Tails

#3 Updated by sajolida 2014-05-14 04:54:34

> booting Tails page (?)

I think that one is fine like it is. Unless we want to explicitly
mention that now it works. But maybe that should go only in the “System
requirements”.

> about and/or features

I’d say in “Features” only. The “About” page is a bit more generic than
that.

> hardware requirements
> Mac-specific doc: we need to keep the existing manual installation documentation (as part of solving the bootstrap problem for those who have neither a PC, nor a DVD writer, nor a trusted Tails device); but, we must also document that a device installed by Tails Installer boots fine on most Macs provided rEFInd is installed

Note that people with Mac should rather try to bootstrap from DVD
instead. I would be tempted to move this documentation into the advanced
section.

And what do you think we should do with
https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2014-May/005641.html ?

#4 Updated by Vox 2014-06-25 20:34:24

> > Mac-specific doc: we need to keep the existing manual installation documentation (as part of solving the bootstrap problem for those who have neither a PC, nor a DVD writer, nor a trusted Tails device); but, we must also document that a device installed by Tails Installer boots fine on most Macs provided rEFInd is installed
>
> Note that people with Mac should rather try to bootstrap from DVD
> instead. I would be tempted to move this documentation into the advanced
> section.
>
> And what do you think we should do with
> https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2014-May/005641.html ?

I’d be happy to work on the Mac specific documentation, if that could be created as a seperate subtask. In some cases, Mac users may need to check specifics regarding their hardware & efi firmware versions to determine compatibility. As for the link, this is essentially the process I have been using for testing on a mac; with the exception that most users will have no need to Convert ISO to Mac IMG—the person states they were using a Macbook Air; which will almost always be the exception rather than the rule regarding mac compatibility/processes etc.

#5 Updated by intrigeri 2014-06-26 08:55:11

Hi,

> I’d be happy to work on the Mac specific documentation, if that could be created as
> a seperate subtask.

For 1.1:

1. I’m not sure that we want UEFI Mac-specific documentation at all: the recommended way is to burn a DVD, and then use Tails Installer, which produces a device that boots fine on most UEFI-capable Mac hardware.
2. We need is to update the parts of our doc that pretend that Tails doesn’t easily boot on UEFI Macs: support/known_issues.mdwn
3. doc/about/requirements.mdwn also probably needs to be updated accordingly, once the Apple known issues section has been updated or removed
4. There’s also Feature #7262, which is not really a blocker for 1.1, but would be nice to see fixed :)

If you want to tackle any of these, feel free to extract it into a subtask, and assign it to yourself.
If you need more info, please just ask.

> In some cases, Mac users may need to check specifics regarding their hardware & efi firmware versions to determine compatibility.

I’m not sure we need to add such details to the installation instructions: it may scare users away, while in most cases the easiest and recommended way will just work. I think the known issues / troubleshooting section of our website is more appropriate to host details about support of specific hardware. Do you want to tackle this? E.g. a good start could be to move known issues from https://tails.boum.org/blueprint/UEFI/syslinux/ to support/known_issues.mdwn.

#6 Updated by intrigeri 2014-06-27 16:01:41

See Feature #7230 for the work being done in this area for 1.1.

#7 Updated by Vox 2014-07-03 14:32:31

I agree, there’s no reason to overwhelm new users with every possible exception to the rule. However:

The installation section could use a cleanup espically regarding rEFIt.
I think the mac manual usb installation section could be improved using:

1. sudo dd if=[tails.iso] of=/dev/rdisk# bs=1m

On macs the “m” in 1m is case sensitive.

There should, somewhere, I feel be a notation about wifi drivers & issues this will cause many if not all recent macs. I could see how a new user could get everything set up, boot into tails only to be confused/disappointed/discouraged when their wifi doesn’t work and they can’t figure out why.

#8 Updated by intrigeri 2014-07-03 15:20:22

> The installation section could use a cleanup espically regarding rEFIt.

Such as?

> I think the mac manual usb installation section could be improved using:

> # sudo dd if=[tails.iso] of=/dev/rdisk# bs=1m

> On macs the “m” in 1m is case sensitive.

Please file a dedicated ticket, since this seems totally unrelated to UEFI, and any useful off-topic information you provide here may be lost once we close this very ticket.

> There should, somewhere, I feel be a notation about wifi drivers & issues this will
> cause many if not all recent macs. I could see how a new user could get everything
> set up, boot into tails only to be confused/disappointed/discouraged when their wifi
> doesn’t work and they can’t figure out why.

Again, I don’t see what this has to do with UEFI, so please file a dedicated ticket.

Thanks!

#9 Updated by Vox 2014-07-03 18:53:51

On Thu, 03 Jul 2014 15:20:22 +0000
redmine@labs.riseup.net wrote:

> Issue Feature #6562 has been updated by intrigeri.
>
>
> > The installation section could use a cleanup espically regarding
> > rEFIt.
>
> Such as?
>
> > I think the mac manual usb installation section could be improved
> > using:
>
> > # sudo dd if=[tails.iso] of=/dev/rdisk# bs=1m
>
> > On macs the “m” in 1m is case sensitive.
>
> Please file a dedicated ticket, since this seems totally unrelated to
> UEFI, and any useful off-topic information you provide here may be
> lost once we close this very ticket.
>
> > There should, somewhere, I feel be a notation about wifi drivers &
> > issues this will cause many if not all recent macs. I could see how
> > a new user could get everything set up, boot into tails only to be
> > confused/disappointed/discouraged when their wifi doesn’t work and
> > they can’t figure out why.
>
> Again, I don’t see what this has to do with UEFI, so please file a
> dedicated ticket.
>
> Thanks!
>
> ————————————————————
> Feature Feature #6562: Complete documentation for UEFI boot
> https://labs.riseup.net/code/issues/6562#change-22731
>
> * Author: intrigeri
> * Status: Confirmed
> * Priority: Normal
> * Assignee: intrigeri
> * Category: Hardware support
> * Target version: Tails_2.0
> * QA Check:
> * Feature Branch:
> * Type of work: Documentation
> * Blueprint:
> * Easy: No
> ————————————————————
> Our initial UEFI support is part of Tails 1.1. The bare minimum of
> documentation is updated (Bug #7220), but there will likely be more to
> check, update and improve:
>
> * adapt our existing documentation to take into account that UEFI
> boot is now possible: known issues page
> booting Tails page (?)
> about and/or features
> hardware requirements
> Mac-specific doc: we need to keep the existing manual installation
> documentation (as part of solving the bootstrap problem for those who
> have neither a PC, nor a DVD writer, nor a trusted Tails device);
> but, we must also document that a device installed by Tails Installer
> boots fine on most Macs provided rEFInd is installed
> * document known issues of our UEFI boot support, and corresponding
> workarounds when applicable; these are gathered on the blueprint, and
> more specifically: non-goals section the test results section
> mentions a few hardware-specific problems and tricks
>
>
>
>

Will put in tickets for the other issues, sorry for dragging this off
topic; but i tend to think of all affected issues in one particular
area. Specifically, regarding rEFIt—it’s no longer maintained; it’s
not needed on most macs, and if there are mac users that do need a
different boot manager; rEFInd, the currently maintained fork of rEFIt
would be a better option. I believe there is a ticket already about
removing the reference to rEFIt; perhaps that can be merged with this
UEFI documentation or the ticket for 1.1. Since Most would likely be
able to boot Tails witout playing around with their boot manager,
perhaps the reference to installing rEFInd/rEFIt should only be listed
as a remedy for a failure to boot/known issues etc.

#10 Updated by intrigeri 2014-07-03 19:32:56

> Specifically, regarding rEFIt—it’s no longer maintained;

I don’t think we are still advertising rEFIt anywhere. Anyway, rEFIt is about non-UEFI boot in our case.

> Since Most would likely be
> able to boot Tails witout playing around with their boot manager,
> perhaps the reference to installing rEFInd/rEFIt should only be listed
> as a remedy for a failure to boot/known issues etc.

Isn’t it already the case? I think we advice people to use DVD first, to clone’n’install using Tails Installer, onto another (beta generation) USB stick (that will be UEFI-enabled). The manual installation (with dd) is documented as a fallback option only; and for that one, the resulting (alpha generation) boot medium won’t be UEFI enabled, so rEFInd is needed in many cases.

One useful thing you could do is to review the current state of the proposed documentation (feature/uefi branch), and point to specific problems, including information like the exact page where there’s something wrong or unclear :)