Next update of Qubes?

[Catacombs]

I see that Qubes does not announce planned new releases of Qubes, or state what should trigger an update.

I am between updating Qubes with Fedora 32, which also means creating AppVMs, I am not sure how I would update the Work VM, as it is, I am guessing, based on Fedora 32.  All this translates to my working with Salt, which is shown a lot of in this forum.  Meaning I should learn Salt and some other things. 

Just seems like it would be so much easier if we had an entire new version of Qubes, which I could install.  At the same time, I am making sure any Malware I might have picked up gets clobbered.   And leaving me with the problem of re installing all of my personal files, my own personal fixes to Template VMs.  Instead many are learning Salt. 

This question also comes back to making Qubes easy for Human Rights Activists and Journalists.   I do not think those two groups will go to the trouble of learning how to install Salt.  I agree that since most of the changes for Human Rights Activists/Journalists are made inside Template VMs of (now usually Debian, or Fedora), that the folks who create Qubes for us, should not concern themselves with those things. 

So, anyone here have a guess as to what new version of Qubes might be nearly out?  Or should I start reading about how to work with Salt? 

[Jarrah]

> I see that Qubes does not announce planned new releases of Qubes, or state
> what should trigger an update.

Releases are announced when ready for testing. In addition, releases of
templateVMs are announced in the Qubes-users/devel mailinglists.

> I am between updating Qubes with Fedora 32, which also means creating
> AppVMs, I am not sure how I would update the Work VM, as it is, I am
> guessing, based on Fedora 32. All this translates to my working with Salt,
> which is shown a lot of in this forum. Meaning I should learn Salt and
> some other things.

I can't comment on doing it through salt, but using the Qubes Template
Manager you can select which template a VM uses and mass change the
templates.

> Just seems like it would be so much easier if we had an entire new version
> of Qubes, which I could install. At the same time, I am making sure any
> Malware I might have picked up gets clobbered. And leaving me with the
> problem of re installing all of my personal files, my own personal fixes to
> Template VMs. Instead many are learning Salt.

I'm not sure that reinstalling the entire OS and adding all changes made
to it would be better for most people. Installing a new template with
`qubes-dom0-update qubes-template-fedora-32` and moving VMs over to it
took me 10 minutes. Installing Qubes and getting the OS customised can
take me a few hours.

> This question also comes back to making Qubes easy for Human Rights
> Activists and Journalists. I do not think those two groups will go to the
> trouble of learning how to install Salt. I agree that since most of the
> changes for Human Rights Activists/Journalists are made inside Template VMs
> of (now usually Debian, or Fedora), that the folks who create Qubes for us,
> should not concern themselves with those things.
>
> So, anyone here have a guess as to what new version of Qubes might be
> nearly out? Or should I start reading about how to work with Salt?

The next version of Qubes (4.1) is well on it's way. You can see
progress in the following links:

https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/5529

https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/5763

https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+milestone%3A%22Release+4.1%22


As for salt, it's always recommended to learn and use a configuration
management system. But it's not necessary. It entirely depends on
whether you need to be able to rebuild your system from scratch or
automate updates.

[brenda...@gmail.com]

On Saturday, May 23, 2020 at 11:32:31 AM UTC-4, Catacombs wrote:

I see that Qubes does not announce planned new releases of Qubes, or state what should trigger an update.

Just seems like it would be so much easier if we had an entire new version of Qubes, which I could install.  At the same time, I am making sure any Malware I might have picked up gets clobbered.   And leaving me with the problem of re installing all of my personal files, my own personal fixes to Template VMs.  Instead many are learning Salt. 

This question also comes back to making Qubes easy for Human Rights Activists and Journalists.   I do not think those two groups will go to the trouble of learning how to install Salt.  I agree that since most of the changes for Human Rights Activists/Journalists are made inside Template VMs of (now usually Debian, or Fedora), that the folks who create Qubes for us, should not concern themselves with those things. 

 

Following along the work in all of the github repos and in qubes-issues, I would say definitely this calendar year.

4.1 is being tested (major changes: dom0 moving from fedora 26 to fedora 32 ; xen moving from 4.8 to 4.13 or potentially 4.14, depending on timing.).

Personally, I'm waiting for "finalization" of the work on the installer disk layout changes which move dom0 storage into a dedicated pool, with all the VMs in a separate pool (see here: https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-anaconda-addon/pull/7 ).

Once that occurs, I'll try another 4.1 testing ISO from https://openqa.qubes-os.org/  [I really only want to dive back into 4.1 testing when I know it's close to or at the final disk layout and likely to end up in a similar state as if I'd installed once 4.1 is released.]

In addition ITL/Qubes is working with the Freedom of the Press foundation on some potential changes to make Qubes usage more straightforward (primarily UX) for all but also to support journalists / activists (that, in addition to FOTPF's fork that adds Secure Drop for that audience). See here: https://github.com/freedomofpress/securedrop-ux/wiki/Qubes-Journalist-Workstation and follow along in the qubes-issues github repository for the UX work.

My mental bandwidth (WF a very small H w/ partner and toddler) isn't available for getting up to speed to formalize configs with salt at the moment, esp. as Qubes is more of a hobby for me. I just keep notes about what I need to "sudo dnf install" and/or "sudo apt-get install" in various templates should I need to upgrade, and then throw all notes/downloads/scripts into a vault VM that I backup from time to time. But I only support myself.

Brendan