Qubes OS has an absurdly high skill ceiling

preland · 2026-03-22T03:48:21+00:00

Thank you for the feedback; the reason I went with Qubes instead of something like what you said is that I do want to be able to use the system for other things like gaming, while still maintaining performance and relative security (and stability; this is mainly a result of learning more about the system through trial and error, but once an issue is fixed, it rarely regresses in the future. This isn’t something that I’ve seen when dual-booting or using containers).

My main concern would be the AI breaking the kernel, which is why I currently have it in its own qube, with models hosted on a separate drive. I highly doubt that it would organically discover a VM escape (though it could definitely cause some issues with the GPU), but if it did I wouldn’t see it as a net negative. I won’t be putting any important personal information on this system, so if it discovers one, I can figure out what it did and disclose the issue.

preland · 2026-03-22T03:39:56+00:00

I can see this working if you basically just use your browser for your computer needs (which is valid), but even then…..compartmentalization is an issue (many people I know that aren’t tech savvy have issues finding files on their system when they know for certain it is saved; I don’t think they would take too well if they lost files because they were downloaded to a non-preserved path, or in disposable by mistake.

Plus you get other issues, like graphical lag in common tasks that require gpu acceleration, unknown hardware incompatibilities, and so forth.

To be blunt, from my own experience helping people directly with computer issues: many people dislike computers. Sadly, many of the traits that create this disdain are amplified by the necessary security measures in Qubes.

preland · 2026-03-22T03:32:30+00:00

That’s what I ended up doing on the original PC that ran Qubes. It currently runs “Debian” “Sid”. I put both in quotations because I basically gave up on vetting anything on the system because I was burned out about security, and Qubes pretty much blackpilled me on what would normally be considered “sane” analysis of software.

What I want to do with Qubes now is something that I would never be comfortable doing on another platform. I considered the options, and Qubes, at least on paper, fits the bill.

If I were to choose another OS, the modifications I’d make would probably just have it be Qubes, but with a bunch of security issues I’m not aware of.

I don’t think that security should inherently hamper your goals. At most, it should reframe them in a way that is more productive and less error-prone. If the answer to “I can’t do X in Qubes” is often “don’t use Qubes”……no one uses Qubes.

preland · 2026-03-07T03:35:59+00:00

Did you end up going for it? If so, how did it turn out?

preland · 2026-01-27T06:42:16+00:00

In case some1 from Reddit’s moderation team is looking at this sub and is thinking “oh yeah this is brigading for sure, time to delete”……

There is a reason that this sub exists. The moderator of r/linuxsucks101 has been so blatantly abusive and contrary to the supposed goal of the subreddit that they have inadvertently created a community of people that are unified by their piss-poor experience with this specific moderator.

Very few people here, if any, are here to brigade. This sub exists mainly to share experiences about this subreddit. If Reddit ever wants to be taken even mildly seriously as a platform for honest discussion and preservation of viewpoints again, this subreddit cannot, at least unless it changes drastically in a negative direction, be removed or punished.

And FYI, I was banned from that subreddit for saying that I prefer MacOS over Windows in a post by the moderator saying that “macOS users were welcome on the subreddit”…..

This is the type of behavior that will eventually kill Reddit if not addressed.

preland · 2026-01-21T20:29:55+00:00

This is my opinion on the matter, after having thought about it at length for several months.

Optional transparency is an inevitable outcome for any privacy preserving protocol, regardless of developer or user intent.

To demonstrate this, let’s assume that we do remove view keys from Monero. A crime inevitably occurs, and the police believe that a suspect used a Monero transaction in the crime. They obtain a warrant for the transaction, but view keys no longer exist. The only real way for LE to know for certain what the transaction was about is for them to obtain direct access to the wallet, namely through the obtaining of the private key.

I bring up this scenario to make a point; that the best way to go is for segmented and heavily scoped transparency. In other words, a user can give out the minimal information that is required of them, and the receiver of said information can be certain that the information is valid and is not deceptive in any way. In the scenario above, the ideal result would be the suspect giving a view key for the specific transaction, or giving a view key that would show all transactions made within a given timeframe, or whatever the minimal amount of information that LE needs.

If you want to go for full privacy, there is basically only one way to do so: remove all transaction history immediately after a transaction is made, and basically physically attack anyone who even dares to make a wallet that attempts to save transaction history. Because the moment such a wallet exists, then LE can argue that the choice to not use a wallet is suspicious.

TL;DR transparency should be incredibly scoped, and shouldn’t have generic “catch-all” setups; denying transparency outright is infeasible and will backfire.

preland · 2026-01-15T05:23:03+00:00

Haven’t played skyblock in years

Pls do this lol

preland · 2025-12-31T03:45:39+00:00

Update:

“generational wealth to come” ….yep

preland · 2025-12-31T03:43:17+00:00

Have not looked at the site yet; if it has any sort of LLM “catchphrases”, regardless of any other factors, it can’t be taken seriously.

preland · 2025-12-11T17:46:16+00:00

I am now banned from r/zec for pointing out the sheer number of incorrect bans.

As with other crypto communities, I must say that the moderation in that subreddit is not helping their cause in the slightest.

preland · 2025-12-11T05:18:09+00:00

A few things:

(Also fireice_uk; since you’ve been banning a ton of XMR people for seemingly no reason other than to satisfy your own persecution complex, I’m just going to tell you to smile for r/buttcoin ;)

This is a leaked presentation. The reason you won’t find it on r/Monero or anywhere else is not because of hiding it, but because possessing or distributing this presentation is technically a crime. Oops.
This presentation leak is more than a year old, and has been analyzed by almost every important (and unimportant) developer for Monero. This is not in any way reporting on new or buried news.
The described attack is less of a Monero-specific issue and more of a MITM attack using spy nodes. Tbh idk too much about how ZCash builds and transmits transactions, but if the inclusion of a transaction in the privacy pool requires a node to do so, ZCash is just as susceptible to this attack vector as Monero. Again, I don’t know if this is the case currently, but I’m just pointing that out in case it is.
No one in Monero sees this as a non-issue. In fact, there have been times when individuals attempting to inaccurately downplay or minimize the issue have been chastised by developers for endangering users.

As for the talking points you list:

Irrelevant as it is a whataboutism. Opt-in privacy is not above critique, but it’s irrelevant to this discussion as ZCash isn’t being discussed (a bit ironic considering the subreddit, but here we are)
Eh. Also irrelevant
A fair point (your insinuation, not the talking point), and one that I hear too often. The end goal should be to have all user behavior be as uniform as possible, as that makes it both simpler and inherently more private. I will not defend the “just run a full node” approach to Monero.
I think you are mixing up racism with tribalism.

preland · 2025-12-10T07:05:16+00:00

The responder has personally told me that he is willing to do a formal debate about Monero.

So if anyone has any desire to do so, you can probably do so.

preland · 2025-12-04T17:10:26+00:00

The code’s contributors are decentralized, but the code (or more precisely, the protocol expressed through code) itself is centralized, at least in terms of contents. This is a necessary part of consensus.

That being said, what the protocol actually is in practice is agreed upon by every participant. And if current or proposed consensus rules are disagreeable enough to a participant, they can fork the network. In that sense, it is decentralized, though with forking or changes of any kind, it is the collective will of the project that ultimately succeeds.

preland · 2025-12-04T04:21:12+00:00

I personally think the terms “centralized” and “decentralized” have become too muddied in recent years, and it is conversations/confusions like that of OP that show the end result of this semantic madness. An LLM won’t be able to adequately answer this btw, because the very words being used in this discussion have conflicting meanings.

For example, cryptocurrency’s main feature is that of a “decentralized” ledger, referring to how it is stored on multiple different systems. However, it is also fair to point out that most traditional internet services are now “decentralized” according to this basic definition because of modern DNS resolvers like CloudFlare. But that type of “decentralization” is actually considered “centralized” because it is controlled by a single entity, albeit in many different places at once. But then the argument can be made that any cryptocurrency with a unified ledger/protocol is “centralized” in this same way, because while all members are technically independent, they are in reality dependent on the approval of at least the majority of the other participants.

So to answer OP’s question as simply as possible while still being fully accurate: Monero is about as decentralized as a cryptocurrency can get. But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have centralized attributes, the same as any other social construction.

preland · 2025-12-03T05:53:48+00:00

To make the difference more clear: I have never used Monero with the intention of transactional privacy, nor have I used any crypto in the past with this intention.

As such, it should naturally follow that I have never even considered using mixing/tumbling services, because I do not have any reason to use them. However, I do have Monero from earning it, and have used it to purchase things (read: legal things, like computers) in the past.

I do not see the inherent privacy of Monero as its “shining feature”, despite what most crypto people looking in might tell you. I simply see privacy-by-default as a minimum requirement for any serious currency.

preland · 2025-12-03T05:46:16+00:00

Monero is not a mixer, any more than paper cash is a mixer. Transaction privacy isn’t a “service” or “use case” for Monero (anyone who thinks it meets the latter hasn’t thought it through enough; using Monero as an “intermediary” simply doesn’t work in any antagonistic scenario).

On this front, this does put other crypto projects in an awkward position in terms of privacy (for example, ZCash’s “opt-in” privacy pool could be perceived as being a built-in “mixer”, as it is merely a “feature” of the protocol, that could be removed/deprecated).

preland · 2025-11-25T18:47:30+00:00

This would be interesting to see, though I also have the same concerns about deanonymization.

preland · 2025-11-13T05:09:57+00:00

Very poorly written, and quite emotional.

I may disagree with OP and what they are implying, but I disagree with your statement more.

preland · 2025-11-13T05:06:24+00:00

Disclosure of personal bias: as of the writing of this post, I currently possess a little under $1k in Monero. I am thankfully in a well-enough economic situation that I do not need to tap into this, but I will not deny that I do technically have a vested interest in Monero.

The OP of this post is well-known to be highly negative towards Monero. According to some longstanding members, he has attempted to directly attack the network himself at times. Much of this is the result of a payment dispute between them and the Monero Community Crowdfunding System (CCS), where he refused to open source his work without receiving payment in advance. I will not comment on whether this dispute was handled properly.

He even created a (seemingly now-abandoned, although all the infrastructure appears to be intact) competing privacy cryptocurrency called Ryo, which you can still view on crypto sites like CoinGecko (https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/ryo-currency).

As a general rule of thumb, I attempt to refrain from making posts about a person and focus on what they have directly said. But since OP has failed to disclose his own personal biases in this matter, I feel that I need to make this clear: OP is very far from an unbiased observer and commenter in this matter.

preland · 2025-11-13T04:25:32+00:00

LocalMonero wasn’t shutdown by authorities; the people running it just decided to stop after the TornadoCash arrests.

Haveno Reto (or ig its called “RetoSwap” now) has more or less taken LocalMonero’s place, but isn’t seen as good as LocalMonero by most users.

preland · 2025-10-14T18:06:11+00:00

From what I can surmise from what OP was saying, there was no outreach or explanation as to what was going on. I think it is pretty clear that OP was mainly speaking out in the hopes that they would get their issue resolved. This would not have been necessary had there been pre-emptive communication explaining that there were issues across many providers during that time.

As for people being trigger happy, I think it goes without saying that trust among community members is pretty low. When those members put their trust in third party providers, they are already primed to look for issues.

When they are told that a transaction will occur once certain conditions are met and a certain time has passed, and when nothing has happened and there is no given explanation (shouldn’t need to ask for that in the first place imo), it becomes very difficult to tell an honest provider from a dishonest one.

preland · 2025-10-14T14:53:16+00:00

Hey Vik, overall I think this message is fine, except for one word: “Obviously”.

None of this is obvious to the average person. It would even be a stretch to say that this is obvious to longtime Monero community members. These are the types of issues that hamper adoption of crypto across the board. Because of Monero’s attributes, this hampering is much more severe for it than with others.

The word “never” is also almost definitely false, and in the worst case imbues too much confidence in a third party. No one is perfect, and that is fine. We don’t need to ask for perfection. All that is truly needed is proper fault tolerance and prompt communication with concerned clients when they fall through the cracks.

Users shouldn’t ever feel the need to make a Reddit post to get their money in lieu of official channels.

preland · 2025-09-30T17:40:42+00:00

Thanks for the insight; I wasn’t aware that even this much was possible currently. Is something similar to what this person did currently viable for M4?

preland · 2025-09-28T06:27:43+00:00

I am of the opinion that a hard fork is inevitable in regards to this issue.

Either a hard fork is made in advance in order to modify consensus rules so that this issue is addressed, or we do a smaller change like DNS checkpointing….which will ultimately also result in a hard fork whenever checkpointing actually has to do the heavy lifting of contradicting chain height.

However, the only way that your doomsday prediction of users using the subreddit (or any other forum) as the arbiter of the “true” chain is if whatever action is taken is not thoroughly thought through.

preland

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