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| Qubes R2 Beta 2 with KDE 4.9 environment (click for more screenshots) |
We're progressing fast and today I
would like to announce the release of Qubes R2 Beta 2 ISO. The
installation and upgrade instructions, as well as the ISO itself, can be
found via the our wiki page.
As usual, please remember to verify the digital signature of the
downloaded ISO.
The major changes in this beta release
include:
- Upgraded Dom0 distribution to the latest Fedora 18 (all previous releases used Fedora 13 for Dom0!)
- Upgraded default VM template also to Fedora 18
- Upgraded Dom0 kernel to 3.7.6
- Upgraded KDE environment in Dom0 (KDE 4.9)
- Introduced Xfce 4.10 environment for Dom0 as an alternative to KDE
- A few other fixes and improvements, including the recently discussed Disposable VM-based PDF converter
The upgrade of the Dom0 distribution and
kernel should significantly improve hardware compatibility – one of
the major problems with Qubes adoption so far, as we hear. Now, with the latest GPU drivers and Xorg packages, I hope we will be
able to cover a much boarder range of hardware (especially all the
newer GPUs).
The upgrade of KDE in Dom0 is mostly an
eye-candy type of improvement (but then, who doesn't like eye
candies!), as is the introduction of the Xfce4 as its alternative,
although, arguably, Xfce4 is considered faster and lighter than KDE.
In Qubes the choice of an actual desktop environment that runs in
Dom0 is not as important as it is on traditional Linux systems, I think,
simply because most of the functionality, typically provided by such
environments, such as apps and file management, is simply...
disabled, because on Qubes there are no user apps or files in Dom0.
Nevertheless people love and hate
particular window managers and environments, and we hope that now, by
supporting alternative environments, we could appeal to even more
users.
I'm glad that we just completed this
difficult phase of upgrading Qubes Dom0 distribution (for the first
time since Qubes R1 Beta 1!) -- this forced us to clean up the code
and prepare for some even bigger and bolder changes in the near
future. But those will come only in Release 3. As far as Release 2 is considered, we do have quite a few more tickets scheduled
for R2 Beta 3 milestone, but most of those represent various addons,
rather than modifications to Qubes core software.
So what are those brave changes that
are to happen in Release 3? That I will write about in a separate
blog post... Stay tuned!
So, please enjoy this latest Qubes R2 beta release, and be sure to send all your questions and comments, as well as
the HCL info, to the qubes-devel mailing list.
I have already upgraded my primary laptop to this release a few days
ago and everything seems to be working fine, so fear not!
Will this beta boot via an external USB 3.0 HDD?
ReplyDeleteI seem to remember there were problems in earlier versions.
If it will I will go and buy a drive tomorrow to run Qubes!
Thanks
@Felix: I don't know, likely it would, but we haven't tested it. Perhaps you could test it? And, BTW, such questions should be sent to qubes-devel, perhaps if you sent it there, somebody else would already respond you with a more meaningful answer.
ReplyDeleteSo much nicer than using Virtual Box. I have apps that aren't supported by windows 8 and I was trying to use Virtual Box to run Windows XP... I hate the mouse and keyboard capture aspects of it...sometimes I get trapped in the same window and can't get out of it (even by uncapturing keyboard and mouse) so I have to kill the process instead of shutting it down properly.
ReplyDeleteThe mouse and keyboard functionality are seamless using Qubes and Win 7 64bit HVM. Having a lot of fun using Qubes! Great job!
In other words, Qubes = pwn
-DD-
I got Qubes working inside of VMWare Workstation. I had to install Qubes on another machine, and then move the (external USB 3) disk to another machine specify the disk as a physical device to boot from in VMWare.
ReplyDeleteR2 Beta 2 supports "the latest GPU drivers" but HCL in wiki indicates still only Intel; I assume this means Nvidia still not fully supported and AMD cards unsupported.
ReplyDeleteMaking Qubes available for desktops/workstations would provide more beta-testing feedback. It is enough to warn end-users about unsigned binary drivers, not all of us will buy an extra PC to run Qubes.
Feydun
@Feydun: the HCL is currently being build for this new release. So, if you don't see your specific hardware in the HCL listed as "not working", then chances are high it will work. Just try it, and send a report to qubes-devel (successful or not).
ReplyDelete