Provide a unified device handling function

[GWeck]

The problem you're addressing (if any)

Currently, attaching, detaching, and listing devices is performed via three CLI commands qvm-device, qvm-block, and qvm-usb, and a GUI function of the device widget., having similar, but partially different details and applicability. Furthermore, the qvm-usb command is restricted to systems running sys-usb and has a different way of addressing the devices, and the device widget switches, if possible, transparently between both commands.

It would be helpful if the functionality of these three commands was combined into a single function, started either by a single CLI command or, identically, by the device widget GUI function.

While this is probably unimportant for most device classes, it may cause considerable handling problems for USB block devices, which can be handled both via the qvm-block command or the device widget on the one hand, or via the qvm-usb command on the other hand. Especially for Windows VMs, the qvm-block command may require the Xen PV disk driver to be installed, whereas the qvm-usb command will work only if sys-usbis present, which is not possible if the system is running from a USB drive.

The solution you'd like

This new function should use the same UX (CLI and GUI) for any action and should not depend on the current restrictions, and it should address USB block devices using the same names, no matter whether they are connected to dom0 or sys-usb.

The value to a user, and who that user might be

This would conceptually simplify the use of external devices and avoid pitfalls like those currently discussed in the forum, especially as, at the moment, it is not clear if the complete functionality provided under Qubes R4.1 is available under R4.2, too.

Completion criteria checklist

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[marmarek]

It would be helpful if the functionality of these three commands was combined into a single function, started either by a single CLI command

qvm-device is a single command to handle all types of devices. qvm-usb is an alias to qvm-device usb, and qvm-block is an alias to qvm-device block.

As for a broader UX workflow, it's a duplicate of #8537

[github-actions]

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[GWeck]

#8537 goes in the desired direction, but there has been no action for almost a year. Is there any progress?

[marmarek]

Regardless of the answer, duplicate issue isn't helping...

Anyway, R4.3 got necessary backend changes, and some frontend changes are done already too.