> On Oct 28, 2025, at 6:22 PM, NoisyCoil via Tails-dev <[email protected]> > wrote: > > Hi all! > > A lot of time has passed since I last gave updates on the mailing list about > the arm64 port of Tails. I've been quite busy at work and I still am (in > fact, I am busier now than ever), but I've procrastinated writing this email > for 6+ months now, so I thought I'd better start writing it now and finish > whenever I finish :-) So here you go.
Thanks for posting! > The first big update is last year I have upstreamed support for arm64 Linux > to the Tor Browser and the Mullvad Browser [1]. In fact, the Tor Project has > been building official Linux arm64 nightlies since last December, see e.g. > [2]. Despite numerous requests from users and sponsors alike [3-14], alpha > and release builds have not been made available yet. Oh, well. Because of > this, my arm64 Tails images still come with my own release builds of the Tor > Browser installed [15]. The code is the same as upstream, except that the > build scripts are tweaked so I can use an arm64 builder (specifically, an > Apple M1 Mini running Debian Forky) instead of the x86_64 (cross-)builders > upstream uses. > > The second update is more personal, but Tails-related nonetheless. A few > months ago I became a Debian Developer, uploading, to work on supporting > Apple Silicon machines and on Rust $STUFF. This is Tails-related first of all > because it is a spin-off of my work on the Tails port: to port Tails to Apple > Silicon, I first had to port Debian, and in the process I learned a bunch of > stuff which lead me to contribute to Debian and ultimately to become a DD. In > particular, I became a member of the Bananas Team [16], which maintains all > Apple Silicon related packages in Debian. Additionally, still within the > Bananas Team, I'm now maintaining the infrastructure and extra packages (e.g. > the Asahi kernel) needed to run Debian on Apple Silicon, that can't be in > Debian proper because they are not fully upstreamed yet [17]. You can reach > out to the Bananas Team on IRC at #debian-bananas or via the mailing list > [email protected]. > > The second way that is related to Debian is, starting from version 7.0, my > Apple Silicon Tails port uses the same packages the Bananas Team is > distributing to Trixie users via the debian repository at > https://bananas-archive.debian.net/bananas-archive. All of that looks very promising! > As for the arm64 port in general, vanilla Tails 7.0 for arm64 (i.e. > everything from the Debian archive, no meaningful departures from x86_64 > Tails) was tested to work on a ThinkPad X13s with minor tweaks (essentially, > add the DTBs, a couple of scripts and some optional boot parameters) which > I've not merged to my main development branch (wip/arm64) yet, since the > Apple Silicon port is based on that too, and I haven't had time to test the > two of them in conjunction. I don't expect they will conflict though. On the > other hand, something broke along the way of upgrading to Trixie in the > Raspberry port (probably some kernel module is missing) and, again, no time > to fix, so I'm not building that version for the moment. I'm sad to hear about that. I think supporting Raspberry Pis is a great idea, since there are a *vast* number of them, they're inexpensive, and they already run Linux. I hope someone can track that down and fix it sometime. I'm not a Tails or Tor developer, so I can't speak to their needs or resource limitations. But I *do* hope that Tails will eventually support ARM as well: at least Raspberry Pis, and ideally Macs as well. I'm happy to hear about the challenging work already done. --- David A. Wheeler _______________________________________________ Tails-dev mailing list [email protected] https://www.autistici.org/mailman/listinfo/tails-dev To unsubscribe from this list, send an empty email to [email protected].
