Qubes OS 4.2.0 release notes

New features and improvements since Qubes 4.1

  • Dom0 upgraded to Fedora 37 (#6982)

  • Xen upgraded to version 4.17

  • Default Debian template upgraded to Debian 12

  • Default Fedora and Debian templates use Xfce instead of GNOME (#7784)

  • SELinux support in Fedora templates (#4239)

  • Several GUI applications rewritten (screenshots below), including:

    • Applications Menu (also available as preview in R4.1) (#6665), (#5677)

    • Qubes Global Settings (#6898)

    • Create New Qube

    • Qubes Update (#7443)

  • Unified grub.cfg location for both UEFI and legacy boot (#7985)

  • PipeWire support (#6358)

  • fwupd integration for firmware updates (#4855)

  • Optional automatic clipboard clearing (#3415)

  • Official packages built using Qubes Builder v2 (#6486)

  • Split GPG management in Qubes Global Settings

  • Qrexec services use new qrexec policy format by default (but old format is still supported) (#8000)

  • Improved keyboard layout switching

For a full list, including more detailed descriptions, please see here. Below are some screenshots of the new and improved Qubes GUI tools.

The new Qubes OS Update tool:

Screenshot of the Qubes OS Update tool

The new Qubes OS Global Config tool:

Screenshot of the Qubes OS Global Config tool image1

The new Qubes OS Policy Editor tool:

Screenshot of the Qubes OS Policy Editor tool

Known issues

  • DomU firewalls have completely switched to nftables. Users should add their custom rules to the custom-input and custom-forward chains. (#5031, #6062)

For a full list of open bug reports affecting 4.2, please see here. We strongly recommend updating Qubes OS immediately after installation in order to apply any and all available bug fixes.

Download

All Qubes ISOs and associated verification files are available on the downloads page.

Installation instructions

See the installation guide.

Upgrading

Please see how to upgrade to Qubes 4.2.