Change the OS used in dom0

[mfc]

We have discussed this numerous times but don't have an issue to track these discussions. It would be worth understanding what would be needed to change dom0 from Fedora to Debian (say Debian 8). Benefits include:

• increased hardware compatibility
• incorporate serious work taken towards reproducible builds
• better firstboot installer
• better (slower) release cycle than Fedora with longer-term support
• other things?

This ticket does not encompass modifying the desktop environment.

[andrewdavidwong]

The other issue about changing/upgrading dom0's OS: #1807

[Nurmagoz]

the problem is , why anyone would take fedora which is very known for its issues (from about 2000) and their enterprise lockin on the code (redhat sucking stuff...) ?

is there anyone can give me good reasons why taking fedora at the first place ? why not debian ? why not even gentoo (which is regarding of code easiness/freedomcy better than fedora)?

im afraid the one who took the first (lets call it "bad") decision is still continuing to take these decisions which will make qubes a disaster even if u shifted to debian or X distro.

so i think consultations on these decisions is very important. and fedora to be the core of qubes or any other linux distro is a mistaken step.

[woju]

Fedora is currently hosting the graphical environment and, like it or not, it has the best compatibility with graphic cards. Debian generally has old X drivers and older kernel. This is especialy problematic with Qubes, because the hardware selection is already constrained by virtualisation extension. We will surely consider switching the distro when we implement GUI domain. It is on out roadmap and depends on GPU passthrough, which does not currently work, at least not without patching Xen and libvirt. We this it will be hard enough, and the effort should be directed there. When switching, it will be neither Fedora nor Debian or any general purpose distro, but something very minimal, like Alpine.

[Jeeppler]

What exactly is the issue with GPU passthrough and Xen?

[marmarek]

Take a look at this thread - it's a good summary of GPU passthrough and PCI passthrough to HVM at all: https://groups.google.com/d/topic/qubes-devel/mvZBIUuyjv0/discussion

[minad]

It would be really nice to have a choice here. Like @woju I think it would be best to have a minimal distribution. However it might be nice to try something more declarative like NixOS.

I guess you wouldn't want to maintain different distributions, at least not for the official distribution? Do you have an idea how many Fedora specific configuations are in the qubes builder and the applications?

[marmarek]

I guess you wouldn't want to maintain different distributions, at least not for the official distribution?

Exactly.

Do you have an idea how many Fedora specific configuations are in the qubes builder and the applications?

During the current Fedora 20 -> 23 upgrade I'm trying to collect that list. Actually two lists:

• customization of GUI domain (which currently is the same as dom0) - this list is almost completed based on KDE5 decoration plugin #1784
• things customized in dom0 in general

I think the only really Fedora specific thing is update mechanism, other parts are just some system configuration which may need some adjustment when porting to other distribution (like config file locations etc).

Yes, we're considering NixOS here, but no decision has been made yet.

[unman]

I think the only really Fedora specific thing is update mechanism, other parts are just some system configuration which may need some adjustment when porting to other distribution (like config file locations etc).

I've got some experience here as I've been running Debian in dom0 for a while. It's an unholy mix of packages, alien and hand crafted stuff,(hand crafted like the Borja Jesus), and not full Qubes. But it works well enough for my slight requirements. I'm hoping that the upgrade to 3.1 will be somewhat closer to full Qubes.
So far I would say there is almost nothing Fedora specific that comes outwith the normal repackaging process.

It's interesting that @mfc suggests that Debian provides increased hardware compatibility, while @woju says Fedora has best compatibility with graphic cards. Is there any evidence either way?

[minad]

The Borja jesus 😂 That still sounds somehow encouraging! What are your reasons for prefering Debian on the dom0? I just started using qubes and I had much more experience with Debian, Arch, ... but basically none with Fedora. It took a short while to get accustomed - but in the end it feels all the same with some minor package manager differences. Since qubes takes a more radical approach in general, I think it would also make sense to consider a change to something conceptually "better" or more advanced like nix.