Bob Mottram
@micahflee @bcrypt @femme @covalent The main problem with Qubes is that it looks like it will only install on quite specific hardware. I tried installing it on my current laptop but it obviously wasn't going to run VMs.
Apr 5, 2017 at 5:01pmWeb
Show thread\u221e ✅Apr 5, 2017
@bob @femme @bcrypt @micahflee Qubes looks like it has quite specific hardware requirements, but the hardware support is pretty broad: for instance, any i5/i7 since Sandy Bridge (6 years ago) has both VT-x for virtualization and VT-d for DMA protection, and Intel puts both features in i3's now...
Show thread\u221e ✅Apr 5, 2017

@micahflee @bcrypt @femme @bob

Qubes has been too conservative with marketing their hardware support, I guess since they don't want to be responsible for any false positives.

But, of the processor features they use, one (VT-x) is supported almost everywhere, and the other (VT-d) is used to protect against DMA attacks (e.g., network card isolation), so if you're missing it you're no worse off than not using Qubes.