Bug #10649

Have a video to explain how to start Tails (and use the boot menu key)

Added by sajolida 2015-11-24 02:54:40 . Updated 2019-07-30 15:23:53 .

Status:
Resolved
Priority:
Normal
Assignee:
Category:
Installation
Target version:
Start date:
2015-11-24
Due date:
% Done:

0%

Feature Branch:
doc/10649-boot-menu-animation
Type of work:
Graphics
Blueprint:

Starter:
Affected tool:
Installation Assistant
Deliverable for:

Description

It is a very common and blocking issue to know how to use the boot menu key on startup. Maybe having a small video or animation would do the trick. The proposed synopsis is:

  • Shut down
  • Identify the key
  • Power on
  • Repeatedly press the key until either Windows, Linux, or Tails starts

We should write François Prosper about that as he might be intersted in working on this.


Files


Subtasks


Related issues

Related to Tails - Bug #10632: Improve troubleshooting section for restart Resolved 2015-11-24
Related to Tails - Feature #11111: Be more careful when documenting the BIOS Confirmed 2016-02-12
Related to Tails - Feature #7492: Explain graphically different steps of a typical use of Tails through photos or screencast Rejected 2014-07-06
Related to Tails - Bug #14835: Make the subtitle on our canonical logo optional Resolved 2017-10-12
Related to Tails - Feature #14788: Add anchors to the troubleshooting parts of the installation doc In Progress 2017-10-04
Blocks Tails - Feature #16711: Core work 2019Q3 → 2019Q4: Technical writing Resolved 2016-01-08
Blocks Tails - Feature #16688: Core work 2019Q3 → 2019Q4: User experience Resolved

History

#1 Updated by sajolida 2015-11-27 04:39:32

  • Target version changed from 246 to Tails_2.0

#2 Updated by Fransouwap 2015-11-30 01:10:29

Hello
Here’s the steps I worked on, and the comment that goes with them :
1. While leaving the USB stick plugged in, shut down the computer
2. Switch on the computer, pressing and holding the key(s) corresponding to the PC constructor. Hold it until start is complete.
3. the computer should be now boot on Tails

As you see, it’s a brief story, and it’s just roughs so far. Some steps need to be improved I think, especially when you need to see what’s on the screen. And the text is more your part so it’s purely suggestions.

#3 Updated by sajolida 2015-11-30 10:02:19

  • related to Bug #10632: Improve troubleshooting section for restart added

#4 Updated by sajolida 2015-11-30 10:58:17

  • QA Check set to Info Needed

Nice to see you on Redmine Fransouwap! As you might know already we’re still having a discussion with tchou on the proper method to document. I’ll summarize here my vision of it, I hope he’ll complete it. I prefer doing it on this ticket so that other people from the project can take part in this decision, as it’s not a pure UX question but has technical implications (what’s working and what’s not working). And I’m sorry to bring in more debates after you started working on this, but I think that this is a serious issue.

So, until now and as I personally always have been doing we’re documenting the “press repeatedly” method, which is:

  • Shut down
  • Identify the key
  • Power on
  • Repeatedly press the key until either Windows, Linux, or Tails starts

After the UX testing, tchou proposed another method, the “press-and-hold” method, which is the one you started working on:

  • Shut down
  • Press-and-hold the key
  • Power on

Since then, I’ve discussing the “press-and-hold” with other developers and testing it. This lead me to identify two possible issues that I consider as blockers. I started documenting these on Bug #10632 but I’ll summarize my findings here:

1. Some BIOS models go into error mode when a key is pressed before powering on. It’s called the “key stuck” error, like discussed here for example: https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-T400-T500-and-newer-T/When-booting-I-get-an-Error-0210-Stuck-Key-01-Lenovo-Thinkpad/td-p/1404855

2. Some computers don’t boot using “press-and-hold” and seem to completely ignore the pressed key. That’s the case of a Dell Inspiron I have access to.

In both of these cases the “press repeatedly” method would work.

I personally have no example of computers for which the “press repeatedly” method would not work or give blocking errors. But I admit that the complicated part is to press the key at the right time (that’s why we explain to press it repeatedly). The benefit of the “press-and-hold” method is to be easier to execute but it can lead to blocking issues on some machines.

I think that tchou is right now in favor of documenting both (I don’t know which one would come first).

I’m personally in favor of documenting only the “press repeatedly” method, which doesn’t lead to lead to BIOS errors though is harder to execute. But hey, that’s why we’re proposing to do a screencast in the first place, no? I’m not really convinced by documenting both as we’re trying to simplify things here and not introduce more “if … else …” clauses for the user to experiment with and debug mentally.

#5 Updated by sajolida 2015-12-07 10:26:25

I tested this on a Dell Inspiron 3330 today and the boot menu key, if pressed before powering on is ignored as well. Only the press repeatedly version works.

#6 Updated by tchou 2015-12-07 14:09:40

  • Assignee changed from tchou to sajolida

Hey,

I’m in favor of documenting the both methods, but before going deeper, I need a clarification: you are talking about “blocking issues”. I’m not shure to understand. In the forum link I think that the difficult situation comes from the fact that the key is blocked (not just hold). If the user just reboot (without holding), it boot as normal no ? Do you have experienced tricky stuff to do to escape from a “press-and-hold method” ?

#7 Updated by sajolida 2015-12-08 10:07:10

Regarding the “key stuck” BIOS error, I think that from a hardware point of view it makes no difference whether the key is stuck (blocked in its pressed position by some glue, some sticky liquid, or a cat) or whether it’s pressed and hold by the user on purpose (as you are proposing in your technique). In other words, I don’t understand the difference that you seem to make between “blocked” and “hold” in your comment and I think that the BIOS seems both as the same. Otherwise, please elaborate.

Regarding having experienced myself tricky stuff with your technique, I didn’t get the “key stuck” error but I found two laptops models (our of the three I tested) which completely ignore the key if it is pressed and hold before powering on the computer. So nothing tricky to escape, but just something that doesn’t work.

#8 Updated by tchou 2015-12-12 06:03:01

  • QA Check deleted (Info Needed)

As always it’s a cost and benefit question, with some error anticipating UX issues.

For me the benefit on the “press-and-hold” method is obvious : otherwhise the user would have stop. And the cost is that maybe it will fail. But we can anticipate it and explain it: maybe it won’t work and boot windows, maybe there will be BIOS error message, but in any cases, he would just have to start again and try the “press repeatedly” method (or try first with other keys).

#9 Updated by tchou 2015-12-12 06:04:40

Note that I don’t have know if we must propose to the the “press-and-hold” method after or before the “press repeatedly” one.

#10 Updated by sajolida 2016-01-03 21:40:36

During the January meeting, intrigeri proposed:

1. document "press repeatedly" with a screencast, and hope it works for the vast majority or (people, hardware) combinations;
2. as a fallback, "if it does not work, try that" style, quickly and cheaply document the "press and hold" method.  I believe this takes into account the experience that was shared here, the apparent unreliability of press-and-hold, and *also* the fact that many people may fail with "press repeatedly", even with a good screencast, because that's how it is.

#11 Updated by sajolida 2016-01-16 16:27:37

  • Target version deleted (Tails_2.0)

Let’s say this is a bonus and not a blocker for the first release.

#12 Updated by sajolida 2016-02-12 15:55:24

  • related to Feature #11111: Be more careful when documenting the BIOS added

#13 Updated by sajolida 2016-04-01 10:58:33

  • Assignee deleted (sajolida)

#14 Updated by Anonymous 2017-06-30 14:56:07

  • related to Feature #7492: Explain graphically different steps of a typical use of Tails through photos or screencast added

#15 Updated by Anonymous 2018-01-16 15:48:25

  • Assignee set to sajolida
  • QA Check set to Info Needed

I think it would still be useful to just have an animated gif in the “Tails does not start at all” section of https://tails.boum.org/install/win/usb/index.en.html. What do you think?

Assigning to sajolida for comment. Otherwise I’d say let’s reject this ticket. Nothing happened since two years here.

#16 Updated by sajolida 2018-01-21 11:31:11

  • Description updated

Yeap. That’s what I intented to write in the description of this ticket. Whether it’s an animated GIF or an inlined video is an implementation detail, right? But won’t fundamentally change the amount of work or the skills needed.

Animated GIT don’t have sound, but that might be good as it will avoid having to translate it. Maybe we should go for a video without voice anyway.

#17 Updated by sajolida 2018-06-04 12:52:03

  • Target version set to Tails_3.8
  • QA Check deleted (Info Needed)

I’ll contact some people I know who do animations and ask them for a quote.

#18 Updated by sajolida 2018-06-25 15:28:27

  • Target version changed from Tails_3.8 to Tails_3.9

#19 Updated by sajolida 2018-07-05 15:49:30

  • blocks Feature #15392: Core work 2018Q2 → 2018Q3: User experience added

#20 Updated by sajolida 2018-08-13 14:02:41

  • Target version changed from Tails_3.9 to Tails_3.10.1

I contacted them but nothing will happen before September → 3.10.

#21 Updated by sajolida 2018-09-14 10:48:10

  • Subject changed from Have a screencast to explain how to use the boot menu key to Have a video to explain how to use the boot menu key

My next step is to write to of a friendly web studio doing graphical design (and even Bootstrap stuff!).

#22 Updated by sajolida 2018-10-21 20:38:06

  • Target version changed from Tails_3.10.1 to Tails_3.11

#23 Updated by sajolida 2018-10-29 14:21:21

  • blocked by deleted (Feature #15392: Core work 2018Q2 → 2018Q3: User experience)

#24 Updated by sajolida 2018-10-29 14:21:30

  • blocks Feature #16080: Core work 2018Q4 → 2019Q2: User experience added

#25 Updated by sajolida 2018-12-10 15:44:29

  • Target version changed from Tails_3.11 to Tails_3.12

#26 Updated by sajolida 2019-01-28 18:45:33

  • Target version changed from Tails_3.12 to Tails_3.13

#27 Updated by sajolida 2019-02-15 13:44:43

  • Subject changed from Have a video to explain how to use the boot menu key to Have a video to explain how to start Tails (and use the boot menu key)

#28 Updated by sajolida 2019-02-15 17:08:46

We now have a reasonable quote and an awesome team of graphic designer and animator. I’ll get started with them ASAP.

#29 Updated by sajolida 2019-03-10 20:54:45

  • related to Bug #14835: Make the subtitle on our canonical logo optional added

#30 Updated by sajolida 2019-03-18 11:30:53

  • Target version changed from Tails_3.13 to Tails_3.14

#31 Updated by CyrilBrulebois 2019-05-23 21:23:21

  • Target version changed from Tails_3.14 to Tails_3.15

#32 Updated by sajolida 2019-06-12 09:42:49

  • related to Feature #14788: Add anchors to the troubleshooting parts of the installation doc added

#33 Updated by sajolida 2019-06-12 09:48:12

  • Status changed from Confirmed to In Progress

Here is the final video!

https://git.tails.boum.org/ux/plain/boot%20menu%20key/boot-menu-key.webm

Now I’ll integrate it in our installation instructions.

#34 Updated by sajolida 2019-06-13 18:13:34

  • related to deleted (Feature #14788: Add anchors to the troubleshooting parts of the installation doc)

#35 Updated by sajolida 2019-06-13 19:28:53

Here is a branch! At the same time I’m tackling part of Feature #14788.

@cbrownstein: Please have a look!

Notes:

  • I had to rewrite a bunch of Markdown into HTML so all translations were going to break anyway. It means that, for once, we can do all kind of smaller changes in the English text if we want :)
  • Not improving the content much (eg. Secure Boot) on purpose. We can do that later and now it’s going to be better displayed to users. Yay!

emmapeel + goupille: This branch brings a big change in how people are referred to the troubleshooting sections and to your help desk. So please have a close look and tell me how you think all this will impact your work. It’s on purpose that I’m not changing the content much for now (eg. Secure Boot). But tell me if you see other small fixes that could fit here. I’m attaching a ZIP version of the compiled page if that’s easier for you to review.

@intrigeri: While working on this I think I found a bug in po4a. It was returning HTML errors when parsing the

Ah, something else I would like your opinion on: I added a note for people to report about the boot menu key that worked for them to sajolida@pimienta.org. Our list of possible boot menu keys hasn’t been improved since we wrote it in 2015 (by lack of data). The note I added on /doc/anonymous_internet/networkmanager/no-wifi.inline brought some useful information already. So I thought about trying out something similar to improve the list of boot menu keys. I was tempted to point to collective addresses but I’m anyway going to be the one processing them so I thought that my personal address was the most efficient point of contact. We can always change it later on in case I’m fired :)

#36 Updated by sajolida 2019-06-13 19:29:08

  • Feature Branch set to doc/10649-boot-menu-animation

#37 Updated by sajolida 2019-06-13 19:33:30

@cbrownstein: Technical point, I put the video in the promotion-material repo (https://git-tails.immerda.ch/promotion-material) to avoid having this big binary in tails.git (and the USB image). To have it on your local build of the page you can either:

#38 Updated by sajolida 2019-06-14 11:22:10

  • related to Feature #14788: Add anchors to the troubleshooting parts of the installation doc added

#39 Updated by intrigeri 2019-06-30 16:38:20

> intrigeri: While working on this I think I found a bug in po4a. It was returning HTML errors when parsing the

I’ve tried to reproduce this and seen two distinct problems:

* “Bad attribute syntax”: that’s because of the “controls” part. There are two issues here:

This is HTML5 syntax and invalid, AFAIK, in the version of HTML our website generates. We still have html5: 0 in our ikiwiki.setup; IIRC Ulrike started porting our stuff to html5: 1 a few years ago and gave up. So unless your branch ports our stuff to HTML5, adding this to our source tree will generate incorrect HTML. I don’t know how browsers will react to it.

po4a does not support this syntax, which sounds like a missing feature.

* "Unexpected closing tag

found": that’s because you don’t close the <source> tag. I think you need to write <source src="https://tails.boum.org/install/inc/videos/boot-menu-key.webm" type="video/webm" /> so it’s correct HTML. I don’t think that’s a bug in po4a.

Then, to report this upstream, they track their bugs at https://github.com/mquinson/po4a/ so you’ll need a GitHub account.

I suggest you include in your bug report:

  • po4a version (Debian Stretch’s 0.47-2)
  • document type (in your case: HTML, which translates to po4a’s xhtml parser)
  • minimal reproducer using po4a-gettextize and no ikiwiki

Once you’ve submitted your bug report I’m happy to test with the latest upstream Git and perhaps even contribute a minimal test case (I did that last time I interacted with po4a upstream and it worked nicely :)

> Ah, something else I would like your opinion on: I added a note for people to report about the boot menu key that worked for them to sajolida@pimienta.org. Our list of possible boot menu keys hasn’t been improved since we wrote it in 2015 (by lack of data). The note I added on /doc/anonymous_internet/networkmanager/no-wifi.inline brought some useful information already. So I thought about trying out something similar to improve the list of boot menu keys. I was tempted to point to collective addresses but I’m anyway going to be the one processing them so I thought that my personal address was the most efficient point of contact. We can always change it later on in case I’m fired :)

Good enough!

#40 Updated by CyrilBrulebois 2019-07-10 10:33:57

  • Target version changed from Tails_3.15 to Tails_3.16

#41 Updated by sajolida 2019-07-18 17:04:17

  • blocks Feature #16711: Core work 2019Q3 → 2019Q4: Technical writing added

#42 Updated by sajolida 2019-07-19 12:51:09

Thanks for investigating all this!

> We still have html5: 0 in our ikiwiki.setup

I had no idea :)

> IIRC Ulrike started porting our stuff to html5: 1a few years ago and gave up.

I looked for this work on her repo and on Redmine but couldn’t find it.
I created Feature #16896 to track this in case someone works on this again in
the future.

> I don’t know how browsers will react to it.

I tested my branch in Tor Browser 8.5, Firefox 60, Chromium 73, Safari
9.1.3, and Internet Explorer 11. They all seem to be fine with the markup.

Internet Explorer 11 has problems with the source “Invalid Source”, even
with the MP4 version that I created to make Safari happy. I really don’t
know why is that. Maybe it’s because I’m reading the HTML from a local
file and point to videos online. I’ll test again once the branch is live.

> po4a does not support this syntax, which sounds like a missing feature.
I reported this in https://github.com/mquinson/po4a/issues/178.

> * "Unexpected closing tag

found": that’s because you don’t close the <source> tag.

My syntax passes the W3C validator and was copied from the Mozilla dev
doc:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Supported_media_formats so
I think it’s correct.

If I add the extra slash it doesn’t pass the W3C validator anymore but
po4a is happy and it seems to work in all browsers, so yay! :)

I reported a po4a bug about it: https://github.com/mquinson/po4a/issues/179

#43 Updated by Anonymous 2019-07-19 16:06:10

sajolida wrote:
> Thanks for investigating all this!
>
> > We still have html5: 0 in our ikiwiki.setup
>
> I had no idea :)
>
> > IIRC Ulrike started porting our stuff to html5: 1a few years ago and gave up.
>
> I looked for this work on her repo and on Redmine but couldn’t find it.
> I created Feature #16896 to track this in case someone works on this again in
> the future.

I don’t remember much of this, it was ~5 years ago or so.
I’m happy to help with this again, it could be fun this time! Just let me know what is needed.

#44 Updated by sajolida 2019-07-22 16:32:09

  • blocked by Feature #15110: Remove empty line between power on and press-and-hold in step 4.2 added

#45 Updated by sajolida 2019-07-24 14:23:29

  • blocked by deleted (Feature #16080: Core work 2018Q4 → 2019Q2: User experience)

#46 Updated by sajolida 2019-07-24 14:23:36

  • blocks Feature #16080: Core work 2018Q4 → 2019Q2: User experience added

#47 Updated by sajolida 2019-07-24 14:24:14

  • blocked by deleted (Feature #16080: Core work 2018Q4 → 2019Q2: User experience)

#48 Updated by sajolida 2019-07-24 14:24:21

  • blocks Feature #16688: Core work 2019Q3 → 2019Q4: User experience added

#49 Updated by cbrownstein 2019-07-26 22:48:27

  • Assignee changed from cbrownstein to sajolida

I’ve pushed a branch:

https://0xacab.org/cbrownstein/tails/tree/doc/10649-boot-menu-animation

#50 Updated by sajolida 2019-07-30 14:40:26

  • blocks deleted (Feature #15110: Remove empty line between power on and press-and-hold in step 4.2)

#51 Updated by sajolida 2019-07-30 14:40:47

Thanks for all the smart fixes! I merged your branch and the animation is live:

https://tails.boum.org/install/win/usb/#animation

I had to reconvert it using ffmpeg instead of VLC to make it work on Safari and Internet Explorer.

#52 Updated by sajolida 2019-07-30 15:23:53

  • Status changed from Needs Validation to Resolved
  • Assignee deleted (sajolida)

Closing this ticket at last!