This is happening currently, might explain some of the behavior: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/76359803

https://tasks.org/

Have you checked the hardware compatibility list, and the hardware requirements? What are your PC specs? Qubes relies heavily on virtualization and your hardware must support certain features (and those features must be turned on in the BIOS) for good performance.

So confirm that you have turned on all the recommended hardware features, which should be on BEFORE install, you may need to reinstall if they weren’t turned on as I’m not sure what Qubes does at install time if those features are off.

https://www.qubes-os.org/hcl/ https://doc.qubes-os.org/en/r4.3/user/hardware/system-requirements.html

Hey I see you are trying out Qubes! But I think you got sucked down a bit of a rabbit hole here. CPU pinning is a very deep customization, it is absolutely not necessary, and is a case of the author of the guide wondering “can I do this?” and finding out that yes, there is a way. But I would suggest that you not worry about it, as the difference in performance may not even be noticeable to you.

The best way to approach qubes as a new user is to do almost nothing to modify dom0, and do all your playing around in the qubes.

Also, for in depth tech support like this I would always post to the Qubes forums. Its a niche OS, so posting on a general Linux forum is probably going to not get you a ton of help.