Hello,
I've reinstalled Tails using a fresh 4.0 beta2 USB image, and flashed it using Etcher. I've also installed the three Debian builds as well, and flashed those as well. I tested the Tails and the Debians in both my Macs; the other is a Early 2009 Mac Pro, with an NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 graphics card, as opposed to the Intel one in the modern Mac.
The results I got were: In the 2017 Macbook Pro, the Debian Live Testing and the Debian Standard worked fine, booting straight up.
Oddly, the Debian Mac build didn't boot at all on either Mac.
The Tails booted fine as usual on the 2009 Mac Pro, but still left me with a black screen on the 2017 Macbook Pro. So it still isn't working on the modern Mac. I tried using rEFInd as well as boot menu and nothing either. But it's a good sign that Debian Live Testing boots straight up on the modern Mac; hopefully it helps you understand what's going wrong.
If there are is anything else you want me to test on the modern Mac, i'm more than happy to. Just send it over to this email and I'll get back to you.
Thanks,
Clement
________________________________
From: intrigeri <intrigeri@???>
Sent: 12 September 2019 08:41
To: Clem Hewison <clemfh@???>; tails-testers@??? <tails-testers@???>
Cc: Mathieu Goessens <gebura@???>
Subject: Re: [Tails-testers] Tails 4.0 beta 2
Hi Clement,
Clem Hewison:
> First off i'm using a Macbook Pro 13-inch 2017.
> I was having problems with Tails 3.16, and your support suggested
> that I try the 4.0 beta. Downloaded and installed through a VM, and
> Mac can see the USB, either through rEFInd or boot menu, same as
> 3.16. But can't get anything to show up - no Tails boot menu, just
> a black screen, same as 3.16.
Thanks for your report. I've heard something similar recently.
First of all, how exactly did you install Tails? In your situation,
the recommended way would be: USB image and Etcher. Some other
installation methods have no chance to work on a Mac.
Then, I'm starting to suspect that Apple's "free" interpretation of
the UEFI standard is playing tricks on us here. I know that some other
Linux distros have hacks and workarounds to better work on Macs. If we
could find one that works for you, then we could compare how they're
doing it with how we are doing it. So it would be immensely helpful
if you could try:
1. Debian 10.1 netinst Mac ISO
https://cdimage.debian.org/images/release/current/amd64/iso-cd/debian-mac-10.1.0-amd64-netinst.iso
2. Debian 10.1 netinst standard ISO
https://cdimage.debian.org/images/release/current/amd64/iso-cd/debian-10.1.0-amd64-netinst.iso
3. Debian Live testing iso-hybrid
https://get.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/weekly-live-builds/amd64/iso-hybrid/debian-live-testing-amd64-gnome+nonfree.iso
Thanks in advance!
> Just wondered if there will be a fix for this by October 22nd, when
> 4.0 is released? Or any current workarounds for this problem.
> If not, thought it'd be useful for you to know, so hopefully I can
> get it working.
It depends in great part on how much affected folks can help us debug
this problem, since none of our developers have access to
a recent MacBook.
Cheers,
--
intrigeri
