Re: [Tails-testers] USB image test, macOS 10.14.2, MacBook …

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Author: sajolida
Date:  
To: Tails list for early testers, Ron Risley
Subject: Re: [Tails-testers] USB image test, macOS 10.14.2, MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Mid 2014)
Hi Ron!

intrigeri:
> Ron Risley:
>> Installed successfully on macOS 10.14.2, MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Mid 2014).
>>
>> As expected, the MacBook Pro's internal WiFi was not recognized but my Cisco WiFi dongle worked fine.
>
> Thanks a lot! Glad it worked for you.


Would you mind sharing with us the model of your Cisco Wi-Fi dongle?

We've been having a really hard time finding dongles that work fine in
Tails and I'm really interested in expending the list that we now have
on https://tails.boum.org/support/known_issues/#wi-fi.

>> I am somewhat dubious about the need to install third-party software
>> (Etcher) to do the install. Do you document anywhere what Etcher
>> does that cannot be done with Disk Utility or command-line tools?
>
> A quick web search suggests that the feature we need (block copy of an
> image to an entire drive) is called "Restore" and was introduced in
> Disk Utility with El Capitan (September 2015). Correct?
>
> I don't know enough about the Apple ecosystem to tell if it makes
> sense to support older versions of macOS. I suspect sajolida did this
> research before picking Etcher, but better educated input is welcome!
>
> Another factor is that standardizing on Etcher for Windows and macOS
> makes things easier for those who use both operating systems.


I tested this feature with ISO images back in the days and our ISO
format was not supported by Mac Disk Utility. I tried again with USB
images and I'm also getting an error: "Could not get the list of volumes
from the disk image".

My guess is that the Mac Disk Utility only supports the Mac DMG format.

We could maybe generate a DMG from our IMG in the future but let's start
with having USB images for everybody for now :)

>> I know that some folks would much rather download a tool than mess
>> with the command line, but there are others among us who prefer not
>> to install third-party binaries on our systems.
>
> Understood. We do have command line instructions, aimed at tech-savvy
> Linux users. I wonder if they would work as-is on mac OS.


The BSD version of `dd` has different options.

But I added back the instructions that we had for Mac on the command
line in a toggle. This way we don't have to maintain a whole new
installation scenario and we reuse old content almost as-such.

See
https://git.tails.boum.org/tails/commit/?h=feature/15292-usb-image&id=a84bbe7e7ad72d245c3a22ab6f328820de6816ec

(intrigeri: Yes, the CSS formatting is not perfect but I think that it
would be quite complicated to fix without breaking other command lines
in other places.)

--
sajolida