Qubes OS is a Linux distribution focused on being "a reasonably secure operating system"
The new version of Qubes OS 4.2 It arrives shortly after two years of development (since the release of the previous 4.1.x branch) and features a large number of important updates, such as Xen 4.17, Debian 12, change from Gnome to XFCE, PipeWire support among other things .
For those of you who are new to Qubes OS, you should know that this is an operating system that implements the idea of using a hypervisor for isolation strict application and operating system components (each class of applications and system services run on separate virtual machines).
Applications in Qubes are divided into classes according to the importance of the data that is processed and the tasks that are solved. Each class of application (eg work, entertainment, banking) as well as system services (network subsystem, firewall, storage, USB stack, etc.) run on separate virtual machines running with the Xen hypervisor.
What's new in Qubes OS 4.2
This new version, which is presented from Qubes OS 4.2 the base of the system, has been updated to the new Xen 4.17 hypervisor version (previously Xen 4.14 was used), in addition the base Dom0 has been updated to Fedora 37 (it is worth mentioning that the template for virtual environments based on Fedora 37 was proposed in the latest Qubes 4.1.2 update), it is also highlighted updating virtual environments Debian-based branch has been updated Debian 12.
Another change is the ssupport SELinux in Fedora templates, which increases the robustness of security policies, in addition to the templates for creating virtual environments based on Fedora and Debian have been changed to use the Xfce user environment instead of GNOME by default.
In addition to this, it is noted that application menu implementation has been completely rewritten, as well as graphical interfaces for configuration (Qubes Global Settings), creating new environments (Create New Qube) and updating virtual machine templates (Qubes Update).
Moreover, The new policy presented by Qrexec stands out They default to a new, more flexible format of Qrexec rules that define who can do what and where in Qubes. The new version of the rules presents a significant increase in performance and a notification system that makes it easy to diagnose problems.
Of the other changes that stand out of this new version:
- The location of the GRUB configuration file (grub.cfg) is unified for UEFI and classic BIOS.
- Added support for PipeWire media server
- Now fwupd is used to update firmware
- Added an option to automatically clear the clipboard one minute after the last paste operation. To enable automatic cleanup, use the command qvm-service –enable VMNAME gui-agent-clipboard-wipe
- To build official packages, the new Qubes Builder v2 build tools are used, which improves the isolation of assembly processes.
- The configurator offers a separate section for managing GPG.
Finally yes you want to know a little more about it of this new version, you can read the details in the Qubes OS 4.2 release note at following link.
Download Qubes OS
If you want to try this Qubes OS you can do it by downloading the system image from its official website and in its download section you will get it, you can do it in the following link
A system with 6 GB of RAM and a 64-bit Intel or AMD CPU with support for VT-x c EPT/AMD-v c RVI and VT-d / AMD IOMMU technologies is required, an Intel GPU (NVIDIA GPU) is desirable. and AMD are not well tested). The installation image size is 6GB. It is important to emphasize that Qubes OS can not only be installed as the main operating system, but also offers the possibility of testing it in its Live version.