what is a good desktop motherboard to buy for qubes?

[raah...@gmail.com]

I'm looking to build a computer, Any recommendation of a specific mobo model? Or what exactly should i see it supporting in the specs? tks.

[Drew White]

Take a look here.
https://www.qubes-os.org/compatible-hardware/

That may help you a lot.
Not complete list, but has many.

Generally, and primarily, supports INTEL chipsets. NVIDIA graphics are good too. VERY easy to configure and set up.

[Eric Shelton]

That is a reasonable place to start.  Mainly, you want to identify a motherboard _AND_ CPU combination that support VT-d.  Everything else is about max memory, number and types of PCI/PCIE slots, and what integrated peripherals you would like to have.

Intel CPUs have gotten better with Haswell and Skylake in terms of supporting VT-d more often than not.  However, do check the relevant page on ark.intel.com (for example "6500 intel ark" in Google points you to http://ark.intel.com/products/88184/Intel-Core-i5-6500-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_60-GHz where you can see it says Yes for "Intel Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (VT-d)").  There are some CPUs running around that do not support VT-d.

As for the motherboard, one of the better techniques to finding one with working VT-d is to go to the vendor's webpage for the motherboard, download the PDF of the user manual, and see if the BIOS has a setting for VT-d, IOMMU, I/O virtualization, etc.  On rare occasion, enabling virtualization (VT-x) also enables VT-d, but usually it is a separate option.  Gigabyte and ASRock seem to consistently get it working right, although there may be other good vendors.

You can get AMD CPUs to work, but a lot of motherboard vendors have made mistakes in the past with getting IOMMU running correctly, and have not been responsive to fixing it.  Similar advice for identifying a motherboard with support applies.  However, I would take the extra step of seeing if anyone has gotten the IOMMU running with that motherboard via Google.

Good luck,

Eric

[7v5w7go9ub0o]

Also,

if you have some time, I'd wait a little bit and find out where JR goes
with this:

<http://blog.invisiblethings.org/2015/10/27/x86_harmful.html>

[raah...@gmail.com]

ok so vt-d or iommu mobo testament to working with qubes is most important got it.

[raah...@gmail.com]

I won't ever use gigabyte again, but I'll def check out ASRock.

[Tim W]

On Sunday, January 3, 2016 at 6:19:51 PM UTC-5, raah...@gmail.com wrote:

I'm looking to build a computer,  Any recommendation of a specific mobo model?  Or what exactly should i see it supporting in the specs?  tks.

Some other things to consider once you narrow down based on bios support for Vt-x vt-d are does it have the following:

Ps2 ports for keyboard and mouse

How many usb controllers does it have especially if it does not have PS2 ports

If you plan a dedicated GPU as well as the intel on board gpu does the bios have a disable function for it.

How many SATA controllers as this would allow for optical drives to burn not being attached to dom0.

I would not be surprised if you could not find most all of these.  Certainly with blend of motherboard soldered on + added cards you could achieve this.

The above would be list all on one motherboard would be very close to an ideal motherbaord for a desktop build IMO.

Anyways something to consider and discuss

[Eric Shelton]

I suspect where that is headed is a Purism-built notebook computer.  Otherwise, you are going to need reasonably competent surface mount soldering skills, be able to identify all of the flash chips (her paper suggests generally you can expect at least two - SPI flash and EC flash), transfer the contents of those flash chips to the trusted stick, and be able to debug when something goes wrong, to hack an existing notebook or desktop motherboard to implement her ideas.  Plus, on a notebook computer, you either have to add a new connector or repurpose a USB port.  A realistic implementation likely involves active vendor involvement, which I suspect puts things at least 6-12 months out before you could have something in your hands.

Eric

[Tim W]

Do you think this is something coming down the line is a reasonably timeline?

Hands down if I can get that I will gladly eat the cost of this thinkpad and grab a purism.     When others first mentioned her comments about locking down the intel ME I thought it was something that somehow could be done on current laptops but upon reading the detailed paper I saw it meant basically a condition of changing hw and connectors on the mb itself.  Not something 99% have the skill or knowledge to do.

[raah...@gmail.com]

purism is out now with qubes. pretty pricey but I guess nice if you can afford it.

[raah...@gmail.com]

I'm building a desktop for my mother to use with qubes only. I'm curious what the opinion is about these two mobos with an i5 4590 cpu.

http://www.microcenter.com/product/446595/H97M_Pro_LGA1150_mATX_Intel_Motherboard

vs

http://www.microcenter.com/product/446576/B85M-E-CSM_Socket_LGA_1150_B85_mATX_Intel_Motherboard

I'm leaning towards the asrock, I like how their descripiton of vt-d mentions security. Also i was thinking i may have a problem with 4th generation i5 4590 on that asus because it would depend on what bios version it has apparently according to their website.

Also a weird thing, there is 3 manual revisions for the asus b85m-G board, which is the newer board i was looking at first. but the latest manual no longer mentions the vt-d. does that mean the latest bios or board revision removed the vt-d option? So strange. Thats why i decided to go for the b85m-E board instead, even though i need the legacy ports, cause all its manuals mentions the vt-d. But now i'm thinking i shouldn't even take the chance on the asus board at all and just go for the asrock. I will just miss the 3 year warranty of the asus, but then again i only have psu's and hdd's die on me not mobos, so maybe I will be ok.

[raah...@gmail.com]

or if any other suggestions on microcenter.com, the cheaper the better lol.

[Bill Wether]

For a lot of stooch, cheap,  you might look into the system I recently configured--16 AMD Opteron cores, 28GB ECC, 500 GB SSD, TPM.  Total  cost for 150 Gflops peak: $900 or so.  With a reflashed BIOS (V 3.5, September 2015) it passes Qubes HCL testing with flying colours--IOMMU, HVM, and TPM--and doesn't have the Intel ME rootkit.  Works great.

For the exact details, see thread <https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/qubes-users/supermicro/qubes-users/BnQy67kxdrY/MbED_yJlAwAJ>

Cheers

BillW

[raah...@gmail.com]

wow thats over my budget for building something for my mother, but she said she wanted something powerful that will last as long as possible, maybe we will splurge. The other issue is i get burned so much online, because I have the worst luck in the world and everyone is out to get me, i try to get the parts locally in case i need to exchange something haha.

But your comments about intel me are hitting home right now, because while doing research on building a new pc, i'm starting to get scared shitless of it.