I have installed proxmox and generally played with it, Here are some of what i find worth to be mentioned:
Advantages
Importing distro is by just wget .iso URL to proxmox import path, Then it will be readable to proxmox. (Verification of the .iso should be done manually asaik)
Proxmox used by many big hosting companies, having whonix compatible with it will give whonix easy installation for those servers
Proxmox is debian plus kvm which whonix have expert with both of them not something new/strange.
Big data hosting (cluster like) can be easily as well served through this design which is already used for these type of things. (Whonix currently doesnt support clustering, But this just make it easier to adopt)
Proxmox is debian+kvm by default from upstream we dont need to do any effort to have them both together and working/linked.
Almost we can say it is qubes like distro.
Disadvantages
Proxmox not really free in price, yes the free version is usable but it has subscription method in which there are upgrades you cant have inside the free version (there is repository for proxmox wont work without subscription)
Proxmox main OS is actually cli only, If you want to view it into graphical mode the way to do that by using URL in your browser (can be it modified? but still bad compared to qubes,debianâŠhosts)
Proxmox doesnt accept (seems to be) preconfigured libvirt xml images, It only accept .iso formats (Even if it accept it, Its not piece of cake like just importing the images) â Couldnt find sources to prove my conclusion wrong about this point.
Due to its nature to provide flexibility to host stuff inside it, It might be not well tightened with security (Theoretic, straight forward evidence is the apparmor support)
I wouldnt say its easy nor user friendly or for Desktops generally, It serves the experts and the need of managing online hosts/networks but not as deskop OS.
Whonix for its operation needs at least limited control of the host operating system. Whonix VirtualBox ovaâs and KVM libvirt XML files instruct the host virtualizer how Whonix-Gateway and Whonix-Workstation need to be configured. Most importantly, Whonix-Gateway having two network interfaces, external and internal as well as Whonix-Workstation having only one internal network interface. Whonix-Workstation internal network interface connected to Whonix-Gateway internal network interface. Plus other settings (see source code) but keeping it simple.
We donât have Whonix-Gateway.iso, Whonix-Workstation.iso. And even if we had, these could not configure the required host virtualizer settings.
A Whonix-Host Operating System Live ISO, Whonix-Host Installer.iso wouldnât help either. Proxmox as I understand expects ânormalâ (Linux based) operating systems. If using proxmox with KVM, it probably doesnât support nested virutalization and even if it did, it would be unusably slow. A Whonix-Host Operating System Live ISO, Whonix-Host Installer.iso would be an operating system that configures two virtual machines - not designed to be itself run inside a (proxmox) VM.
I dont know if proxmox is only accepting .iso, I didnt try (but it looks like that). I searched in their forum couldnt find except this but its talking about migration:
On disadvantages first bullet point. Proxmox is free. The no-subscription repository has all needed updates for a fully functioning system. The lack of subscription only indicates the lack of a support contract and is reflected in logs when attempting to obtain support.
Itâs meant to be headless, so CLI-only with a web interface is quite workable.
I would add to this thread that Proxmox has excellent support for something Qubes does NOT support out of the box, thatâs LXC containers, plus all the pre-built appliances already posted on Turnkey Linux. It is my suggestion who have Whonix also contribute to this library so that it might be one of the default templates there for easy import and setup into proxmox as an LXC container, which has native hardware like speed and a very low resource footprint.