Tails 5.9 is out (2023-01-23)

General Discussion
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Tails 5.9 is out (2023-01-23)

==> Quoted from:

We are sorry that Tails 5.8 affected many of you so badly.

Thanks to your patience and feedback, we were able to solve most of these new issues.

Changes and updates

  • Update Tor Browser to 102.7.
  • Update the Tor client to 0.4.7.13.
  • Simplify the error screen of the Tor Connection assistant when connecting automatically.
  • Improve the wording of the backup utility for the Persistent Storage.
  • Remove the confirmation dialog when starting the Unsafe Browser.

Fixed problems

  • Fix support for some graphics cards:
    • Update the Linux kernel to 6.0.12. This improves the support for newer hardware in general: graphics, Wi-Fi, and so on. (#18467)
    • Remove from the Troubleshooting Mode 2 boot options that break support for some graphics cards: nomodeset and vga=normal. (#19321)Please let us know if the support for your graphics cards has been fixed or is still broken.
  • Fix starting AppImages that use the Qt toolkit like Feather and Bitcoin-Qt. (#19326)
  • Fix clipboard encryption and decryption in Kleopatra. (#19329)
  • Fix at least 2 cases of Persistent Storage not activating:
    • When activation takes longer (#19347)
    • When the Dotfiles feature includes symbolic links (#19346)Please keep reporting issues with the new Persistent Storage. We give them top priority!
  • Fix 3 clipboard operations with KeePassXC:
    • Copying a passphrase to unlock a database (#19237)
    • Using the auto-type feature (#19339)
    • Clearing passwords automatically from the clipboard after 10 seconds
  • Fix the display of the applications menu that was broken in some GTK3 applications installed as Additional Software. (#19371)
  • Localize the homepage of Tor Browser when started from the Tor Connection assistant. (#19369)

For more details, read our changelog.

Known issues

Please keep reporting issues with the new Persistent Storage and when starting on graphics cards that used to work with Tails.

Tor Browser has no minimize and maximize buttons (#19328)

To work around this:

  1. Right-click on the Tor Browser tab in the window list at the bottom of the screen.
  2. Choose Minimize or Maximize.

Welcome Screen and Tor Connection don’t fit on 800×600 (#19324)

The top of the Welcome Screen and some button of the Tor Connection assistant are cut out on small displays (800Ă—600), like virtual machines.

You can press Alt+S to start Tails.

Progress bar of Tor Connection gets stuck around 50% (#19173)

When using a custom Tor obfs4 bridge, the progress bar of Tor Connection sometimes gets stuck halfway through and becomes extremely slow.

To fix this, you can either:

  • Close and reopen Tor Connection to speed up the initial connection.
  • Try a different obfs4 bridge.This issue only affects outdated obfs4 bridges and does not happen with obfs4 bridges that run version 0.0.12 or later.

See the list of long-standing issues.

Get Tails 5.9

To upgrade your Tails USB stick and keep your persistent storage

  • Automatic upgrades are available from Tails 5.0 or later to 5.9.You can reduce the size of the download of future automatic upgrades by doing a manual upgrade to the latest version.
  • If you cannot do an automatic upgrade or if Tails fails to start after an automatic upgrade, please try to do a manual upgrade.

To install Tails on a new USB stick

Follow our installation instructions:

The Persistent Storage on the USB stick will be lost if you install instead of upgrading.

To download only

If you don’t need installation or upgrade instructions, you can download Tails 5.9 directly:

What’s coming up?

Tails 5.10 is scheduled for February 21.

Posted 2023-01-23

Tags: announce

=======================================

==> Changelog, Quoted from:

tails (5.9) unstable; urgency=medium

  • Update tor to 0.4.7.13 (tails/tails!1013)

    Closes issues:

    • Upgrade to Tor 0.4.7.13 (tails/tails#19377)

    Commits:

    • Update tor to 0.4.7.13

  • Resolve “Upgrade to Tor Browser based on Firefox 102.7” (tails/tails!1012)

    Closes issues:

    • Upgrade to Tor Browser based on Firefox 102.7 (tails/tails#19360)

    Commits:

    • Fetch Tor Browser from our own archive
    • Upgrade Tor Browser to 12.0.2-build1

  • tps: Increase timeout of activate call (tails/tails!1006)

    Closes issues:

    • tps logs passphrase in cleartext in debug mode (tails/tails#19350)
    • Persistent Storage fails to activate: timeout (tails/tails#19347)

    Commits:

    • tps: Don’t print status of NetworkManager.service to stdout
    • tps: Bump the activation timeout to 120 seconds
    • tps: Add log messages
    • tps: Log line which called executil helper functions

  • Troubleshooting mode: stop passing options that can only break stuff
    (tails/tails!999)

    Closes issues:

    • Reconsider Troubleshooting Mode kernel command line wrt. Wayland
      (tails/tails#19321)

    Commits:

    • Troubleshooting mode (syslinux): stop passing options that can only break stuff
    • Troubleshooting mode (EFI): stop passing options that can only break stuff

  • Upgrade to Linux 6.0 (tails/tails!996)

    Closes issues:

    • Add randomize_kstack_offset=1 to boot parameters (tails/tails#19023)
    • Enable BPF JIT hardening (tails/tails#19345)
    • Upgrade to Linux 6.0 (tails/tails#18467)

    Commits:

    • Test suite: allow the pattern to cover slightly less of the write cache
    • Revert renaming of /etc/amnesia/version to /etc/tails/version
    • Move “set -eu” to a better location
    • Test suite: remove dead code
    • Test suite: drop check about tails-version output
    • Upgrade to Linux 6.0.12-1~bpo11+1
    • early_patch: implement the initramfs-tools’ “prereqs” interface
    • initramfs: stop including SCSI drivers
    • initramfs: bring back including all DRM modules
    • Always log the size of the initramfs
    • initramfs: remove support for AFS and CIFS
    • initramfs: remove support for PCMCIA and parallel port
    • initramfs: don’t include firmware for drivers we removed
    • initramfs: remove sunrpc support
    • initramfs: remove a bunch more SCSI drivers
    • Add set -u
    • Drop set -x
    • Include fewer modules in the initramfs
    • Compress the initramfs with the most space-efficient XZ compression level
    • Simplify how we set initramfs compression algorithm
    • Hardening: turn on BPF JIT hardening, if the JIT is enabled.
    • Fix headings levels
    • Hardening: randomize kernel stack offset on syscall entry
    • initrd: install privacy screen provider drivers
    • Upgrade to Linux 6.0.3-1~bpo11+1 from bullseye-backports
    • Enable bullseye-backports APT source
    • Rename config/amnesia to config/variables
    • Rename /etc/amnesia to /etc/tails
    • Deprecate /usr/share/doc/amnesia/
    • The thing is called Tails
    • Drop support for config/amnesia.local
    • Update comment
    • Rename $AMNESIA_* variables
    • Remove unused variables

  • Tor Connection: Hide “Fix clock”, “Proxy”, and “Captive Portal” when time sync
    was successful already (tails/tails!986)

    Closes issues:

    • Add label to bridge line on the error screen (tails/tails#19332)
    • Hide “Fix clock”, “Proxy”, and “Captive Portal” when time sync was successful
      already (tails/tails#19171)

    Commits:

    • Make it easier to reason about state transitions
    • Tor Connection: simplify test
    • Tor Connection: improve phrasing
    • Tor Connection: make phrasing consistent
    • Tor Connection: tell the user when we know their network is blocking access to
      Tor
    • Tor Connection: explain what bridges are on the error screen
    • Tor Connection: rename “Bridge by email” section on the error screen
    • Tor Connection: add label to bridge line on the error screen too
    • Tor Connection: fix alignment of “Send an empty email” string
    • Tor Connection: Hide “Fix clock”, “Proxy”, and “Captive Portal” when time sync
      was successful already
    • Name widgets so we can act on them
    • Tor Connection: make log message somewhat clearer
    • Tor Connection: remember the result of tails-get-network-time

  • tps: Fix handling of symlink bindings (tails/tails!1009)

    Closes issues:

    • Persistent Storage sometimes fails to activate Dotfiles (tails/tails#19346)

    Commits:

    • tps behave-tests: Support passing flags to behave
    • tps behave-tests: Test source directory with symlink
    • tps behave-tests: Add README
    • tps: Fix BEHAVE_DEBUG_ON_ERROR feature of the behave tests
    • tps: Improve log messages
    • tps-frontend: Improve log and error messages
    • tps-frontend: Fix log level of message
    • tps: Fix activation of symlink bindings failing
    • tps: Fix log message
    • tps: Improve error message
    • tps: Fix Activate call failing with spurious error
    • tps: More useful error message

  • tps: Don’t log parameters which can contain secrets (tails/tails!1005)

    Closes issues:

    • tps logs passphrase in cleartext in debug mode (tails/tails#19350)

    Commits:

    • tps: Don’t log parameters which can contain secrets

  • Do not hide the GTK3 “application menu” button in title bars (tails/tails!1004)

    Closes issues:

    • Cannot access GTK3 application menus in Tails 5.8 / Wayland (tails/tails#19371)

    Commits:

    • Do not hide the GTK3 “application menu” button in title bars

  • Fix Tor Browser homepage localization when started from Tor Connection
    (tails/tails!1003)

    Closes issues:

    • Tor Browser homepage is not localized when started from Tor Connection
      (tails/tails#19369)

    Commits:

    • Simplify f-string
    • Lint
    • Fix Tor Browser homepage localization when started from Tor Connection

  • Update tails@ key (tails/tails!1001)

    Commits:

    • Test suite: ensure OpenPGP keys test is run when the only change on the branch
      is updating a key
    • Update tails@ key

  • Pull non-website PO files from Weblate (tails/tails!1000)

    Closes issues:

    • Pull non-website PO files from Weblate (tails/tails#19322)

    Commits:

    • import-translations: remove obsolete reference to Transifex
    • import-translations: drop support for excluding languages
    • generate-languages-list: workaround the fact we can’t distinguish reviewed
      translations from non-reviewed ones
    • Pull non-website PO files from Weblate

  • Make a few user-facing strings localizable (tails/tails!998)

    Closes issues:

    • Not localized (internationalized) strings (tails/tails#19349)

    Commits:

    • Integrate the Welcome Screen’s main_window.py into our l10n framework
    • Lint
    • Make a few user-facing strings localizable

  • Autocorrect Rubocop violations (tails/tails!997)

    Commits:

    • Test suite: lint
    • Test suite: run rubocop --autocorrect

  • Improve wording of backup utility (tails/tails!995)

    Closes issues:

    • Improve wording of backup utility (tails/tails#19348)

    Commits:

    • Test suite: adjust to new UI wording
    • Use more consistent wording
    • Fix typography
    • Improve wording

  • Fix newly discovered shellcheck violations (tails/tails!994)

    Commits:

    • Fix “lb build” exit code reporting
    • Add missing quotes

  • Remove scrollbar in Favorites (tails/tails!992)

    Closes issues:

    • Need to scroll to see all Favorites (tails/tails#19338)

    Commits:

    • Apply 1 suggestion(s) to 1 file(s)
    • Test suite: fix “the screen keyboard works in Tor Browser”
    • Lint
    • Test suite: remove dead code
    • Test suite: retry opening new tab
    • Test suite: ensure Tor Browser has loaded the home page before we continue
    • Test suite: spam Tor Browser less intensively
    • Test suite: remove unused code
    • Test suite: start Tor Browser and Thunderbird by typing their name
    • Test suite: fix typo in comment
    • Remove scrollbar in Favorites

  • Remove dead code about TAILS_WIKI_SUPPORTED_LANGUAGES (tails/tails!991)

    Commits:

    • WhisperBack: don’t try to include non-existing tails-greeter.errors file
    • WhisperBack: don’t try to include non-existing xorg.conf
    • Remove l10n plumbing for WhisperBack configuration file
    • Remove obsolete .xsessionrc
    • Lint
    • WhisperBack config: remove dead code

  • Test suite: fix Unsafe Browser localization test in French (tails/tails!988)

    Commits:

    • Test suite: fix Unsafe Browser localization test in French

  • Revert “Run Qt applications as native Wayland by default” (tails/tails!987)

    Closes issues:

    • Remove obsolete config/chroot_local-includes/usr/share/live/config/xserver-
      xorg/*.ids (tails/tails#19330)
    • Qt AppImages broken on Tails 5.8 (tails/tails#19326)
    • Clipboard encryption/decryption with Kleopatra is broken on Wayland
      (tails/tails#19329)
    • can’t paste into unlock password field in KeepassXC in Tails 5.8
      (tails/tails#19327)

    Commits:

    • Remove obsolete per-device X.Org driver override via live-config
    • Revert “Don’t run OnionShare as a native Wayland app”
    • Revert “Run Qt applications as native Wayland by default”

  • Remove the warning dialog when starting the Unsafe Browser (tails/tails!985)

    Closes issues:

    • Explain better the Unsafe Browser from Tor Connection (tails/tails#19168)

    Commits:

    • Test suite: adjust to removed warning dialog
    • Remove the warning dialog when starting the Unsafe Browser

  • Make the Upgrader use the mirror redirector (tails/tails!983)

    Commits:

    • Upgrader: use dedicated SocksPort with no stream isolation
    • Test suite: remove test whose cost/benefit has become very high
    • Test suite: apply user-facing terminology
    • Design doc: remove outdated details
    • Remove now unused mirror-pool-dispatcher submodule
    • Design doc: update what the fallback DNS pool is used for
    • Drop dead code, obsolete dependencies, and obsolete tweaks
    • Upgrader: Drop the “replace URL with a random one from the mirror pool JSON”
      and “fallback to DNS pool” mechanisms
    • Upgrader: bring back explanation when impossible to do an incremental upgrade
    • IUK test suite: adjust to 888b78811bcd156284d01a063d448f6bd693db22
    • Design doc: use new download URI in example UDFs
    • Generate UDFs that point to the mirror redirector for ISO and IUK downloads

  • Welcome Screen: restore ability to login with default settings by pressing
    “Enter” (tails/tails!982)

    Closes issues:

    • Login with default settings now requires pressing “Enter” twice in the Welcome
      Screen (tails/tails#19323)

    Commits:

    • Welcome Screen: restore ability to login with default settings by pressing
      “Enter”

  • switch Persistent Storage icon to SVG (tails/tails!980)

    Closes issues:

    • Replace Persistent Storage icon with SVG version (tails/tails#19316)

    Commits:

    • Also use the SVG icon in the Welcome Screen
    • Switch Persistent Storage icon to SVG

– Tails developers tails@boum.org Mon, 23 Jan 2023 11:53:31 +0100

1 Like
2

awesome! I wonder if tails can be upgraded across levels? I haven’t upgraded to version 5.8 before, and now I want to upgrade to 5.9.