Moving Qubes R4 between two machines on regular basis

[brenda...@gmail.com]

Hi folks,

My understanding is that modern linux distros *mostly* perform device configuration on boot (as opposed to during installation) with the exception of X11 configuration and passing custom kernel parameters (e.g. blacklisting problematic hardware). Correct me if I am wrong about this.

So...

1. If a user wants to use a single boot device (e.g. a single SSD) on a workstation, move it to a laptop for travel, then move it back to the workstation on return...how feasible is this?

2. Besides likely having to create custom scripts to detect and swap X11 configurations, for GPU or display size, what else would likely end up being issues to resolve that are not addressed by boot-time driver assignment?

3. Does feasibility increase if the user chose the workstation/travel laptop pair based on the same (or similar) manufacturer, chipset and CPU family?

Thanks,
Brendan

[awokd]

brenda...@gmail.com:

> Hi folks,
>
> My understanding is that modern linux distros *mostly* perform device configuration on boot (as opposed to during installation) with the exception of X11 configuration and passing custom kernel parameters (e.g. blacklisting problematic hardware). Correct me if I am wrong about this.
>
> So...
>
> 1. If a user wants to use a single boot device (e.g. a single SSD) on a workstation, move it to a laptop for travel, then move it back to the workstation on return...how feasible is this?

Expect similar to most distributions, like Debian, but haven't done
frequently.

> 2. Besides likely having to create custom scripts to detect and swap X11 configurations, for GPU or display size, what else would likely end up being issues to resolve that are not addressed by boot-time driver assignment?

I could see EFI boot being an annoyance. If the mobile SSD is the only
"fixed" disk on both laptop and workstation, that would be an easier
scenario because in that case there's only a single EFI partition. Might
have to rerun efibootmgr on the device not used for install. Hardware
behaviour with multiple EFI partitions seems to be undefined and/or
implemented poorly. Legacy boot on both would be simpler, but:

> 3. Does feasibility increase if the user chose the workstation/travel laptop pair based on the same (or similar) manufacturer, chipset and CPU family?

If using legacy boot, you'll want to make sure the SSD presents as the
same boot device/sequence on both; for example /dev/sda0. Having similar
designs etc. should also help simplify this.

That's my thoughts at least.