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