Free Support for Whonix ™

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There are 3 support options available. You are on the "Free Support" page. Choose below ↓

Whonix ™ has many users and a long tradition. Therefore many questions have already been asked and answered. There area a lot of free resources offered (see below) to solve your problems. If not consider Plus or Premium support.

Computer Security[edit]

General Whonix[edit]

General Linux[edit]

Tor[edit]

For general questions about about Tor configuration, specs, and technical issues.

For general Tor questions not directly related (unspecific to Whonix ™) like "What are end-to-end correlation attacks?", use:

For Tor-on-host questions unrelated to Whonix ™ such as "How do I configure bridges?", see:

For Whonix ™-specific Tor questions, see:

Qubes OS[edit]

Additional Support Resources[edit]

For additional support resources,[5] please press on Expand on the right.

VirtualBox[edit]

For general questions on VirtualBox configuration, settings, and troubleshooting.

KVM[edit]

General questions on using KVM.

Debian[edit]

Support resources ranging from beginners questions to Debian development.

OpenVPN[edit]

Any questions related to OpenVPN setup, configuration and technical issues.

Whonix Forums[edit]

Whonix ™ User Help Forumsarchive.org

Usage instructions:

Whonix ™ Forum Best Practices:

Other Resources[edit]

Safety Advice[edit]

Ambox warning pn.svg.png Warning: Be careful what you say, especially in public places that are archived!

What is said may reveal personal information such as:

  • Location / IP Address.
  • Personality.
  • Skills, Aims, Goals.
  • Personal Details.
  • ...

To keep the IP address hidden, visit these websites anonymously over Tor, using either the Whonix-Workstation ™ or Tor Browserarchive.org from The Tor Project. To delink questions from an existing email or OpenID, it is advisable to create a separate email address, OpenID, and user name/s just for this purpose.

Be careful with the advice received from public places. Always get a second opinion and do not run commands or perform steps which you do not understand. Never post any custom code or output that pertains to your system or onion service specifically.

General Advice[edit]

Info Tip: Please kindly avoid inventing new or idiosyncratic terminology whenever appropriate as this causes confusion. For example, please do not substitute "Debian testing repository" with "Debian test repository".

Info Tip: Please kindly do not accidentally substitute Tor for a question related to Tor Browser, as this causes confusion. Further, the correct terminology is Tor, not TOR.

Free Support Principle[edit]

Brief Recommendations[edit]

It is recommended to follow these steps in order:

  1. Please use Search Engines and see Documentation First.
  2. Check the Documentation to see if the question has already been discussed. Use the Whonix ™ internal search engine and external search engines (DuckDuckGo, Startpage).
  3. Search the Whonix ™ User Forumsarchive.org and issue tracker for the problem.
  4. If possible, search for a solution without the Whonix ™-specific part of the question, as it may have been answered in mainstream Linux fora. (unspecific)
  5. Check if the problem can be replicated in vanilla operating system environments like Debianarchive.org bullseye, Xfce, inside the virtualizer, or over Torarchive.org.
  6. See General Advice.
  7. See documentation introduction, user expectations, footnotes and references.
  8. After completing steps 1-6, a specific support request should be made if the user cannot locate a similar reference for their problem. Suitable options may include Debian user forums, unix stackexchange, VirtualBox forums, KVM mailing lists, Qubes' issue tracker, Tor mailing lists, software-specific community / developer forums (for example, LibreOffice), and so on.
  9. See also Support Request Policy.
  10. In case Whonix ™ specific issues or feature requests see also Bug Reports and Software Development.
  11. Consider Generic Bug Reproduction.
  12. If no solution is found, the user should create a new post in the Whonix ™ User Forumsarchive.org.
  13. If a solution is provided, please consider editing the Whonix ™ Documentation as a small contribution and/or providing a complete answer in the Whonix ™ User Forums.

Free Support Principle Rationale[edit]

In an ideal world, all free support requests would be answered with minimal to no effort or systems would run flawlessly, thus negating the need for asking questions. Unfortunately, real world systems are flawed and developer time and knowledge is limited. This is further elaborated in Whonix ™ Support Policy Rationale.

Whonix ™ will always be free in price as well as in freedom (Why?). In order to create a solid open source software solution, Whonix ™ has adopted the approach of treating users as co-developers. [6] This concept is further elaborated below.

The User Co-developer Concept[edit]

The majority of common questions have been answered in the available Documentation. If the solution to an issue is already documented, users will usually receive just a link to the documentation in response to their question.

Whonix ™ is a Linux distribution, with Whonix ™ developers and users playing the role of integrators. Whonix ™ itself is based on several components and software distributions developed by other projects; it is standing on the shoulders of giants.

In simple terms, Whonix ™ is based on: [7]

It is impossible for the Whonix ™ contributors to be aware of the solution to each and every problem that is encountered. Users are therefore encouraged to first consider if their problem is general, and unspecific to Whonix ™.

Putting this principle into action means rephrasing the question, seeking solutions in other arenas, and preferably documenting this solution in the Documentation. Experience has shown that for some questions, this is the only realistic way to solve them.

Users might expect Whonix ™ to provide a unified experience similar to a Windows machine. While the Whonix ™ developers make every effort to meet user expectations, limited funding and human resources makes meeting these expectations impossible. [8]

Whonix ™ Reliance on Debian[edit]

Info Tip: Since Ubuntu is a Debian derivative, online help for Ubuntu most often works for Whonix ™.

In oversimplified terms, Whonix ™ is just a collection of configuration files and scripts. Whonix ™ is not a stripped down version of Debian; anything possible in "vanilla" Debian GNU/Linux can be replicated in Whonix ™. Likewise, most problems and questions can be solved in the same way. For example: "How do I install VLC Media Player on Whonix ™?" -- "The same way as in Debian apt install vlc. Whonix ™ does not break anything, limit functionality, or prevent installation of compatible software.

An example of an inappropriate question seeking Whonix ™ support would be "How do I save a document in Libre Office as a PDF?". The solution is easily found by use of Internet search engines. Even if a solution was difficult to find, LibreOffice would behave identically on Debian and other operating systems. Logically, the recipient for the question should be the LibreOffice community.

On the other hand, in the unlikely event this hypothetical problem only occurred in Whonix ™, then it would constitute an appropriate support referral, for example: "I know how to save a document in LibreOffice as a PDF. It doesn't work in Whonix ™. How can I make it work in Whonix ™?"

Footnotes[edit]

  1. ↑ https://unix.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1461/would-you-be-happy-to-welcome-whonix-gnu-linux-users-on-unix-searchive.org
  2. ↑ https://tor.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/whonixarchive.org
  3. ↑ https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/whonixarchive.org
  4. ↑ Whonix ™ users are welcomearchive.org to post in this forum.
  5. ↑ VirtualBox, KVM, Debian and OpenVPN support resources
  6. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cathedral_and_the_Bazaar#Lessons_for_creating_good_open_source_softwarearchive.org
  7. ↑ This is explained in more detail on the About page.
  8. ↑ A problem all Linux distributions face.
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