Bug, Qubes 4.1

[catacombs]

Fresh install of Qubes 4.1 on Lenovo X230 with 16 GB  RAM, 500GB Samsung SSD.

Runs with original Qubes 4.03.  After Qubes 4.1, on the upper right hand side of screen.  I see my account name, and to the left a flickering of something that starts and then goes away.  The entire top twitches left to right every second or two.  Pretty annoying

The first solid icon, on the left, is the ClipBoard.  Guessing it is either the Q for Qubes Manager or the Update Icon.  Not a biggie. 

I tried Qubes 4.1 as I had issues trying to upgrade Qubes 4.03.  I got Fedora 31 to download and install.  I had and error message when I started the Software Manager I had something can not find repository, or that is how I interpreted it. 

I thought I might get it to clear by running the scripts in terminal dom0 that are available for installing Fedora 31 in a different way. 

I appreciate that the smart people who made copying into dom0 difficult.  It is the correct security procedure.  I should admit I appreciate it. 

Thought might be useful if the next time you send out a version of Qubes, that you left in Dom0 a note file of the different scripts that will be useful about the time of initial install.  Saves a newbie a lot of time searching for information and then trying to get it to work.

As I do not have at home internet, or a place to plug an ethernet cable in, I find it is easier to download an entire Iso of Qubes, and start over.  I have not used Qubes long enough to have much in the way of data files to lose.   However, my approach emphasizes to me how important it is to me to do proper backups of my data.  Easier to recover from problems, upgrade. 

Which makes me wonder how some view backups with Qubes.  Generally it has been my experience with computers that any sort of auto backup meant to make backups easy, tend to find unique and creative ways to fail just when one needs them.   I imagine that you folks have a lot more understanding of this than I do.  I plan on simply copying from a Qube, like say work, or personal, vault into an Veracrypt container on an USB drive.  Multiple drives on multiple days, and times.  I don't expect you guys to warn me of problems of it involves decrypting on the laptop side, and re-encrypting to the USB drive. I will test through and discover what recipe works.   I did think it seems to be an issue for some now, in that some on the Users forum have problems getting data off a previously used drive.  Maybe you fellows might think and find an easy option for those who are less experienced, knowledgeable, and have less patience trying to trick a computer into doing what I think it should do.  The way I think it should do it.

I have been told that for an experienced user, the upgrades are easier. 

Thank you for  your efforts.  I realize that for every hour I spend trying to install Software, you fellows have probably spent several thousand hours.  I hope this Post was clear, even if too wordy.

[Sven Semmler]

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On 6/20/20 5:21 PM, catacombs wrote:
> Which makes me wonder how some view backups with Qubes.

Obviously backups are essential, especially if you are still learning
and like me sometimes do something that results in rather catastrophic
states. Also, I do not keep anything in any cloud. It only exists on
my Qubes install. So again: backups are essential.

There are efforts of providing incremental backups for Qubes to only
copy what changes and reduce backup time. I have no experience with that
.

Here is what I do: with the build-in backup of Qubes a full compressed
and encrypted backup of everything on my machine takes between 4-5
hours and consumes ~260 GB.

I have a 2TB USB3 external drive that is encrypted. When I am ready to
go to bed, I shutdown all Qubes except sys-net (which in my case
doubles as sys-usb), delete the oldest backup on the drive and start
the backup with the option to turn the computer off once it is done.

This way I always have the last 7 days. I also have a second drive
where I manually copy the last backup of the month for the last 4
months. However, if I do something stupid I usually am aware of it
right away and simply restore the backup from last night.

Another advantage is that you can usually very well recall what you
have been doing since the morning and copy just those few mails,
projects / documents to a USB stick to be restored after restoring the
big backup.

Side note: maybe I do something fundamentally wrong, but my SSD based
system slows down noticeably after several months. There's nothing
like a clean Qubes install and restoring from backup to regain full
performance. ;-)

Also often I mess up just a single template, which can be restored
much faster. In general, besides all the security related advantages
of Qubes, I find it greatly liberating to have the freedom to
experiment knowing I can always switch back to the working template /
backup. Or even move my entire install to another computer as long as
that computer runs Qubes.

Fully recovering from any disaster never takes more than 5 hours. Try
doing that with any other OS!

/Sven

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[Sven Semmler]

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I am sorry ... just realize this went to qubes-devel. It is obviously
off topic here. Mea culpa!

/Sven

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[catacombs]

I saw that there was another version for Qubes 4.1   I had installed Qubes-4.1-20200526-x86_64

This morning I downloaded and installed Qubes-4.1-20200614-x86_64

I am guessing the differentiation in numbers between these two refer to dates of release. 

Flickering on upper right of screen is gone.  I have a Q.  I do not have an Icon for update.  Else the page is stable in appearance.  I have not used this new install yet. 

I downloaded this new version 5.4 GB  at Mcds, on an open public WiFi at Mcds (worse using Windows 10)  in about fifteen minutes, with a Skylake processor laptop.  On Friday I spent over three hours downloading Fedora 31, and the Whonix updates at the public library on my X230 using Whonix. 

Yes, I am aware this is not the best way to get a trustworthy install.   But this is not a finished Qubes 4.1 to trust yet.   The check process made available on the first page of the ISO runs quite fast on my X230.  less than five minutes.