For the time being, my setup is just for testing purposes and help to bypass some blocking issues: do not use it in production or on machine where security is a concern!
During my nigths trying to get Qubes OS working, I faced tow main and blocking issues:
* no boot, due to empty xen.cfg file
* system freeze, due to Broadcom BCM43602 wifi card
I am already using Qubes for my daily job on Intel NUC. For the time being, I installed Qubes on Macbook for test purposes. Later on I will review the security implications.
This model has the following features:
* 2,5 GHz Intel Core i7-4870HQ (2 quad cores)
* Dual Graphic Card
* Intel Iris Pro
* AMD Radeon R9 M370X
* 16Gb RAM
* 512Gb SDD
* Broadcom BCM43602 802.11ac wifi adapter
### 1. Reclaim space to be able to multiboot OSX
For security reasons, you should install Qubes using the whole disk. I preferred to keep OSX, so I shrunk OS partition:
* reboot in recovery mode
* run disk utility and shrink OSX partition, eg 150GB for OSX and the remaining space for Qubes OS
* reboot
### 2. Boot installer
Download and prepare a USB with Qubes 3.2
You can install Qubes using BIOS or UEFI:
* BIOS/CSM/Legacy: I have not been able to install using legagy, but I did not spent a lot of time on it.
* UEFI plain: grub menu appears, but any gave me a quick flash and returned the main menu. I can boot it manually fixing the grub.cfg file, adding commands linuexefi and initrdefi, pointing proper files in /efi/boot. After boot, I end up with not root file system.
* download [rEFInd] refind-bin-0.10.4.zip: this file is not signed, so decide if you trust it or not. SHA1 sum is 3d69c23b7d338419e5559a93cd6ae3ec66323b1e
* unzip it and run installer, which install rEFIind on the internal SSD
* As a general rule, keep the default values proposed during installation: you will change them later on
* Keep English, as language, locale
* My macbook has a US keyboard, so I cannot say what happens if you change keyboard layout
* DO NOT CHANGE the timezone, because it will trigger the wifi card, leading to a system freeze
* Choose the "installation destination": do not change anything and press DONE button
* Insert your password for Full Disk Encryption
* If you do not already have free space on internal SSD disk, you will be prompted to reclaim some space:
* If you shrunk OSX partition, disk utility left an empy partition: delete useless partition (eg: if you shrunk OSX parition, diskutil created an empty partition)
* Press on "reclaim space"
* Press on "begin installation"
* create your user and password
* after a while, installation completes
* DO NOT press "Reboot button"
Qubes OS is now installed, but you cannot boot it due to some issues, with bootloader configuration and wifi card.
You cannot Qubes boot using EFI/qubes/xen.efi because XEN bootloader configuration is broken.
You cannot even Qubes without XEN support, using GRUB2, because its configuration is broken too.
Let's fix it manually, switch to console, pressing Fn+CTRL+ALT+F2
### 4. Fix GRUB configuration
You can skip this section, but I found it very useful - during troubleshooting - to have a rescue system at hand. I could boot Qubes, without XEN support
Grub configuration file is using some wrong commands, which are not compatible with grub2-efi
~~~
chroot /mnt/sysimage
sed -i.bak -e "s/multiboot/chainloader/" -e "s/module.*--nounzip/initrdefi/" -e "s/module/linuxefi/" /etc/grub.d/20_linux_efi
exit
~~~
Now, despite XEN configuration is still broken, you have a rescue system booting vmlinux from rEFInd screen.
TBV1: chainloading XEN does not work, unless you specify the right disk prefix, eg: (hd1,gpt4)
TBV2: grub.cfg set the wrong disk in "set root" command
TBV3: in case you reach grub shell, you can
~~~
ls
~~~
and also reload config file and change it manualy before booting
~~~
configfile /EFI/qubes/grub.cfg
~~~
then press "e", edit grub cfg and boot pressing Fn+F10
### 5. Fix bootloader
* Fix grub2 configuration, which uses wrong command for EFI boot
* analyzing /mnt/sysimage/var/log/anaconda/program.log I found the faulty commands issues by Anaconda installer
* The main mistake is the efibootmgr, that needs the right commands. Just in case, re-apply all the commands, adapting to your own disk layout (-d /dev/sdxxx -p partition_number)
### 7. Fix system freezes due to Broadcom BCM43602
* If you experiences a system freeze, during VM setup, force a reboot and press OPTION key.
* You will reach grub shell
~~~
configfile /EFI/qubes/grub.cfg
~~~
press Fn+F10 to boot without XEN support
* Once booted, press Fn+CTRL+ALT+F4 to open a shell
* Log into system
~~~
sudo su -
systemctl disable qubes-netvm
~~~
Press Fn+F2 and complete setup
* reboot and you finally have your Qubes OS
* DO NOT launch sys-net machine
* Open its setting and remove wifi adapter from the Selected devices, using Qubes Manager or use the following command line. Get the BFD of the adapter and remove it. On my macbook BFD is 04:00.0 and you will use it later on, also
