Re: [qubes-users] Qubes R4.0 feedback (network problems, display problems)

2018-09-09 Thread Franz
On Sun, Sep 9, 2018 at 7:32 AM, Alex  wrote:

> Hello everybody,
> I finally managed to upgrade my i5 4690 to an i7 4770 (found on ebay),
> and since it supports VT-d I have now been able to upgrade to R4!!!
>
> Just to remember: I have a desktop setup, with an ASUS Z97a motherboard,
> 32GB Ram, 3 hard disks (2 of which are software-raid via Intel stuff)
> and a Matrox C680 connected to six DELL displayport monitors.
>
> I use i3wm with a custom status bar to show cpu/gpu temperature (with
> some bash text-manipulation magic on the output of the "sensors" command).
>
> My main problems with R3.2 were:
>  * displays randomly would not come up after resuming from sleep
>  * network sometimes does not restart after resuming from sleep
>  * outdated software in dom0 (say, dmenu...)
>
> After the upgrade, where I took the opportunity to refresh my custom
> fedora 28 base template by cloning the one in the repository and
> installing software in that, I restored my qubes by copying files from
> the old private.img files. My typical customizations:
>  * urxvt with nice fonts in .Xdefaults
>  * monodevelop (which I later removed, since it uses 100% of one CPU
> core, and switched to VS Code after a brief attempt with Atom)
>  * dotnet core (yes, I do mostly kubernetes software in C# on linux)
>  * keepassxc instead of keepassx2
>
> I'm very happy with R4; like I said in older messages, I use Qubes
> mainly for the clean architectural separation of concerns of my computer
> life, and not much for the increased security,


This is very important for characterizing Qubes and should be reported
somehow on the main page https://www.qubes-os.org/.

Otherwise the transmitted message is: "Qubes is reasonably secure, but you
have to withstand a complex architecture"

A better message is: "Qubes is reasonably secure and allows a clean
architectural separation of concerns to put order in your digital life"

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[qubes-users] Qubes R4.0 feedback (network problems, display problems)

2018-09-09 Thread Alex
Hello everybody,
I finally managed to upgrade my i5 4690 to an i7 4770 (found on ebay),
and since it supports VT-d I have now been able to upgrade to R4!!!

Just to remember: I have a desktop setup, with an ASUS Z97a motherboard,
32GB Ram, 3 hard disks (2 of which are software-raid via Intel stuff)
and a Matrox C680 connected to six DELL displayport monitors.

I use i3wm with a custom status bar to show cpu/gpu temperature (with
some bash text-manipulation magic on the output of the "sensors" command).

My main problems with R3.2 were:
 * displays randomly would not come up after resuming from sleep
 * network sometimes does not restart after resuming from sleep
 * outdated software in dom0 (say, dmenu...)

After the upgrade, where I took the opportunity to refresh my custom
fedora 28 base template by cloning the one in the repository and
installing software in that, I restored my qubes by copying files from
the old private.img files. My typical customizations:
 * urxvt with nice fonts in .Xdefaults
 * monodevelop (which I later removed, since it uses 100% of one CPU
core, and switched to VS Code after a brief attempt with Atom)
 * dotnet core (yes, I do mostly kubernetes software in C# on linux)
 * keepassxc instead of keepassx2

I'm very happy with R4; like I said in older messages, I use Qubes
mainly for the clean architectural separation of concerns of my computer
life, and not much for the increased security, so what I found most
interesting were:
 * updated software in dom0 - nice i3 settings, merged with my custom
ones, dmenu now supports sane font settings (I don't have a very sharp
eyesight)
 * support for backing up live qubes - as one can imagine, it only takes
the snapshot before they were last started, but still a big plus - I
don't have to shut them down to back them up like in R3.2. Still the
backup, with encryption, bogs somewhat down the system so I can't work
while backup is running
 * the fact that vm volumes are no more kept in .img files but are
mounted in /dev/qubes_dom0 simplifies my not-so-much-secure system
administration

What remains:
 * network sometimes does not restart after resuming from sleep
 * displays sometimes do not come up after resuming from sleep

For the first problem, I did realize in R3.2 that by shutting down
sys-net and starting it back up the network was able to start again, so
I was investigating something related to power management. I still did
not find an exact culprit, but I managed to hack together a simple bash
three-liner script in sys-net that shuts down the PCI device for the
ethernet adapter and scans the PCI bus again:

echo 1 > /sys/bus/pci/devices/00[...]/remove
sleep 1s
echo 1 > /sys/bus/pci/rescan

With this, network is automatically started again by NetworkManager when
the PCI device is rediscovered.

For the second problem, a quick google-fu told me that it looks like a
common issue among all lines of DELL DisplayPort monitors. Even with
Windows and their mysterious drivers, oftentimes the displays that go to
sleep / other power save states are not able to wake up correctly when
the computer resumes operations; this seems to happen with at least both
radeon (like my Matrox C680) and nvidia cards, and insiders seem to say
that it's a weakness in the DP protocols. So I cannot blame Qubes for
this, even if with older releases (say, R3.0) this problem did not seem
to happen as often.

Summing it all up, the upgrade went well and the new version is a
welcome step forward.

A big thank you to everyone involved! Keep up with the good work.

-- 
Alex

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