Hey Andrew!

Sorry for the late reply, haven't checked the mailing list in a while. 

I have a 5470 service tag # 5V2GBG2 
You may see the full original config here 
<https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/product-support/servicetag/0-dHBZdFAzUVN4THRPN0NkTzFYWlNWdz090/overview>
. 

Basically it came stock with a quad core i7-6820HQ. Sata drive with the 
tiny sata cable. No m.2 bracket or SSD installed to the NVME ngff slot. 
Nothing installed on the wwan ngff slot, and intel's wifi card installed to 
the ngff wireless slot. 

It has 3 ngff slots (M.2 NVME, WIFI, WWAN) keyed differently (Key A, B etc) 
and the sata data+power cable for 1 sata drive.

I've upgraded ram to 2x8GB DDR4, removed the stock sata hdd and replaced it 
with a sata ssd. Since I needed more capacity than performance, I got a 
512GB Crucial BX500. It was way more affordable than an nvme drive atm, and 
I didn't have the m.2 bracket either, which would mean I would only be able 
to secure the nvme ssd with double sided tape or other improvised solution. 
The BX500 is known to have an exploitable hardware encryption, so be 
advised to use only software encryption on that drive.

That drive became my Windows 10 drive, GPT / UEFI enabled.
Started using Qubes on a USB 3.0 64GB flash drive, it worked pretty well 
considering the constraints, but decided I needed a drive for Qubes itself.

After some deep research I discovered that the WWAN slot indeed takes a 
SATA M.2 SSD. (source 
<http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/new-latitude-5470.785426/page-9#post-10227440>
).
You'd better go for the shorter ones, otherwise they'll collide with the 
inner plastic frame and won't fit. I believe you can fit 32 and 40mm length 
drives without any trouble.  I couldn't find an affordable SATA M.2 with at 
least 256GB for Qubes (that was my personal need), so I ended up getting a 
regular 80mm lenght one. To make it fit, I had to "mod" the inner plastic 
frame, and disassemble 50% of the laptop.  I opted simply to break pieces 
of the plastic frame in order to free space for the lengthier drive. Then, 
I isolated the surroundings with tape and secured the ssd (don't remember 
how, if I was able to bolt it in, tape it, or pressure). The SSD I used in 
the WWAN port is https://www.lexar.com/portfolio_page/ssd-nm100/ 256GB 
version

You have to change BIOS settings under drive configuration to enable the 
required sata ports. 

Initialized that drive as GPT, and installed Qubes to it.

You are right regarding the "dual boot". I don't have Grub. I use the 
"BIOS" UEFI bootmanager to choose which OS I'd like to boot. All I have to 
do is press F12 after powering up. I've renamed Qubes to Recovery, so it is 
inconspicuous. Default boot drive is the BX500 with windows. 

The level of compatibility of the E5470 with Qubes is outstanding. The 
performance is incredible.
The only thing that didn't work OOB was the SD card reader, which was 
easily fixed by opting to  kernel-latest . Docking station works 100%, with 
multiple monitors. Even 2 monitors + laptop monitor works perfectly. I wish 
it was possible to nuke Intel ME on 6th gen laptops and have it fully 
Opensource. It would make a great candidate for certification.

My only concern right now is the decisions for the GUI of Qubes 4.1. I 
wonder if the separation of the GUI and dom0 would result in 
incompatibility with E5470 or even a big decrease in performance. This 
thing is perfect for Qubes if your threat model isn't government agencies 
high.

Hope I could help, and let me know if you have further questions.
Em quarta-feira, 6 de maio de 2020 20:51:29 UTC-3, andrew....@gmail.com 
escreveu:
>
> Hi Rafael
>
> Interested to see you got an SSD drive to work in the WWAN slot in your 
> E5470. Could you tell me what drive you used, and the spec for your laptop. 
> Am I right in thinking that you have Windows installed on one drive and 
> Qubes on the other, and that you actually choose which drive to boot from 
> at power up? So it's not "dual-boot" in the usual sense (ie multiple OSs on 
> the same drive)?
>
> Thanks
>
>

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