Rationale:

 - Right now:

   - These pages' Markdown will be rendered when browsing our
     repository in the GitLab web interface

   - The .md extension is more common nowadays: GitHub, GitLab, and various
     other major players have settled on it. Let's get used to it.

 - If we decide to migrate our blueprints to GitLab (#18079),
   this will be a necessary first step.

usb_install_and_upgrade.md

+[[!tag archived]]
+
+[[!meta title="USB install and upgrade"]]
+
+We [[!tails_ticket 11679 desc="started a process"]] of rethinking
+Tails installation and upgrade process, identifying changes we can do
+relatively quickly and that have a good cost/benefit ratio, and
+thinking about long-term solutions.
+
+Most of the installation issues we've identified were solved
+by shipping a USB image.
+
+[[!toc levels=3]]
+
+<a id="problems"></a>
+
+Problems identified in Tails installation & upgrade process
+===========================================================
+
+Tags
+----
+
+Problems below are tagged this way:
+
+* `[fixed-by-1-big-iuk]`: would solved by a smallish change to our
+  upgrade system that would allow users to automatically upgrade
+  through a whole Tails series such as 3.x (this idea is also known as
+  "IUKs on steroids", "1 big IUK", "endless upgrades"), i.e.
+  [[!tails_ticket 15281]] and
+  [[Endless_upgrades#single-squashfs-diff]]
+
+Installation process
+--------------------
+
+* Users have to first understand a complex mental model in which they
+  download an ISO image, have to use an installation program and create
+  some kind of "magic USB" key.
+* Users need to turn off [[UEFI Secure Boot]] to start Tails.
+* There's a mess around what device is considered "removable":
+  we have slightly different definitions in various places.
+
+Upgrade process
+---------------
+
+* Regular Tails users need to go through manual upgrades twice a year.
+  [fixed-by-1-big-iuk]
+* It's currently not possible to autoupgrade from an older Tails
+  version, i.e. It's impossible to autoupgrade from Tails 3.1 to Tails
+  3.5. [fixed-by-1-big-iuk]
+* IUK size is not efficient. Users have to download a big blob of data
+  which can be very long over Tor.
+* On upgrade failure our recovery handling is poor.
+* Upon upgrades our user experience is poor.
+* Manual upgrades are very complicated.
+* Sometimes manual upgrades are required.
+* Our upgrade system has never been audited yet.
+* Because we instruct people not to use `apt upgrade` they have to wait
+  for us to release bugfixes, and these are often made too late after
+  the release.
+
+Envisioned solutions to the problems that are not `fixed-by-1-big-iuk`:
+[[!tails_ticket 15279]], <strike>[[!tails_ticket 15282]]</strike>,
+[[!tails_ticket 7499]].
+
+<a id="roadmap"></a>
+
+Roadmap
+=======
+
+* improving upgrade UX: [[!tails_ticket 15281]] and
+  [[Endless_upgrades#single-squashfs-diff]]
+* come back to the upgrade topic later ([[!tails_ticket 15277]])
+
+Resources
+=========
+
+* [[notes about UEFI|UEFI]]
+* [[notes about GPT|usb_install_and_upgrade/gpt]]
+* USB installation [[specification and design|contribute/design/installation]]
+* archived [[roundup of existing tools|usb_install_and_upgrade/archive]]