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Improve GUI domain documentation: avoid calling it a "compromise solution"; clarify whether passthrough is a security or a usability feature #8492

Open adrelanos opened 1 year ago

adrelanos commented 1 year ago

Quote https://www.qubes-os.org/news/2020/03/18/gui-domain/#the-compromise-solution

The compromise solution

This can cause a lot of confusion.

I can follow your train of thought in the blog post.

  1. best solution - GPU passthrough: the perfect-world desktop solution
  2. next best solution - Virtual server: the perfect remote solution
  3. third best solution - The compromise solution

But this is far too complex for users to property contextualize. The problem is, the word compromise (also meaning "I got hacked") is very close to compromised. The compromise here implies "less secure". And yes, it might be "less secure".

The fallacious interpretation is "then better don't use it". Less secure than what? Less secure than not using GUI domain at all? No.

What the real ordering from best to worst security is, as far as I understand is the following:

  1. best solution - Qubes GPU passthrough: the perfect-world desktop solution
  2. next best solution - Qubes Virtual server: the perfect remote solution
  3. third best solution - Qubes The compromise solution
  4. fourth best solution - Qubes without GUI domain
  5. non-Qubes

This also seems weird compromise solution is used in the following context:

Quote https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/gui-domain/

Here, we describe how to setup sys-gui that we call hybrid mode or referenced as a compromise solution in GUI domain.

The next source of confusion exaggerating this issue is the word passthrough which is easily understood and already tagged as a negative word in this context. This is because quote .

Attaching a PCI device to a qube has serious security implications.

PCI passthrough and GPU passthrough are historically have often been usability features. Not security features.

Using PCI passthrough has been used as a compromise to make certain devices work Or GPU passthrough might be useful for graphically intense applications such as gaming.

However, using passthrough of devices to a dedicated VMs sys-gui / sys-audio is a security feature, not a usability feature.

Qubes documentation is very technical but it lacks contextualization of the very essentials for laymen. These are easy to add. I can send some pull requests.

Instead of compromise I would suggest words such as reasonable or feasible. The compromise solution could be renamed to the hybrid solution.

Please correct me if my understanding is wrong.

adrelanos commented 6 months ago

Ping?