Hello, How do I strip down Qubes (e.g. from the boot menu or system config) to minimize resource usage, especially in the graphics subsystem?
I urgently need to get Qubes working on an old laptop with 2GB RAM, underpowered CPU and weak GPU (see below). By "urgently" I refer to a vulnerable personal situation I don't care to discuss publicly, save to say that the €20 for another SODIMM could mean no food and still no guarantee to get Qubes running... and I need a secure wifi communications station while soon living out of my automobile. The Qubes 3.1R-alpha1.1 LIVE version boots, but is unusable even with great patience. The menus flicker, and are almost impossible to click when they come up at all. From experience, I suspect the GPU is eating shared memory and still not getting enough of it. If lack of RAM is not the problem, I am in trouble. I did try the basic graphics mode from the "Troubleshooting" option in the boot menu; but then the system hangs in text mode during boot, without any interesting messages. The processor is AMD E-350, graphics Radeon 6310. This was a €250 laptop, when it was still manufactured five years ago! But it is what I have. I only need a few qubes to begin with: Whonix Gateway, Whonix Workstation, and one or two network utility qubes which should not take much in resources. Eventually I would scrape together more RAM... if I could just get it working. My experience level: UNIX yes, Linux not much, Xen not at all. I have hacked my BSD kernel, but am a real Linux newbie. I am looking to Qubes as the only out-of-the-box OS which advertises a sane approach to securing the graphical user interface (the Xorg code scares me). If I had a month or two to work on this, I could probably roll something of my own; but very suddenly, today, I need to deal with the "real world" where survival in society can depend on websites which are "Javascript required". More specific questions: * How to get more detailed diagnostic messages? (Maybe lack of RAM is not what is wrong.) * How to strip out anything fancy, especially in the graphics? (I don't mind running at 640x480 with all glitz turned off.) * Any other tips/advice? (Even "you ask the impossible" would be appreciated, so I don't waste time I don't have. But I note that [1] says, "It is possible to install Qubes on a system with 2 GB of RAM, but the system would probably not be able to run more than three qubes at a time.") All due thanks in advance! "Uncubed" [1] https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/user-faq/#how-much-memory-is-recommended-for-qubes -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "qubes-users" 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-users/7f80334a210264c7deda5906c0e893a1.webmail%40localhost. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
