Feature #10830

Reintroduce camouflage in Tails

Added by alant 2015-12-31 09:14:51 . Updated 2018-01-21 12:13:56 .

Status:
Rejected
Priority:
Low
Assignee:
hybridwipe
Category:
Camouflage
Target version:
Start date:
2015-12-31
Due date:
% Done:

10%

Feature Branch:
feature/10830-windows-camouflage-in-jessie
Type of work:
Code
Blueprint:

https://tails.boum.org/blueprint/update_camouflage_for_jessie/

Starter:
Affected tool:
Deliverable for:

Description

Tails documentation used to read “if you are using a computer in public you may want to avoid attracting unwanted attention by changing the way Tails looks into something that resembles Microsoft Windows 8.” This is what we call the “Windows camouflage”.

This mode has been removed from Tails because of lack of maintenance. If you are interested to propose a branch that reintroduces the camouflage, that would be awesome. Please note that it’s not only about proposing a prototype with screenshots, but also integration in Tails code. We’ll be happy to provide guidelines and help, but will not do the work ourselves.

Files

windows_10_theme.png (263543 B) anonym, 2016-01-16 17:57:23

Subtasks

Related issues

Related to Tails - Bug #8064: Windows camouflage is broken in Jessie Rejected 2015-09-26
Related to Tails - Feature #7720: Propose Windows camouflage for different Windows versions Rejected 2014-08-02
Blocks Tails - Feature #6639: Persistence feature for Windows Camouflage Rejected 2014-02-05

History

#1 Updated by alant 2015-12-31 09:15:40

  • Category set to Camouflage

#2 Updated by alant 2015-12-31 09:17:30

  • related to Bug #8064: Windows camouflage is broken in Jessie added

#3 Updated by Elbullazul 2016-01-04 17:16:21

I would like to help with this feature. I would need a bit of help first. I would like to know which file starts the DE and also how to build a ISO like you do.

Another question, where do I get the latest ISO?

I will do my best for this work.

#4 Updated by anonym 2016-01-16 18:19:20

  • File windows_10_theme.png added
  • Status changed from New to In Progress
  • % Done changed from 0 to 10
  • Feature Branch set to feature/10830-windows-camouflage-in-jessie

I’ve pushed a dirty branch (HISTORY WILL BE REWRITTEN BEFORE WE MERGE THIS, IF WE DO) that enables some sort of Windows theme. It’s based on a GNOME Shell theme provided by Christian Medel, see these tails-dev@ threads:

Note that builds from this branch always enable the Windows camouflage! It’s sort of optimized for contributor’s so they have something to test on. The last successful nightly build should be available here (as of writing this, it hasn’t finished yet):

http://nightly.tails.boum.org/build_Tails_ISO_feature-10830-windows-camouflage-in-jessie/lastSuccessful/archive/build-artifacts/

I suggest whoever wants to help us to get this image, boot it, then try to re-configure GNOME, icons etc and leave the coding to us, because this touches so many different places. I.e. you tell what changes you did, we translate it into code and implement it. A few tips:

  • Set an administrator password! If you need it before logging in via Tails Greeter, add rootpw=some_password to the kernel command line in the boot menu — then you can switch to a virtual terminal (Ctrl+Alt+Fx) and login as root with the password you set.
  • Some changes require restarting GNOME to take affect. Switch to a virtual terminal and login as root, then run systemctl restart gdm and it should work.
  • The configurations we do live primarily in:
    • /usr/local/lib/tails-activate-windows-theme (run as the unprivileged amnesia user)
    • /usr/local/lib/tails-prepare-windows-theme (run as root)

I’ve attached a screenshot that points out several remaining issues, at least:

  • When the panel is placed at the bottom (like we want it, because that’s what Windows does) the panel button’s icon is shaped strangely. This is not an issue when placed at the top.
  • TopIcons don’t behave so well, e.g. look how it placed the Pidgin systray icon. Also, all icons are cropped.
  • The Launcher behaviour is quite nice, but it differs quite a lot from windows by showing the focused application’s GNOME panel entry to the left of the launcher. Preferably it would somehow be included into the launcher button instead.
  • Icedove’s icon should be changed to Outlook’s.
  • We currently install our old gnome-theme-windows8 package, for the icons, and it probably needs some updating for

#5 Updated by hybridwipe 2016-01-18 03:03:22

I’d like to volunteer to help with the coding aspect of this task.

#6 Updated by BitingBird 2016-06-26 11:43:30

  • Assignee set to hybridwipe

hybridwipe: assigning to you then :)

#7 Updated by BitingBird 2016-06-27 02:05:37

  • blocks Feature #6639: Persistence feature for Windows Camouflage added

#8 Updated by BitingBird 2016-06-27 07:00:08

  • blocks Feature #7720: Propose Windows camouflage for different Windows versions added

#9 Updated by Anonymous 2017-06-29 08:59:49

Hi @hybridwipe!

Any progress on this front?

#10 Updated by Anonymous 2018-01-18 16:54:12

No progress since 2 years. Looks like camouflage won’t come back anytime soon. I’m tempted to reject this ticket and related ones.

#11 Updated by Anonymous 2018-01-18 16:55:23

  • blocked by deleted (Feature #7720: Propose Windows camouflage for different Windows versions)

#12 Updated by Anonymous 2018-01-18 16:55:30

  • related to Feature #7720: Propose Windows camouflage for different Windows versions added

#13 Updated by sajolida 2018-01-21 12:13:56

  • Status changed from In Progress to Rejected

Yeah! We can reopen them once someone has better plans on getting it back.