Supported Host Operating Systems[edit]

Any operating system that can run a supported virtualizer can run Whonix ™, including Windows, macOS, BSD, and Linux. Most users get started by installing VirtualBox on their current operating system and importing the Whonix ™ images. Advanced users may wish to select and boot a host operating system (usually a Linux distribution) dedicated solely to running the Whonix ™ virtual machines.

For the best possible security, users can choose to run Whonix ™ virtual machines on the Qubes platform (Qubes-Whonix ™). Qubes is a Xen-based hypervisor (virtualizer) that runs on the bare metal of the hardware instead of within a host operating system. ^[1]

Supported Platforms[edit]

Non-Qubes-Whonix System Requirements[edit]

Non-Qubes-Whonix ™ includes Whonix ™ for VirtualBox and KVM.

Table: Non-Qubes-Whonix System Requirements

Category	Description
Minimum	1 GB free RAM - with Whonix-Gateway ™ lowered to 256 MB. ^[5] (Advice for Systems with Low RAM) 10 GB free hard drive space. A CPU with AMD-V ^[archive] or Intel VT-x ^[archive].
Recommended	Additional hard drive space when installing applications into the Whonix-Workstation ™.
For Best Performance	A solid state drive (SSD). Additional RAM to dedicate to the Whonix-Workstation ™ when multitasking. ^[6]
Additional Notes	Whonix-Workstation ™ can be run with 256 MB RAM when not using a desktop environment. ^[5] Whonix ™ 16 changed the display manager from `lightdm` to `gdm3`. 1 GB RAM is now required for Xfce desktop to launch. ^[7] ^[8] For low memory and console-only configurations, see Advice for Systems with Low RAM, Troubleshooting, Low RAM Issues and Ram Adjusted Desktop Starter. Users that experience the PAE or "VERR_SSM_FIELD_NOT_CONSECUTIVE" error or other problems should refer to the VirtualBox Troubleshooting chapter.

Qubes-Whonix ™ System Requirements[edit]

Qubes-Whonix ™ does not have any special system requirements over and above Qubes own system requirements. In other words, it is only necessary to fulfill the minimal system requirements for Qubes compatibility.

Refer to the Qubes documentation for further information:

Architecture Support[edit]

amd64 might imply AMD only. This is wrong.

amd64 means Intel and AMD.

For technical reasons, in Debian (and in many other Linux / Freedom Software related places) both, Intel and AMD, is called amd64. This is common knowledge without controversy among technical people, in doubt see Wikipedia X86-64 ^[archive].

Footnotes[edit]

↑ This is more secure because an attacker must subvert the hypervisor, which is far more difficult than exploiting a host operating system.
↑ Custom-Workstation: Self-made builds can be run on any real or virtual hardware, so long as they are behind a Whonix-Gateway ™. Tor Browser binaries are only available for a limited number of platforms (Windows, Linux, BSD and MacOS).
↑ Unsupported: QEMU
↑ Unsupported: VMware
↑ ^5.0 ^5.1 The virtual machine can work with as low as 256 MB RAM, but resource intensive operations like kernel package upgrades that rebuild the initrd might leave the virtual machine in a frozen state. It might run with 196 MB RAM or even less. Experimentation with RAM lower than 256 MB is up to the user; please share your results.
↑ Increase Virtual Machine RAM
↑ Debian + KVM + Whonix 16 (Flashing underscore on black screen) ^[archive].
↑ display manager - lightdm, gdm3 ^[archive].