[Tails-dev] A suggestion for clearer instructions

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Author: David Grant
Date:  
To: tails-dev
New-Topics: [Tails-dev] Main mail address tails@boum.org bounces back
Subject: [Tails-dev] A suggestion for clearer instructions
Please make it clear that when you click "Download Tails 1.0" what you get
is not (or may not be?) a version of Tails 1.0 that is ready to load onto a
USB thumb drive and use to boot a computer into Tails. What I got was a
Roxio-ready program that burned a DVD-R that can be used as a boot disk to
start Tails.

That's what I seem to have downloaded onto a USB thumb drive this afternoon
using a computer at work that runs Linux. I think I tested it with the
authentication key - something I tested got me a message that said it
passed. I used a computer running Linux because the authenticity testing
seemed simpler on Linux than on Windows. But then I tried to use that thumb
drive as a boot drive. That didn't work in any computer. Nothing worked
until this evening when I tried the thumb drive on a computer at home that
has Roxio installed. Almost as soon as I clicked on the file in the thumb
drive, Roxio started up and asked for a DVD-R to burn. That DVD worked as a
boot disk on several computers, booting up Tails 1.0. But the computers all
ran slow, with the optical drive reading the DVD making a good bit of noise
as it stumbled around on the disk. Then I transferred the contents of that
boot disk DVD to a different USB thumb drive. When I figured out how to get
several different computers (two Dell, one xpc, and one "white box") to boot
from the USB thumb drive I was again able to boot up Tails 1.0. Tails
seemed to run faster, or at least quieter, running from a flash drive
compared to from a DVD.

I tried to make a second USB flash drive that would boot up Tails 1.0. It
took me the better part of an hour to realize that the second flash drive
was defective. Now I'm shopping for a fast-reading USB 3.0 flash drive to
use to run on computers that have USB 3.0 ports.

I have several computers that run Windows XP. For security, I've
disconnected them from the internet, but I think it will still be safe to
use them online occasionally as long as they're running Tails. Thank you
very much for making those computers still safe (I hope) on the internet.