Qubes OS 4.3.0 Release Candidate 3 released
The third release candidate for Qubes OS 4.3.0 has been made available for testing, offering numerous new features and enhancements over its predecessor, Qubes OS 4.2.
One of the key areas of improvement in this release involves the underlying infrastructure, with Dom0 upgraded to Fedora 41, Xen boosted to version 4.19, and the default Fedora template updated to Fedora 42, while the default Debian template has been revised to Debian 13. Additionally, the preloaded disposables have been optimized for better performance.
A significant new feature introduced in Qubes OS 4.3 is the "self-identity-oriented" assignment of devices, also known as the New Devices API. This innovation allows users to more easily manage their devices and enables a range of advanced features, including improved device management through a dedicated Device Assignments page in Global Config.
Another significant enhancement involves the reintroduction of Qubes Windows Tools (QWT), which now offers enhanced functionality for users working with Windows environments within their qubes.
In terms of user experience, several improvements have been made to the graphical user interface. The new Device UX workflow makes it easier for users to utilize the New Devices API, and a redesigned Qubes Devices widget provides an improved way to manage devices. Other UI/UX enhancements include flat icons for GUI tools, improved navigation using keyboard shortcuts, and a centralized tray notification system.
The GUI Daemon/Agent has also been optimized with several new features, including configurable background colors for users with dark themes, improved global clipboard notifications, and enhanced support for Windows qubes in systems with sys-gui*.
Hardware support improvements include better support for Advanced Format drives, filtering of input devices using udev rules, and a fix for graceful rebooting on certain UEFI systems. Additionally, the release includes better support for Bluetooth and external hot-pluggable audio devices with dynamic AudioVM switching.
In Qubes OS 4.3, security features include special settings for templates, options for how AppVMs or templates start up, using GRUB2 from Fedora with all security updates, and support for SSL client certificates and GPG keys for private template repositories.
Furthermore, the release enhances anonymity by prohibiting the opening of files, URLs, or any application from Whonix-Workstation qubes in non-Whonix disposables. It also prevents users from changing their Whonix Workstation qubes' netvm to sys-firewall (or other clearnet netvms) and includes support for kloak: keystroke-level online anonymization kernel.
Performance improvements have been made by using volumes directly instead of snapshots, removing qubes-rpc-multiplexer, saving the "system info" for qrexec policy checks, and reducing the number of state qubes to use less RAM. Additionally, Qubes OS 4.3 offers the option to permanently conceal specific TemplateVMs and StandaloneVMs from update tools.
Several new features have been added or improved in Qubes OS 4.3, including support for Ansible, Qubes Air, and the qrexec protocol extension to send source information to destinations. The release also includes better support for GUIVM, automatically removing the 'nomodeset' boot option when a GPU is attached, and initial basic steps to support Wayland sessions only in GUIVM.
Other notable features in this release include allowing users to add free-form text to qubes (for descriptions, notes, comments, remarks, reminders, etc.) and automatically cleaning up the QubesIncoming directory if empty. The admin API for reading/writing the denied device-interface list has also been improved, as well as the New Devices API for Salt.
Finally, several features have been dropped or replaced in this release, including the default screen locker being changed from XScreenSaver to xfce4-screensaver and Windows 7 support being dropped from QWT.
Qubes OS 4.3.0-rc3 is available for testing
We’re pleased to announce that the third release candidate (RC) for Qubes OS 4.3.0 is now available for testing. This minor release includes many new features and improvements over Qubes OS 4.2.
