New user getting started questions

Michael Raskin
2021-01-05T20:02:32Z

>I've been running Qubes for a few years now and I'd like to give
>Spectrum a try, as I've been having some hardware and performance
>problems with Qubes. Is there some up-to-date guide I can follow? I

Well, there are currently tools as in building blocks, but not yet
something announced as a complete solution for a usease.

>found https://alyssa.is/using-virtio-wl/#demo and was able to see the
>weston terminal. I also tried updating to the latest commit and was
>able to get a nested wayfire window with:
>
> nix-build . -A spectrumPackages && ./result-3/bin/spectrum-vm
>
>(I'm fairly new to Nix, so not sure if this is the right way to do things)
>
>I managed to change the keyboard layout, mount a tmpfs for home, and
>increase the memory enough to start firefox, but I haven't managed to
>get much further. Things I tried so far:
>
>- I tried replacing wayfire with weston-terminal, to avoid the nested
>session. But sommelier segfaults when I do that.
>- I tried adding `--shared-dir /tmp/ff:ff:type=9p` to share a host
>directory. Then `mount -t 9p -o trans=virtio,version=9p2000.L ff /tmp`
>in the VM seemed to work, but `ls /tmp` crashed the VM.
>- I tried using `-d /dev/mapper/disk` to share an LVM partition, but
>`mount -t ext4 /dev/vdb /tmp` refused to mount it.
>- I tried enabling networking with `--host_ip 10.0.0.1`, etc, but it
>said it couldn't create a tap device. I guess it needs more
>privileges.
>
>Ideally, I'd like to run a VM with each of my old Qubes filesystems,

Depending on how the device setup ends up going, that might be practical
or not so practical (although hopefully a reasonable amount of driver
and window system setup inside each VM should be enough in any case)

>to get back to where I was with my Qubes setup, before investigating
>new spectrum stuff (e.g. one app per VM). Do you have any advice on
>this? I see these lists are a bit quiet - I hope someone is still
>working on this because it sounds great :-)

1) Alyssa is still working on it

2) There is a grant with some milestones still to be reached (and some
earlier ones ahve been paid) and some support from people sponsoring
Alyssa's work via GitHub

3) Alyssa does so much of the work alone, that a lot of things are just…
done without any discussion; some of the discussions are via IRC.

4) Alyssa has mentioned taking a break, and she has not yet announced
being back from the break (which is in line with the planned duration of
the break)

PS. On the other had, do not forget that SpectrumOS aims at better
efficiency in some places, meaning it is almost sure to end up less
secure than Qubes, and the first usable version will likely still be
a prototype with even lower level of security due to compromises in the
component choice.