Cannot install Element in Sysmaint Mode

[Patrick]

Indeed, there are quite a few usability shortcomings. [1]

@happypanda

1. Copying the commands on the host OS and paste them into Whonix (through Virtualbox), but that doesn’t work because Whonix doesn’t accept the Virtualbox paste clipboard function.

That’s a bug indeed which will hopefully one day be fixed. References:

• Clipboard Sharing
• How to enable Shared Clipboard & Drag-and-Drop features inside VirtualBox with Whonix-LXQt-18.0.8.7 ?

@happypanda

2. Opening the browser in Whonix and copying the command on Element’s website, but that doesn’t work because the browser cannot be opened in Sysmaint Mode.

Browsers aren’t blocked if started from the command line (implementing this is hard, would require a restricted shell, depending on if that’s an accidental protection of enforcement).

Not something we encourage.

@happypanda

3. Creating a text file that contains the commands to install Element, but that doesn’t work because I don’t have permission to open text files in Sysmaint Mode.

Opening text files isn’t blocked in sysmaint mode.

It’s just a bit complicated due to the Linux permission model that we inherit. Files located in home folder owned by account user (no sudo/root access by default) cannot be accessed by account sysmaint, even though that account has sudo/root access by default.

The question is:

How to (safely) open a file owned by a different Linux user account? (If you have sudo/root access.)

(Which you do have in sysmaint mode.)

Can be found out using Self Support First Policy for Whonix?

@happypanda

I can’t type the command manually because the english keyboard doesn’t accept certain symbols

Keyboard layout can be configured, see:

Keyboard Layout

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[1]

Linux User Experience versus Commercial Operating Systems