes me a bit sad and
> disappointed in Qubes. I hope this is a
> mistake.

Honestly it was me writing this "self-proclaimed all solution page guide" which took me lots of hours starting from the first version and following the excellent feedback from other users to improve it.
Maybe you should provide content instead of being sad that others try to contribute to the Qubes project?
Do you know how motivating it feels if people comment on your work like you're doing?
The Qubes documentation is done by all of us, if you want to add a section how you can use Firefox to play content, feel free to do so.
Make a difference!
And if you think Chrome, closed source content providers are the devil, don't use it, but I think giving users options is always a good thing.

If my how-to will convince one user to try out Qubes because he can even do the "evil closed source" stuff, I am happy.

[799]

Yuraeitha

unread,
Feb 26, 2018, 8:48:36 PM2/26/18
to qubes-users

Okay I may have come on a bit strong worded, I apologize that I ended up being rude. Nevertheless I'm not reclaiming my criticism before convinced otherwise.

I didn't know who wrote that guide, or the name awokd mentioned. I didn't check, and frankly I don't need to know who wrote it to criticize it, it's not that I would have second thoughts about criticizing it if it was someone else who wrote it. If you've read some of my other posts here on Qubes user threads, I naturally criticize without holding back, it's within my personality to oppose institutionalized logic which appear to show flaws, it's not a personal attack. My goal is objective truth, I don't care about reputation or things like that, we can't live in a functional peaceful world if we don't seek out truth. I also expect others to criticism me or my criticism, not only for the sake of objective truth, but also because it's the greatest way to learn, to learn from mistakes. Being able to admit a mistake, will even accelerate learning.

btw I know very well how long it takes to write how to's, as I write how to's my self. None of them have been posted to Qubes doc's yet, but I definitely have projects I'm working on, such as QubesTV, QubesNAS, Qubes update script, Qubes screenshot scripts, etc.

My beef with this is that Qubes is about being open source, decentralization (Qubes Air which was planned almost a decade ago now), retaining control of ones own system, etc. If there are just as good open source solutions, or even nearly just as good ones, then these should be mentioned and included.

While sure Qubes is primarily about security and less focused about privacy, but Qubes is also about open source and retaining control of your system. By just posting a Google Chrome solution, we end up ignoring Open Source alternatives which work, is not good.

To put this straight, I don't care if users can just choose to do something else, the fact that it's not following the spirit of what Qubes is all about, is what I care about. I agree very much with you that it's good to have the choice to use Google Chrome, but it should not be listed as the only solution.

Also your question. "Any evidence for this strong argument?"
in response to my line "Microsoft's hate towards Linux seems as strong as ever, despite their so called claims for otherwise." I'll mention that I never made a claim here, but I used the word "seems".
I realize now I unintentionally ended up provoking you and you probably wrote that post in a hurry, and maybe didn't read my post too cleanly (I could have done that too if provoked), but I worded my statement with "seems", I never said it was proven. But even if I did not prove it, I can make a pretty strong case for this if I want to, but like writing "how to guides", it can take a lot of time to pull everything together for such a case. But it's pretty likely if anyone objectively pulls everything together, then it looks pretty bad for Microsoft's reputation, and it can be reproduced scientifically by others. Of course that has to be verified in a scientific study though, and not pulling every piece together at the top of someones head.

Please don't take this criticism personal, I know I ended up being provocative, but I never intended for the guides creator to read this criticism, and I could have done a much better job wording my words which came off pretty strong. I apologize if I was insensitive in my criticism, I did not intend to harm anyone.

It should also be mentioned, as I multiple of times previously stated, I enjoy good discussions. If you can prove me wrong in arguments, theoretical logic or in proofs, then I will happily back down. But similar I also expect others to also back down, for the sake of objective truth. It's nothing personal, though I also do not want to cause anyone harm either. I apologize for that, I should have worded it more diplomatic.

Also I may just as well clarify this, but I dislike extremes, which is very different from the fanatic you seem to picture me as. I don't fight off Google or Microsoft because of emotional belief in them being "evil", although that is a motivator too, but my driving force here is fending off "extremes" through logic, and not emotions. Extremes lead to ruin and destruction, chaos and disorder. Some disorder and extremes can be healthy too though, so too is that a kind of "balance" between order and disorder, but too much extreme is destructive. Be it extreme capitalism or extreme communism, be it extreme ism's or extreme opinions, extremes are always bad. Our world is essentially governed by balances and extremes, and extremes quickly deteriorate any system, human or natural, by injecting a large amount of entropy/disorder into it.

Microsoft and Google are such extremes, where balance needs to be restored to undo the harm they're doing to their surroundings. This is not an emotional backlash like some fanatic crazy person, but a response and criticism towards Microsoft/Google based on pure logic with concerns for everyone's well being, and not just some political group.

Lets stop the personal bender here, I did not mean to harm you or anyone else. I'm more than happy to continue to discuss though, we don't have to agree, but I also enjoy discussions trying to reach a common shared ground. That's what discussions are all about to begin with after all.

brenda...@gmail.com

unread,
Feb 26, 2018, 9:06:36 PM2/26/18
to qubes-users
On Monday, February 26, 2018 at 7:21:11 PM UTC-5, [799] wrote:
> An 27. Feb. 2018, 00:59, Yuraeitha schrieb:
> > It is by no means a complete guide as you
> > make it sound though, it's relying overly much
> > on closed code, and Chromium is no good
> > here to look into Google Chrome. I wouldn't
> > call it the "go to" guide to get everything
> > working.
>
> Seriously? Do you know how much time it takes to write a how-to? To test all
> steps and to use the feedback from other committed users to make it better?
> And as mentioned the guide is written for a special use case, playing
> multimedia on Qubes as I wanted an OS which I can use for everything I'm using
> a laptop for.

Hey, just wanted to say: thanks for the guide, it's great. :)

One of the strengths of Qubes is that you *can* divide your usage into compartments which have different compromises (both security-wise and philosophy-wise). A full-out "yes, we can Netflix and ... well, popcorn in this case" Qube and separately have a "open source intelligence research behind VPN and/or TOR" Qube or "develop sensitive open source application" Qube on the same machine, *and* worry less about cross contamination (security, software development ethics, identities, etc.) is just a big win.

Again: thanks! I am already using your guide and I appreciate all the work you and others put into it.

...


> > The fact that Firefox isn't even mentioned in
> > that "between the lines self-proclaimed all
> > solution page guide", makes me a bit sad and
> > disappointed in Qubes. I hope this is a
> > mistake.
>
> Honestly it was me writing this "self-proclaimed all solution page guide"
> which took me lots of hours starting from the first version and following the
> excellent feedback from other users to improve it.
> Maybe you should provide content instead of being sad that others try to
> contribute to the Qubes project?

Great idea! Maybe Yuraeitha can write up a "multimedia, most of it, with firefox" guide? I have seen Yuraeitha add useful information on other threads in this forum, appears to be very engaged and generally appears to mean well.

> Do you know how motivating it feels if people comment on your work like you're
> doing?

I hope I have at least added some positive balance. :)

> If my how-to will convince one user to try out Qubes because he can even do
> the "evil closed source" stuff, I am happy.

:)

Brendan

Yuraeitha

unread,
Feb 27, 2018, 6:39:03 AM2/27/18
to qubes-users
I think you add positive balance Brendan, I like that you try to see both parties views and seek to make peace. Although I did overstep and caused a provocation, when I could have criticized without it becoming emotional. Even if I did not do it intentionally, it's still something I need to take responsibility for.

To which I really apologize for [799], I hope we can still see eye to eye. By the way, even if I criticized your how-to doc here, there are two things that soften the perceived written criticism (quite a lot actually), which I want to underline. First the work you did is really good, I like what you did. What I criticized is only a lack of work into open alternatives, and not the work you did, which is good (which the criticism here takes a whole different character when criticizing an institution/culture rather than a single person). Adding a section to the how-to with minimum a brief mention of privacy/open-source concerns could be a good quick solution as a disclaimer, which would fend off this criticism even if you don't add open source solutions. Second, I want to admit that I make mistakes too (which is obvious, but the point here is that I'm admitting to it, in fact I make a lot of mistakes). I'm not trying to belittle, be arrogant or feel superior (I don't). It's just that my writing style can be very straight forward and it can risk sounding harsh. Adding on-top of that, I can be pretty darned merciless when it comes to challenging authority, which is not how I act towards individual people. I believed in the moment of the writing that what I challenged, did not have a face or emotions, but instead was a system, an authority through institutionalization/culture. But it turned out the wrath I put forward actually hit a person, which was not my intention at all. Shaking things up can sometimes fix issues in institutions, but it's not a good approach for individual people. I hope you will forgive me for being rude towards you, I do feel bad about it... Especially when as a person a mistake like this is very minor, while in contrast it would be big mistake if it's an institutional error when a lot of people are involved in it and no one criticizes it (which is where the big words are needed to shake things up). I'm not trying to write my self out of a mistake here, because I definitely and most certainly did a big mistake, and I do feel bad about it.

[799]

unread,
Feb 27, 2018, 5:16:46 PM2/27/18
to yura...@gmail.com, qubes...@googlegroups.com
Hello Yuraeitha,

Thanks for the clarification, I think we share some common values.



--
Qubes 4rc3 > Lenovo X230 + Lenovo W540

Gesendet von ProtonMail mobile




-------- Original-Nachricht --------

An 27. Feb. 2018, 02:48, Yuraeitha schrieb:



> Okay I may have come on a bit strong worded,
> I apologize that I ended up being rude.
> Nevertheless I'm not reclaiming my criticism
> before convinced otherwise.

Thanks for the reply, as always in written communication it's sometimes hard to read the intention by just reading the words.



> I definitely have projects I'm working on, such
> as QubesTV, QubesNAS, Qubes update script,
> Qubes screenshot scripts, etc.

If possible share it, I am heavily interested in a better screenshot solution and come up with a first prototype to be able to copy a screenshot (made in dom0) into the clipboard of a predefined AppVM.
(Search for qvm-screenshot-to-clipboard on GitHub)
Warning: it is a working solution but currently without any error handling, happy to hear feedback from a security view as I am far away from being an expert there.


> My beef with this is that Qubes is about being
> open source, decentralization (Qubes Air
> which was planned almost a decade ago
> now), retaining control of ones own system,
> etc. If there are just as good open source
> solutions, or even nearly just as good ones,
> then these should be mentioned and
> included.

I totally agree and that is what I am doing everyday when I talk to my "enterprise" customers when the decide to use windows or VMware just because it is "more of an enterprise solution" (mainly because it costs money :-/).
Of course I don't agree with this argument.
Open Source is great, and if I would have known about an open source solution I would have mention this.


> While sure Qubes is primarily about security
> and less focused about privacy, but Qubes is
> also about open source and retaining control
> of your system.

Agreed and I think that you can still gain privacy and security benefits when using "closed source" solution with Qubes just by using different Qubes.
Let me put it this way, if I am really concerned about privacy I would not use Amazon Prime/Netflix at all because you become very transparent when someone knows what you are watching/reading and when.


> To put this straight, I don't care if users can
> just choose to do something else, the fact
> that it's not following the spirit of what Qubes
> is all about, is what I care about.

Understand you point, still I think that every person who is using Linux or even better Qubes is a large win as more people learn that there are alternatives.
Maybe the use Linux and Chrome in the beginning and some day companies see that there is a critical mass, so that it makes sense to develop cross platform solution.
I don't expect that every company has to go open source, maybe because they want to protect their ownership/development costs. But I would like to use their software on my Operation System of choice.
So the biggest topic is not that I have to use closed source/proprietary software but that I need to sacrifice lots of features when working in the classic "enterprise app" environment.
Example:

Our ERP System, Our CTI Application (ESTOS), Cisco WebEx/Cisco Jabber/Spark, Microsoft Office/Outlook, our main IT Service Tool (Remote Desktop Manager) are mainly running on top of of Windows, some offer a limited feature set when using web-alternatives, but there are no native Linux Apps, which is shame.
I am running Qubes OS as primary OS but it is (for my job role) impossible without using Windows or other closed source apps.
That's also why I really hope to see ongoing Windows AppVM support in Qubes which I honestly think is a major feature being able to run Qubes.

> (...) I also enjoy discussions trying to reach a

> common shared ground. That's what
> discussions are all about to begin with after
> all.

Agreed.

[799]

Alex Dubois

unread,
Feb 27, 2018, 5:50:14 PM2/27/18
to qubes-users
What AI NLP are you using? :)

At the end of the day what matters is the intent. Never feel bad to do good.

Yuraeitha

unread,
Feb 28, 2018, 11:53:07 AM2/28/18
to qubes-users

I'm glad that we're on good terms again, it's been bothering me a lot since I made that mistake. You make a good point that it can be hard to read peoples intends in written communication too, with the lack of body language and voice, dynamic communication and such, I definitely agree. Although I could have written that much better by not making that mistake, so it's still my fault even so, I will have to learn from that experience.

I can relate with the Windows issues, I've recently become fully Linux (Qubes) by finally becoming fully accustomed when I ditched MS-Office for LibreOffice (I couldn't do that for years, but finally made it fully across), which was my last nail in the Microsoft coffin. But I still have friends, and the educational institutions/work also still force use of windows apps, which keeps pushing back to windows apps for various different reasons, and they're not ready to use Linux systems without Windows application support. So I don't only agree with you on that, I can also relate to it too, we definitely need that Windows AppVM support to make Qubes a better environment for everyone. It's amazing how flexible Qubes is. If it becomes a little easier to use, then we might even be able to recommend non-Linux users to start using it.

I also agree that it's a good idea to make software work that we ourselves may not necessarily think is good, despite of the actual value of the software outside opinion. And how Qubes can run pretty much anything and keep it secure. Like you said with Google Chrome, there are many people who still prefer Google Chrome over Firefox, even after knowing Firefox is open source and so on. So it's definitely a good idea to have Chrome working on Qubes. Preserving one of the principles of Linux, having it be people themselves decide what they want to use.

One thing I'm still wondering about is how other people who start use Qubes recommended by someone else (different from us who posts on these mail threads), might not use Qubes to its full strength. For example one that I recommended Qubes to, despite after half a year, still only uses 2 maybe max 3 AppVM's. It feels like something Qubes still struggles with, how to make this isolation improve so that everyone can use Qubes to its full potential. The color scheme is a nice way to tell the difference, but it is kind of ugly too, it might not make everyone feel at home on Qubes. It's not very hard for us because we spend a lot of energy to get used to how Qubes works, so we can easily lock down closed source software for example. But how do we solve issues like that with people who are not spending time/energy on learning/remembering different isolations and prefer as few AppVM's as possible?

As requested, here is my screenshot script
https://github.com/Aekez/scripting-qubes/wiki/Streamlining-the-Screenshotting
This is made to be very simplistic and minimalistic, it's basically a 3 liner and doesn't do anything beyond moving.

I remember your script too, we talked about it in the past, but I think the discussion got buried below the many other new posts and we somehow lost track of it. I went searching for it, https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/qubes-users/screenshot$20xclip%7Csort:date/qubes-users/ruGz2c3qIJ8/J2XBW2xWAgAJ

I really like your idea to copy it to the clipboard, as I previously said it's a genius idea you have there, I hope you will finish it :)

Yuraeitha

unread,
Feb 28, 2018, 11:58:17 AM2/28/18
to qubes-users
So true Alex, it's something I will try remember when writing onward by asking the question to my self "what is the perceived intend of this post". At least I will try to, change is not always easy after all, but this one is an important one.

John Smiley

unread,
Dec 26, 2018, 7:16:18 PM12/26/18
to qubes-users

Update: Don't know if this has always been true, but in 4.0.1-rc2 fedora-29, following these instructions to the letter will install the unstable version of Google Chrome browser. To get the stable version, simply append "-stable" to the command:

sudo dnf install google-chrome-stable

I didn't do this the first time and had to remove the unstable version and then install stable.

799

unread,
Dec 28, 2018, 3:46:43 PM12/28/18
to qubes-users
Hello,

On Thursday, September 29, 2016 at 6:09:43 PM UTC-7, Ted Brenner wrote:
[...]

> There are two programs I'd like to install to make Qubes more usable.
> First, I'd like to install Chrome. Second, I'd like to install Flash
> (though maybe I won't need that if I'm using Chrome?).
[...]

The installation of chrome is covered in a qubes doc which I wrote to build a multimedia appvm template:

- O
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages