Installing Tor browser on Kubuntu

Support Tor Browser Desktop
1

Kubuntu 20.04

I’m following the instructions at INSTALLATION | Tor Project | Tor Browser Manual , and after downloading Tor, the keyring part of things has an error.

The Tor download from https://www.torproject.org/dist/torbrowser/11.0.3/tor-browser-linux64-11.0.3_en-US.tar.xz is in ~/Downloads/Tor

$ cd Downloads/Tor

:~/Downloads/Tor$ sudo gpg --auto-key-locate nodefault,wkd --locate-keys torbrowser@torproject.org

gpg: directory '/root/.gnupg' created
gpg: keybox '/root/.gnupg/pubring.kbx' created
gpg: /root/.gnupg/trustdb.gpg: trustdb created
gpg: key 4E2C6E8793298290: public key "Tor Browser Developers (signing key) <torbrowser@torproject.org>" imported
gpg: Total number processed: 1
gpg:               imported: 1
pub   rsa4096 2014-12-15 [C] [expires: 2025-07-21]
      EF6E286DDA85EA2A4BA7DE684E2C6E8793298290
uid           [ unknown] Tor Browser Developers (signing key) <torbrowser@torproject.org>
sub   rsa4096 2021-09-17 [S] [expires: 2023-09-17]

:~/Downloads/Tor$ gpg --output ./tor.keyring --export

0xEF6E286DDA85EA2A4BA7DE684E2C6E8793298290
gpg: keybox '/home/eter/.gnupg/pubring.kbx' created
gpg: WARNING: nothing exported

:~/Downloads/Tor$ gpgv --keyring ./tor.keyring ~/Downloads/Tor/tor-browser-linux64-9.0_en-US.tar.xz.asc ~/Downloads/Tor/tor-browser-linux64-11.0.3_en-US.tar.xz

gpgv: keyblock resource './tor.keyring': No such file or directory
gpgv: can't open '/home/********/Downloads/Tor/tor-browser-linux64-9.0_en-US.tar.xz.asc': No such file or directory
gpgv: verify signatures failed: No such file or directory

~/Downloads/Tor$ curl -s https://openpgpkey.torproject.org/.well-known/openpgpkey/torproject.org/hu/kounek7zrdx745qydx6p59t9mqjpuhdf |gpg --import -

gpg: /home/********/.gnupg/trustdb.gpg: trustdb created
gpg: key 4E2C6E8793298290: public key "Tor Browser Developers (signing key) <torbrowser@torproject.org>" imported
gpg: Total number processed: 1
gpg:               imported: 1

There is no .asc file created to be able to then perform the command

$ gpgv --keyring ./tor.keyring ~/Downloads/Tor/tor-browser-linux64-9.0_en-US.tar.xz.asc ~/Downloads/Tor/tor-browser-linux64-11.0.3_en-US.tar.xz

Also, why create a path called “root” when in Linux ‘root’ == ‘/’ ?

2

Any ideas please ? Just a simple step to create the .asc file

(I cannot edit the above post either)

3

Hello @jehoshua7, I edited your post and added some formatting to make it easier to follow.

First, as we mentioned on the documentation, you need to manually download the .asc file.

From the Support entry:

Each file on our download page is accompanied by a file labelled “signature” with the same name as the package and the extension “.asc”. These .asc files are OpenPGP signatures. They allow you to verify the file you’ve downloaded is exactly the one that we intended you to get. This will vary by web browser, but generally you can download this file by right-clicking the “signature” link and selecting the “save file as” option.

Or you can download the signature file running this command:

$ wget -O ~/Downloads/tor-browser-linux64-11.0.3_en-US.tar.xz.asc https://dist.torproject.org/torbrowser/11.0.3/tor-browser-linux64-11.0.3_en-US.tar.xz.asc

Second, you don’t need to run gpg --auto-key-locate nodefault,wkd --locate-keys torbrowser@torproject.org with sudo.

Now try again and see if it works. :smiley_cat:

3 Likes
4

Thanks @gus for putting in the formatting. I did look for the symbols in the editor to wrap code, etc, but couldn’t see them easily.

Thanks also for your tips, once I had the paths correct, it worked fine. So now, have finished the installation and run the Tor browser. I noticed as it was loading, the network was run by thousands of volunteers. Does that indicate using Tor browser is similar to P2P please ?

5

Tor is currently installed in ~/Downloads/Tor . Most software is installed in /usr/lib , so I assume it should be placed there, is that correct ? (As any updates won’t come from the Kubuntu package managers like “apt” , etc, but a download replacement of the archive.)

Also, as I found the documentation for the installation needs a KIS principle (just my perspective), I’ll make some shortened instructions. From memory it is just …

  1. Download the Tor software and signature from Tor Project | Download
  2. Install the keyring software
  3. Verify Tor browsers signature
  4. Install the software (untar).
6

If you want to simplify this procedure, you can try the Tor Browser Launcher.

2 Likes
7

Thanks @Last - I did actually start a Torinstall with flatpack until ‘root’ filled up and it crashed. So, will increase that partition first to hopefully install it all this time. :grinning: