crobinsonuk
commented
3 months ago I started off by reinstalling qubes so that I had a clean slate upon which to work. After the reinstall completed I tried something Ben had suggested and realised I could not only attach my USB BT dongle to sys-usb, but hear youtube being played on it. After marvelling briefly whether it could really be that easy, I noticed the dl speed was about 5% of what it was on my other qubes. However, when I attempted to overcome this imbalance, I somehow managed to disable ethernet altogether and well, to cut a long story short, after about 90 minutes ended up reinstalling qubes for the second time in an evening.
Hopefully this example emphasizes well my lack of technical ability outside of a Windows environment. This time when configuring I decided to combine sys-net and sys-usb and, while I could once again attached the BT dongle to sys-usb (well, sys-net now), I could no longer hear any sound. Without further ado I must therefore continue in my audio-seeking quest!
I start first with the Gonzalos guide to check salt is installed and enable qubes.user-dirs given that Ben's instructions seem to start afterwards
[core-admin@dom0 Desktop]$ sudo dnf install qubes-mgmt-salt-base-config
Qubes OS Repository for Dom0 0.0 B/s | 0 B 00:00
Errors during downloading metadata for repository 'qubes-dom0-cached':
- Curl error (37): Couldn't read a file:// file for file:///var/lib/qubes/updates/repodata/repomd.xml [Couldn't open file /var/lib/qubes/updates/repodata/repomd.xml]
Error: Failed to download metadata for repo 'qubes-dom0-cached': Cannot download repomd.xml: Cannot download repodata/repomd.xml: All mirrors were tried
Ignoring repositories: qubes-dom0-cached
Package qubes-mgmt-salt-base-config-4.1.2-1.fc37.noarch is already installed.
Dependencies resolved.
Nothing to do.
Complete![core-admin@dom0 Desktop]$ sudo qubesctl top.enable qubes.users-dirs
This command threw a massive strop too lengthy to paste here and refused to complete. Sighing in exasperation at my own inability, I tried looking at leo's guide to see if it would help me make sense of why Gonzalos command wouldn't work. After some time, I noticed that the syntax in leos guide had 'user' as singular rather than plural and so tried again:
[core-admin@dom0 Desktop]$ sudo qubesctl top.enable qubes.user-dirs
local:
----------
qubes.user-dirs.top:
----------
status:
enabledSuccess!
[core-admin@dom0 Desktop]$ sudo qubesctl top.enabled
local:
----------
base:
- /srv/salt/_tops/base/qubes.user-dirs.topAlthough Gonzalos guide had a second state in the base marked 'topd' neither he nor leo refer to this field so I ignore it and attempt to continue:
[core-admin@dom0 Desktop]$ sudo qubesctl state.apply
local:
----------
ID: directory_srv_user_salt
Function: file.directory
Name: /srv/user_salt
Result: True
Comment:
Started: 07:07:29.221272
Duration: 5.78 ms
Changes:
----------
/srv/user_salt:
----------
directory:
new
----------
ID: directory_srv_user_pillar
Function: file.directory
Name: /srv/user_pillar
Result: True
Comment:
Started: 07:07:29.227132
Duration: 1.016 ms
Changes:
----------
/srv/user_pillar:
----------
directory:
new
----------
ID: directory_srv_user_formulas
Function: file.directory
Name: /srv/user_formulas
Result: True
Comment:
Started: 07:07:29.228222
Duration: 1.135 ms
Changes:
----------
/srv/user_formulas:
----------
directory:
new
----------
ID: /srv/user_salt/top.sls
Function: file.managed
Result: True
Comment: File /srv/user_salt/top.sls updated
Started: 07:07:29.229580
Duration: 60.078 ms
Changes:
----------
diff:
New file
mode:
0640
----------
ID: /srv/user_pillar/top.sls
Function: file.managed
Result: True
Comment: File /srv/user_pillar/top.sls updated
Started: 07:07:29.289861
Duration: 60.16 ms
Changes:
----------
diff:
New file
mode:
0640
----------
ID: /srv/user_salt/locale
Function: file.directory
Result: True
Comment:
Started: 07:07:29.350095
Duration: 1.012 ms
Changes:
----------
/srv/user_salt/locale:
----------
directory:
new
----------
ID: /srv/user_salt/locale/init.sls
Function: file.managed
Result: True
Comment: File /srv/user_salt/locale/init.sls updated
Started: 07:07:29.351319
Duration: 60.288 ms
Changes:
----------
diff:
New file
mode:
0640
Summary for local
------------
Succeeded: 7 (changed=7)
Failed: 0
------------
Total states run: 7
Total run time: 189.469 msFeeling buoyed by my success, not to mention the bouncy house pumping in the background, I turn my attention back to leos guide, noticing the he seems more concerned with the creation of state files than top files. Remembering that Ben's instructions include both, I decide in for a penny, in for a pound, and throw his instructions into Dom0 too for good measure:
[core-admin@dom0 Desktop]$ sudo qubesctl state.sls qubes.user-dirs
local:
----------
ID: directory_srv_user_salt
Function: file.directory
Name: /srv/user_salt
Result: True
Comment: The directory /srv/user_salt is in the correct state
Started: 07:17:38.449349
Duration: 5.313 ms
Changes:
----------
ID: directory_srv_user_pillar
Function: file.directory
Name: /srv/user_pillar
Result: True
Comment: The directory /srv/user_pillar is in the correct state
Started: 07:17:38.454742
Duration: 1.078 ms
Changes:
----------
ID: directory_srv_user_formulas
Function: file.directory
Name: /srv/user_formulas
Result: True
Comment: The directory /srv/user_formulas is in the correct state
Started: 07:17:38.455895
Duration: 0.804 ms
Changes:
----------
ID: /srv/user_salt/top.sls
Function: file.managed
Result: True
Comment: File /srv/user_salt/top.sls exists with proper permissions. No changes made.
Started: 07:17:38.456907
Duration: 0.925 ms
Changes:
----------
ID: /srv/user_pillar/top.sls
Function: file.managed
Result: True
Comment: File /srv/user_pillar/top.sls exists with proper permissions. No changes made.
Started: 07:17:38.458025
Duration: 0.929 ms
Changes:
----------
ID: /srv/user_salt/locale
Function: file.directory
Result: True
Comment: The directory /srv/user_salt/locale is in the correct state
Started: 07:17:38.459026
Duration: 0.892 ms
Changes:
----------
ID: /srv/user_salt/locale/init.sls
Function: file.managed
Result: True
Comment: File /srv/user_salt/locale/init.sls exists with proper permissions. No changes made.
Started: 07:17:38.460125
Duration: 0.988 ms
Changes:
Summary for local
------------
Succeeded: 7
Failed: 0
------------
Total states run: 7
Total run time: 10.929 msI'm not going to bother with colours in this guide, but lets just say there was a lot more green on the page than I had expected. As the first track in my playlist comes to an end I put on another while reflecting on how to succinctly ask Ben what to do next.
ben-grande
I am a complete newb to salt and only slightly less of a newb to linux in general. The problem with qubes is that once you have bought into the design philosophy of anonymity through isolation, no other OS even comes close to fulfilling its promise. So, if one doesn't wish to compromise ones own usage envelope one becomes a compelled to soldier on with an OS with a learning curve so steep that I often feel when I take a step forward I must also take two steps back..
Truly, Qubes is the eve-online of operating systems. But just because something is difficult doesn't make it not worth doing,
I have been trying to get audio to work for sometime so that I can get my bluetooth speakers/headset to work. I'd like to set up a Kodi qube, since starting to use qubes about 4 months ago I have needed transfer any content with sound to my windows laptop, and in doing so defeating the purpose of using qubes altogether. Ideally I'd like to stop using windows outside of virtual instancing, if at all.
After a lot of failure I found Ben's guide last night and thought it looked so simple even I'd be able to do it; sadly however, this was not to be the case. After emailing Ben for help he suggested I document my journey here so that others might learn from my learning experience too. As I run into difficulty, Ben will explain how to overcome each issue so that ultimately there is a roadmap that other Qube newbies (Quewbies?) can subsequently follow.
Beyond Ben' the other salt resources I have looked at are qubes salt beginners guide by leo, and Salt Configuration Management by Gonzalos.
For the ease of subsequent readers, I will state the CLI command given and then in a quotation box state the output spat out by Dom0.