"The team led by security expert Joanna Rutkowska has released the first beta version of the Qubes OS Linux distribution. The operating system can also be installed on a USB stick thanks to its new installer. Qubes aims to provide security through virtualisation. It uses a Xen hypervisor to run applications in separate virtual machines based on Fedora 14. As a result, online banking data are not at risk when a game running in its own VM turns out to be a trojan."
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Member since:
2007-03-13
Member since:
2007-11-23
The main ideas behind the whole project are OK [though you can't deny that virtualising everything is NOT sufficient. Security is the process, not a product].
Anyway ... why they had chosen to use Fedora and KDE as the GUI is totally beyond my comprehension.
Personally I find KDE unintuitive. I spent quite some time on finding things in this invironment once I booted the whole darn thing ...
And Fedora ... OK, it might be related to ones taste [or lack of], but It isn't the best possible option out there. Plus - it didn't detect my peripherals during installation, which made the whole thing twice as much painful as it could be.
Edited 2011-04-16 07:20 UTC
Member since:2007-03-13
Member since:2009-06-20
Member since:2011-02-10
You said:
Anyway ... why they had chosen to use Fedora and KDE as the GUI is totally beyond my comprehension.
And then you said:
Personally I find KDE unintuitive. I spent quite some time on finding things in this invironment once I booted the whole darn thing ...
The keyword is "Personally" which is the answer of your "totally beyond my comprehension complaint"...
It is their personal choice to use KDE instead of GNOME or anything else.
Member since:
2007-07-27
as well, called "Zones". But it is much more lightweight. A zone is running a kernel, but that kernel has all its API calls, remapped to the underlying Solaris kernel. This means that every kernel you run, is actually using the Solaris kernel. Every zone requires 40MB RAM, where it virtualizes some data structs. Very safe. Total separation. Every zone uses it's own ZFS fileystem. You can shut down a zone, and send it over the network to another Solaris server and start it up there. Very cool. I use zones to run VirtualBox, and Windows in a zone. Very safe.
Member since:2010-03-22
Member since:2007-08-27
Member since:2007-03-13
Member since:2005-08-10
Well for starters, so long as Qubes isn't written with too many Linux specific features in mind, one could possibly use any OS that can act as a Dom0, such as Solaris or NetBSD.
Member since:2009-06-20
Member since:2007-03-13
Member since:2011-02-10
To answer your question, let us go to the website in question http://qubes-os.org/Home.html , why they designed that thing on top of Linux:
Qubes is an open source operating system designed to provide strong security for desktop computing. Qubes is based on Xen, X Window System, and Linux, and can run most Linux applications and utilize most of the Linux drivers. In the future it might also run Windows apps.
The keywords are "most Linux applications and utilize most of the Linux drivers" and "desktop computing." Whatever the Solaris or BSD world can offer with million light years ahead of being cooler than any Linux solutions _without_ APPLICATIONS and DRIVERS support, Solaris and BSD are nothing but a bunch of two different words. They are "cool" given if you use them properly, but if you want to run diverse applications with it and peripheral support, then it is useless.
Edited 2011-04-18 04:34 UTC
Member since:2005-08-18
Who's talking about BSD and Solaris? OpenVZ is a Linux technology.
Desktop computing works rather well in OpenVZ containers actually and I presume it will work just as well with LXC when it matures. Granted you don't get direct hardware access but that isn't exactly a shining moment for Xen either.