Hi,
First of all, very impressive work! Damn!
On 21/01/2024 23.04, NoisyCoil via Tails-dev wrote:
> In principle, making a universal arm64 image could be possible, but
> asides from the firmware (storing different firmware for different
> platforms on the same image may be feasible), the software and
> drivers may need different tweaks for different platforms. Quite a
> few Debian-based distros are providing different arm images for
> different platforms.
When we looked into Tails on ARM [0] around 2017 what I quoted above was
what at least made me give up. For instance, the Chromebook [1] I was
experimenting with needed specific kernel patches (that IIRC breaks
stuff for other ARM systems) in order to boot, and a proprietary
graphics driver if you wanted any kind of hardware acceleration or nice
screen resolutions. Looking at other systems it seemed like basically
all of them required similar model-specific
kernels/firmware/drivers/tweaks/fixes, and all this was also not
documented really, so you had to reverse engineer this knowledge.
[0]
https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/blueprints/-/wikis/ARM_platforms/
[1]
https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/blueprints/-/wikis/ARM_platforms/Acer_Chromebook_R_13_CB5-312T
Is it your experience that the situation for ARM systems is basically
the same now, 7 years later?
Another thing that demotivated me was that the "ARM world domination"
scenario, where Intel/AMD platforms would become niche and ARM dominat,
that I semi-expected at the time, doesn't seem to be happening. I wonder
if even a smaller ratio of laptops sold today have ARM than around 2017
(at least I see many Intel Chromebooks). But as long as Intel/AMD remain
~dominant it is hard for us to justify spending resources on other, less
common platforms.
And as for supporting Apple Silicon, well, we barely are able to support
Apple Intel systems at the moment. Given our scarce resources we
de-prioritizes Apple hardware, feeling OK with it due to the assumption
that if you already have Apple hardware (Silicon or not) you are
affluent enough to most likely already own an AMD/Intel-based computer
that can run Tails, or afford to buy a cheap one.
I say none of this to in any way dissuade you, just to give you my
interpretation of the context of where the Tails project stand on these
topics. We constantly re-evaluate our positions, so if some data shows
that other platforms are relevant for our users and someone can do the
work for us or fund us doing it, then Tails on e.g. Apple Silicon and
some select ARM platforms could become a reality.
Again, impressive work!
Cheers!
