Tails

#1 Updated by gentriles 2016-03-18 18:43:33

Appendix: I tried to run the same Tails 2.2 image on VirtualBox on the same machine that gave me the “Oh no. Something went wrong.” error message … and it also gave me the same error in the Virtualbox (Host: Ubuntu). I activated ’3D-Acceleration’ for the VirtualBox machine Tails 2.2 and then it worked.

Could this be helpful to solve the problem for booting Tails 2.2 on a normal (non virtualbox) machine?

#2 Updated by vitali576 2016-03-19 18:31:36

I have exactly the same problem with Acer Aspire ES1-331-C5KL, CPU Intel Celeron N3150.
I have already spent about 8 hours on researching the cause of this problem, as for now I highly assume there is a bug in Gnome Display Manager that appears in combination with integrated Intel HD Graphics.
I have already tried the following kernel boot parameters, without any success:

vga=771
vga=788
intel_idle.max_cstate=2
intel_idle.max_cstate=1
intel_idle.max_cstate=0
tsc=reliable
clocksource=tsc
video=VGA-1:1280x800
i915.enable_fbc=0
video=SVIDEO-1:d
i915.enable_execlists=0
vga=normal
nofb
video=vesafb:off
radeon.modeset=0
xorg-driver=fbdev
nomodeset
i915.modeset=0
i915.modeset=1
i915.preliminary_hw_support=1
i915.enable_rc6=0
i915.enable_rc6=1

Could someone with similar hardware please try to reproduce this, so we can find a solution asap.
Please keep in mind that I am only little experienced with Debian/Tails - maybe someone would like to explain how I can create a log file from the console and save it to the USB Drive and then upload this here for further investigation?

#3 Updated by vitali576 2016-03-19 18:42:13

similar issues have been reported here (but no solution yet for my scenario) :(

https://labs.riseup.net/code/issues/11096
https://labs.riseup.net/code/issues/11095
https://labs.riseup.net/code/issues/11060
https://labs.riseup.net/code/issues/11014
https://labs.riseup.net/code/issues/8778
https://labs.riseup.net/code/issues/7890
https://labs.riseup.net/code/issues/11145

#5 Updated by gentriles 2016-03-20 01:08:02

mercedes508 wrote:
> 3. once Tails has crashed (freeze or return to the greeter), press simulteanously Ctrl + Alt + F1 to get to the text console

When I press Ctrl + Alt + F1 it brings me to the “Welcome to Tails” screen with “More options? Yes No” window. I can’t start the text console…

#6 Updated by vitali576 2016-03-20 13:10:01

gentriles wrote:
>
> When I press Ctrl + Alt + F1 it brings me to the “Welcome to Tails” screen with “More options? Yes No” window. I can’t start the text console…

I had exactly the same issue, however I just found out how to get to the text console:

1. use kernel boot parameter vga=770 and hit return key
2. on the next screen, again hit return key, it will show you a list of compatible video modes
3. I have tested the following modes working for me (I haven’t tested all of them yet): 311, 312 and 315
4. Enter the specific mode number (e.g. 311) and hit return
5. the system will boot, after login screen it crashes as usual BUT now you can switch to console by pressing CTRL+ALT+F1
6. now you can proceed with mercedes508 tutorial
7. you may also use kernel boot paramters “rootpw=1234” (to specify a password for root at startup) and delete “noautologin”, so you do not have to select “login” button to get to the error code
8. As mentioned above, I have not yet tried all of the vga=XXX modes, maybe some of these will work even without gnome crashing, so can you please try all of them and report back?

#7 Updated by gentriles 2016-03-20 17:33:50

mercedes508 wrote:
> In order to understand what is the exact issue, we need more informations.
I sent the email with the log file you requested.

vitali576 wrote:
> I had exactly the same issue, however I just found out how to get to the text console
Thanks for the workaround to reach the console! I too havent tried all video modes yet. I’ll post a message if one of them is actually working.

#11 Updated by devnsec 2016-04-05 21:20:54

I can confirm that I have the same issue with Tails 2.2.1 on a computer that uses a N3700 processor.

Hardware information:

$ grep 'model name' /proc/cpuinfo | head -n1
model name  : Intel(R) Pentium(R) CPU  N3700  @ 1.60GHz

$ lspci -nn | grep VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Device [8086:22b1] (rev 21)

I have tried Debian 8 on the computer, the GNOME desktop could not startup and crashed with the same error message like Tails, but I was managed to solve the issue on Debian by installing mesa from jessie-backports. To be specific, I upgraded the following packages to the backports version and solved the issue: libegl1-mesa libegl1-mesa-drivers libgl1-mesa-dri libgl1-mesa-glx libglapi-mesa libwayland-egl1-mesa

The commit in mesa that fixed this issue is: https://cgit.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/commit/?id=cad60420d5ea36a4b6fa2e6c91317f71423aa63e

#12 Updated by devnsec 2016-04-05 21:25:02

I would also suggest change the subject from Xorg crashes with Intel Celeron to Xorg crashes with Intel Braswell

And Intel Bay Trail is potentially affected by the same bug, need to confirm.

#13 Updated by gentriles 2016-04-06 15:23:07

devnsec wrote:
> To be specific, I upgraded the following packages to the backports version and solved the issue: libegl1-mesa libegl1-mesa-drivers libgl1-mesa-dri libgl1-mesa-glx libglapi-mesa libwayland-egl1-mesa

How do I install these packages in Tails? I read that one should not use “sudo apt-get install …” on Tails?! If you can tell me how to install them, I can report if it fixes the problem.

#14 Updated by devnsec 2016-04-07 00:14:40

gentriles wrote:
> devnsec wrote:
> > To be specific, I upgraded the following packages to the backports version and solved the issue: libegl1-mesa libegl1-mesa-drivers libgl1-mesa-dri libgl1-mesa-glx libglapi-mesa libwayland-egl1-mesa
>
> How do I install these packages in Tails? I read that one should not use “sudo apt-get install …” on Tails?! If you can tell me how to install them, I can report if it fixes the problem.

Use “sudo apt-get” updates those packages is not going to work. The reason is simple, you don’t have the password for “sudo” if you cannot login.

The only solution that I can see is modify the squashfs image file.

#18 Updated by vitali576 2016-04-07 14:27:31

devnsec wrote:
> gentriles wrote:
> > devnsec wrote:
> > > To be specific, I upgraded the following packages to the backports version and solved the issue: libegl1-mesa libegl1-mesa-drivers libgl1-mesa-dri libgl1-mesa-glx libglapi-mesa libwayland-egl1-mesa
> >
> > How do I install these packages in Tails? I read that one should not use “sudo apt-get install …” on Tails?! If you can tell me how to install them, I can report if it fixes the problem.
>
> Use “sudo apt-get” updates those packages is not going to work. The reason is simple, you don’t have the password for “sudo” if you cannot login.
>
> The only solution that I can see is modify the squashfs image file.

Is it possible to install the mentioned jessie-backport packages inside tails with persistence enabled on another machine and then use the fixed tails on the buggy hardware?
Could You please describe how to add the jessie-backport APT repository from the terminal in tails to install the packages? As I said I want to try if this works, assuming the backport packages remain persistent once installed?
I have already tried to add the repo
echo "deb "$":http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ jessie main" | \ sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/jessie.list

but I without luck:

E: Package ‘libegl1-mesa-drivers’ has no installation candidate
root@amnesia:/home/amnesia# sudo apt-get install libegl1-mesa
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
libegl1-mesa is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
root@amnesia:/home/amnesia# sudo apt-get install libegl1-mesa-driversReading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
Package libegl1-mesa-drivers is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source
However the following packages replace it:
libwayland-egl1-mesa

E: Package ‘libegl1-mesa-drivers’ has no installation candidate
root@amnesia:/home/amnesia#

Maybe you could help me with this? I appreciate your help!

#19 Updated by devnsec 2016-04-08 01:22:22

vitali576 wrote:
> devnsec wrote:
> > gentriles wrote:
> > > devnsec wrote:
> > > > To be specific, I upgraded the following packages to the backports version and solved the issue: libegl1-mesa libegl1-mesa-drivers libgl1-mesa-dri libgl1-mesa-glx libglapi-mesa libwayland-egl1-mesa
> > >
> > > How do I install these packages in Tails? I read that one should not use “sudo apt-get install …” on Tails?! If you can tell me how to install them, I can report if it fixes the problem.
> >
> > Use “sudo apt-get” updates those packages is not going to work. The reason is simple, you don’t have the password for “sudo” if you cannot login.
> >
> > The only solution that I can see is modify the squashfs image file.
>
> Is it possible to install the mentioned jessie-backport packages inside tails with persistence enabled on another machine and then use the fixed tails on the buggy hardware?
> Could You please describe how to add the jessie-backport APT repository from the terminal in tails to install the packages? As I said I want to try if this works, assuming the backport packages remain persistent once installed?
> I have already tried to add the repo
> echo "deb "$":http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ jessie main" | \ > sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/jessie.list
>
>
> but I without luck:
>
> E: Package ‘libegl1-mesa-drivers’ has no installation candidate
> root@amnesia:/home/amnesia# sudo apt-get install libegl1-mesa
> Reading package lists… Done
> Building dependency tree
> Reading state information… Done
> libegl1-mesa is already the newest version.
> 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
> root@amnesia:/home/amnesia# sudo apt-get install libegl1-mesa-driversReading package lists… Done
> Building dependency tree
> Reading state information… Done
> Package libegl1-mesa-drivers is not available, but is referred to by another package.
> This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
> is only available from another source
> However the following packages replace it:
> libwayland-egl1-mesa
>
> E: Package ‘libegl1-mesa-drivers’ has no installation candidate
> root@amnesia:/home/amnesia#
>
> Maybe you could help me with this? I appreciate your help!

First of all, I don’t think install them in persistence will work, because the mesa library probably loads before the persistence unlocked.

If you still want to test it, follow instructions here: http://backports.debian.org/Instructions/

TL;DR:

sudo -i
echo 'deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian jessie-backports main' >> /etc/apt/sources.list
apt-get update
apt-get -t jessie-backports install libegl1-mesa libegl1-mesa-drivers libgl1-mesa-dri libgl1-mesa-glx libglapi-mesa libwayland-egl1-mesa

#20 Updated by devnsec 2016-04-08 01:50:21

Hi vitali576,

I’ve read the source code of the persistent apt-get packages, and I think it won’t help you to fix this issue.

tails/config/chroot_local-includes/usr/local/sbin/tails-additional-software line 98:

    apt_get_returncode = _launch_apt_get(["--no-remove",
        "--option", "DPkg::Options::=--force-confold",
        "install"] + packages)

It has the “—no-remove” parameter, and the “man apt-get” says:

--no-remove
    If any packages are to be removed apt-get immediately aborts without prompting. 

Since we are trying to replace the packages with a newer version, this will most likely removes the existing packages, and results in “apt-get immediately aborts without prompting”.

#21 Updated by devnsec 2016-04-08 02:11:07

Since the persistent looks like a dead end, and modifying the squashfs image seems overkill, I did more research on how to patch Tails installation, and come up with this: https://tails.boum.org/contribute/design/incremental_upgrades/archive/

stacking squashfs images sounds like an easier and less destructive way of testing this.

#22 Updated by devnsec 2016-04-08 19:02:44

I have succeed with a squashfs image file. Here is the steps I did:

WARNING: FOR TESTING PURPOSE ONLY, I CANNOT GUARANTEE ANYTHING, USE IT ON YOUR OWN RISK

1. Download all of the deb files below (some of them are dependencies)

   http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/libd/libdrm/libdrm-amdgpu1_2.4.67-1~bpo8+1_i386.deb
   http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/libd/libdrm/libdrm2_2.4.67-1~bpo8+1_i386.deb
   http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/m/mesa/libwayland-egl1-mesa_11.1.2-1~bpo8+1_i386.deb
   http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/m/mesa/libglapi-mesa_11.1.2-1~bpo8+1_i386.deb
   http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/m/mesa/libgl1-mesa-glx_11.1.2-1~bpo8+1_i386.deb
   http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/m/mesa/libgl1-mesa-dri_11.1.2-1~bpo8+1_i386.deb
   http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/m/mesa/libegl1-mesa_11.1.2-1~bpo8+1_i386.deb

2. Make temporary directories

   mkdir -p tails/{media,filesystem,2.2.1,changes,root}
   cd tails

3. Mount your USB stick, assume /dev/sdx1 is your Tails USB stick

   mount /dev/sdx1 media

4. Mount squashfs images

   mount -o ro,loop media/live/filesystem.squashfs filesystem
   mount -o ro,loop media/live/2.2.1.squashfs 2.2.1

5. Mount the live root with aufs (please make sure your kernel has AUFS supports)

   mount -t aufs -o br:changes=rw,br:2.2.1=ro,br:filesystem=ro none root

6. Copy all packages into live root

   cp /path/to/deb/files/*.deb root/

7. Chroot into the live root

   chroot root /bin/bash
   source /etc/profile

8. Install deb files

   cd /
   dpkg -i *.deb

9. Exit chroot environment

   exit
   rm -rf root/*.deb
   umount root

10. Cleanup unnecessary files

    cd changes
    rm -rf tmp .wh..wh.aufs .wh..wh.orph .wh..wh.plnk root var/log var/lib/dpkg/{updates,triggers,status-old,lock}
    cd ..

11. Make the delta squashfs image, and put it on the USB stick

    mksquashfs changes media/live/mesa-backports.squashfs

12. Edit the media/live/Tails.module file, append a line that contains the new image file name, like this:

    filesystem.squashfs
    2.2.1.squashfs
    mesa-backports.squashfs

13. Umount everything

    umount filesystem 2.2.1
    umount media

Done! Now test your Tails on the problematic hardware, and report your test result here.

#23 Updated by devnsec 2016-04-09 05:25:35

Actually, try the Tails feature Feature #11303 build, and report your results to this ticket or Feature #11303

Download link: http://nightly.tails.boum.org/build_Tails_ISO_feature-11303-mesa-backport/lastSuccessful/archive/latest.iso

It worked for me, I was able to run Tails on Intel N3700 CPU use this ISO.

#24 Updated by vitali576 2016-04-09 16:29:07

devnsec wrote:
> It worked for me, I was able to run Tails on Intel N3700 CPU use this ISO.

I can confirm this build works on Intel Celeron N3150 with Acer Aspire ES1-331-C5KL!
Will this fix be included in the next official release?

#25 Updated by devnsec 2016-04-09 17:05:22

vitali576 wrote:
> devnsec wrote:
> > It worked for me, I was able to run Tails on Intel N3700 CPU use this ISO.
>
> I can confirm this build works on Intel Celeron N3150 with Acer Aspire ES1-331-C5KL!
> Will this fix be included in the next official release?

I believe that this fix will be included if we push it hard enough.

Ticket Feature #11303 says “Target version: Tails_2.4”, but I believe it still has the chance to ship with the 2.3 release if this ISO is well tested.

#26 Updated by gentriles 2016-04-10 06:04:43

devnsec wrote:
> Actually, try the Tails feature Feature #11303 build, and report your results to this ticket or Feature #11303
>
> Download link: http://nightly.tails.boum.org/build_Tails_ISO_feature-11303-mesa-backport/lastSuccessful/archive/latest.iso
I can confirm this is working on the “Intel Celeron N3050 1.6 GHz”! Thank you very much.

Gnome is working, though expectingly very slow…There is a ton of minimalistic / extremely lightweight desktop-environments out there. “TinyWM” one of the smallest. Here is a great list: https://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops/ If it’s possible to include one of them as a “fail-safe” GUI or GUI for low end machines. This would definately help people who cant afford a decend performant laptop … or doesnt push the requirement to buy one of the latest laptop (which also ships with some other fancy technology not everybody likes…). Think about it…

#27 Updated by devnsec 2016-04-10 08:31:57

gentriles wrote:
> devnsec wrote:
> > Actually, try the Tails feature Feature #11303 build, and report your results to this ticket or Feature #11303
> >
> > Download link: http://nightly.tails.boum.org/build_Tails_ISO_feature-11303-mesa-backport/lastSuccessful/archive/latest.iso
> I can confirm this is working on the “Intel Celeron N3050 1.6 GHz”! Thank you very much.
>
> Gnome is working, though expectingly very slow…There is a ton of minimalistic / extremely lightweight desktop-environments out there. “TinyWM” one of the smallest. Here is a great list: https://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops/ If it’s possible to include one of them as a “fail-safe” GUI or GUI for low end machines. This would definately help people who cant afford a decend performant laptop … or doesnt push the requirement to buy one of the latest laptop (which also ships with some other fancy technology not everybody likes…). Think about it…

Thanks for the feedback.

For the DE/WM question, see here: https://tails.boum.org/support/faq/index.en.html#index4h2

Personally, I don’t like GNOME either. I have a quad core N3700 which is definitely better than the dual core N3050, even though, use keyboard to typing in a GUI text editor is very laggy. But since Tails only has GNOME, we don’t have any choices, and I won’t push the developers to support another DE, because the cost of that is bigger ISO files and a lots more maintenance works. The only thing that I can do is disable animations, it’s not a big improvement, but better than nothing.

If you really had enough with GNOME, you could modify the squashfs image file as a mentioned before, add your favourite DE, but you probably need to find a way to deal with the Greeter. (I have never tried to do this)

#29 Updated by intrigeri 2016-04-13 17:26:22

intrigeri wrote:
> Rationale: I’m confused and am not sure what the exact scope of this ticket is, especially since “Intel Braswell” does not exist as far as I know,

My bad, it does exist. Still, it would be great to check if all GPUs mentioned on this ticket are indeed Braswell ones.

#30 Updated by elouann 2016-04-14 03:32:20

> it would be great to check if all GPUs mentioned on this ticket are indeed Braswell ones.

Yes they are, according to http://ark.intel.com/fr/products/codename/66094/Braswell#@All (checked: Intel Celeron N3150, Intel Celeron N3050, Intel Pentium N3700)

> can you please quickly check if Feature #11303 would solve all the problems this ticket is about?

Yes: the experimental ISO fixes the issue of everybody here (devnsec, vitali576, gentriles). Thank you devnsec!

> Also, it would be nice if someone (frontdesk?) checked if/how the tickets mentionned on Bug #11263#note-3 relate to this one, and to Feature #11303.

I’ll dig into that a bit later

#31 Updated by elouann 2016-04-14 07:20:31

I processed the tickets listed in #3 and others:
It seems like the same error message (“Oh no. Something has gone wrong”) can have different causes.
For example, some tickets refer to this error as appearing randomly, some appears each time after the greeter, etc.

Users facing this problem should IMHO:

- test this experimental ISO: http://nightly.tails.boum.org/build_Tails_ISO_feature-11303-mesa-backport/lastSuccessful/archive/latest.iso and report if it does the trick

- Check those workarounds and report
https://labs.riseup.net/code/issues/11095#note-3
https://labs.riseup.net/code/issues/11095#note-7

- If the issue is not fixed, gather some more info, see
https://labs.riseup.net/code/issues/7323#note-31
https://labs.riseup.net/code/issues/11263#note-4
https://labs.riseup.net/code/issues/11263#note-6

Random notes: