-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256 Hi,
Currently Qubes OS installer is starting full Xen + Linux dom0 to perform installation. On one hand it is good, because it is obvious at this early stage if hardware is not compatible (especially display driver and its cooperation with Xen). But on another hand, it is IMHO much easier to fix such problems having the system already installed. When even installer does not start, in most cases the only alternative is trying other installer (in extreme case - building custom installation image). Also, starting Xen for installation require some effort when preparing the installer (see below). Initially running Xen was needed because all qubes tools crashed when running without it - for example most of the tools do check running VM list and of course there is no such thing when running without Xen. But since Qubes OS 3.0, it is no longer the case - we have introduced so called "offline mode" to perform those few tasks (create initial qubes.xml, register installed template(s) etc) without need to launch libvirt daemon in chroot environment there. All the tasks really requiring Xen running are performed during first boot. Long story short - technically Xen is no longer needed during installation of Qubes OS. Or at least is very close to such state. So, now the question - do we want to keep launching Xen for installation, or launch just plain Linux? Benefits of keeping Xen: - earlier (negative) confirmation of hardware compatibility - possibility of (re-)introducing later something that require Xen running during installation - rescue mode have Xen running (but not libvirt), which may ease some tasks - no need to change anything related to ISO build, at least not right now Benefits of dropping Xen: - no longer limited to 32MB of initrd for UEFI boot[1] - easier starting installation in non standard environment (network boot, non standard installation media) - ability to use almost any tool to write USB installation image (most of them, like unetbootin, generously setup a bootloader to launch _linux_ image found in the ISO image) - better changes to install on not perfectly compatible hardware and easier way to adjust the system afterwards (like - get at least command line access and upgrade the kernel) - less work when upgrading to new installer version (as part of upgrading dom0 distribution) [1] https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/794#issuecomment-135988806 PS I'm writing this exactly because of the ticket linked above - I hit this problem again when building some Qubes OS 4.0 test images... - -- Best Regards, Marek Marczykowski-Górecki Invisible Things Lab A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2 iQEcBAEBCAAGBQJYG5ppAAoJENuP0xzK19cs7BsH/R8tfHYryBeopo4BF/zOFTIu btxtDSWNA17YQ3RuIUrdKCMZPZft0+7mgSw+MgLctY3yz/lhuOp3NgTR8r00MTBU fvjfS/KRaBZj4agPoxYe1+BRAOeBduLQi5G8NLhMl1H8w3Omjjy8kqyhxmc0uNR/ yEGvSCNJJyGgpKCjZOkXggP5HUWBXVDNfOkxBh6maTFPOuPCNiWVdd+iDrXZuvKX g4r1GbZNfVeEZIsieyjNQBNiZLTpqab53Kk+nMUG88yRcD8RpQ50sY4grjnXJlW9 TLpx9GIUeQBPUAo5pJl/28VZvfHtliqXI4+cF1kL9uZH587eac3hPKeRbz8pDlk= =ESsV -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "qubes-devel" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/qubes-devel/20161103201326.GJ22572%40mail-itl. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
