This is a thread where we collect small tips and tricks that can improve the Qubes experience for most users. We want to create a one-stop-post where people can quickly find and implement changes to their systems instead of having to search for and visit a hundred different posts.

Feel free to add your tip to this wiki post (do not alter anything above the line)

The following guidelines are subject to frequent and major changes while we figure out how this might work 1. If your tip cannot be condensed into a few lines, it doesn't belong here   2. If your tip is niche with regard to Qubes users, it doesn't belong here*   3. Follow the established style convention as much as possible   4. Give credit (even to yourself) and add a link where applicable   5. Feel free to add new categories when necessary   6. Discussions regarding specific tips belong in their own thread--unless discussing whether they belong here.

* ^{What's 'niche' is going to spawn a lot of debate and angst, but this constraint is necessary to prevent this post from getting bloated and mostly irrelevant}  

Quality-of-Life Improvements and Minor Optimizations

Notifications - Disable notifications per VM - Fedora-XFCE only - Run xfce4-notifyd-config, then xfconf-query -c xfce4-notifyd -p /do-not-disturb --set true @solene

Video playback

• Reduce VLC's CPU usage - Under 'Video' in Preferences (Ctrl+P), change 'Output' to 'X11 video output (XCB)' @solene

WiFi toggle and default status

• Soft switch WiFi on and off: qvm-run sys-net -- "if nmcli radio wifi | head -c1 | egrep 'e'; then nmcli radio wifi off; else nmcli radio wifi on; fi"

• To keep WiFi off by default on boot (@Bearillo ), drop the file /var/lib/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.state with the following content in sys-net's template:

  [main]
  WirelessEnabled=false
  

Send files directly to external storage mounted in other qube - Execute in that other qube (assumes that external storage is mounted under /mnt/ext_store/):

mv ~/QubesIncoming ~/QubesIncoming_backup  # or use rm -rf ~/QubesIncoming
ln -s /mnt/ext_store/ ~/QubesIncoming/