[[!meta title="Call for testing: 0.23~rc1"]] [[!meta date="2014-13-07 01:23:45"]]

You can help Tails! The first (and hopefully only) release candidate for the upcoming version 0.23 is out. Please test it and see if all works for you.

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# How to test Tails 0.23~rc1?

1. Keep in mind that this is a test image. We have made sure that it is not broken in an obvious way, but it might still contain undiscovered issues.

2. Download the ISO image and its signature:

   Tails 0.23~rc1 ISO image

   Tails 0.23~rc1 signature

3. Verify the ISO image.

4. Have a look at the list of known issues of this release and the list of [[longstanding known issues|support/known_issues]].

5. Test wildly!

If you find anything that is not working as it should, please [[report to us|doc/first_steps/bug_reporting]]! Bonus points if you check that it is not a known issue of this release or a [[longstanding known issue|support/known_issues]].

# How to automatically upgrade from 0.22.1?

These steps allow you to automatically upgrade a device installed with Tails Installer from Tails 0.22.1 to Tails 0.23~rc1 using the Tails Upgrader:

- Start Tails 0.22.1 and [[set an administration password|doc/first_steps/startup_options/administration_password]].

- Run this command in a Terminal to select the "alpha" upgrade channel and start the upgrade:

      echo 'TAILS_CHANNEL="alpha"' | sudo tee --append /etc/os-release && \
      tails-upgrade-frontend-wrapper

# What's new since 0.22.1?

- Major improvements

- Spoof the network interfaces' MAC address by default (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 5421]]), as specified in our on [[design document|contribute/design/MAC_address]] .

- Rework the way to configure how Tor connects to the network (bridges, proxies, restrictive firewalls): add an option to Tails Greeter, start Tor Launcher when needed (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 5920]], [[!tails_ticket 5343]]).

- Bugfixes

- Additional software: do not crash when persistence is disabled (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 6440]]).

- Upgrade Pidgin to 2.10.9, that fixes some regressions introduced in the 2.10.8 security update (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 6661]]).

- Wait for Tor to have fully bootstrapped, plus a bit more time, before checking for upgrades (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 6728]]) and unfixed known security issues.

- Disable the Intel Management Engine Interface driver (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 6460]]). We don't need it in Tails, it might be dangerous, and it causes bugs on various hardware such as systems that reboot when asked to shut down.

- Add a launcher for the Tails documentation. This makes it available in Windows Camouflage mode (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 5374]], [[!tails_ticket 6767]]).

- Remove the obsolete wikileaks.de account from Pidgin (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 6807]]).

- Minor improvements

- Upgrade Tor to 0.2.4.21-1~d60.squeeze+1.

- Upgrade obfsproxy to 0.2.6-2~~squeeze+1.

- Upgrade I2P to 0.9.11-1deb6u1.

- Install 64-bit kernel instead of the 686-pae one (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 5456]]). This is a necessary first step towards UEFI boot support.

- Install Monkeysign (in a not-so-functional shape yet).

- Disable the autologin text consoles (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 5588]]). This was one of the blockers before a screen saver can be installed in a meaningful way ([[!tails_ticket 5684]]).

- Don't localize the text consoles anymore: it is broken on Wheezy, the intended users can as well use loadkeys, and we now do not have to trust setupcon to be safe for being run as root by the desktop user.

- Make it possible to manually start IBus.

- Reintroduce the possibility to switch identities in the Tor Browser, using a filtering proxy in front of the Tor ControlPort to avoid giving full control over Tor to the desktop user (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 6383]]).

- Incremental upgrades improvements:

  - Drop the Tails Upgrader launcher, to limit users' confusion (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 6513]]).

  - Lock down sudo credentials a bit.

  - Hide debugging information (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 6505]]).

  - Include ~/.xsession-errors in WhisperBack bug reports. This captures the Tails Upgrader errors and debugging information.

  - Report more precisely why an incremental upgrade cannot be done (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 6575]]).

  - Various user interface and phrasing improvements.

- Don't install the Cookie Monster browser extension (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 6790]]).

- Add a browser bookmark pointing to Tor's Stack Exchange (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 6632]]).

- Remove the preconfigured #tor channel from Pidgin: apparently, too many Tails users go ask Tails questions there, without making it clear that they are running Tails, hence creating a user-support nightmare (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 6679]]).

- Use (most of) Tor Browser's mozconfig (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 6474]]).

- Rebase the browser on top of iceweasel 24.3.0esr-1, to get the certificate authorities added by Debian back (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 6704]]).

- Give access to the relevant documentation pages from Tails Greeter.

- Hide Tails Greeter's password mismatch warning when entry is changed.

- Persistent Volume Assistant:

  - Take into account our installer is now called Tails Installer.

  - Optimize window height (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 5458]]).

  - Display device paths in a more user-friendly way (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 5311]]).

- Build system

- Ease updating POT and PO files at release time, and importing translations from Transifex (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 6288]], [[!tails_ticket 6207]]).

- Drop custom poedit backport, install it from squeeze-backports-sloppy.

- Make ISO and IUK smaller (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 6390]], [[!tails_ticket 6425]]):

  - Exclude more files from being included in the ISO.

  - Remove *.pyc later so that they are not recreated.

  - Truncate log files later so that they are not filled again.

  - At ISO build time, set mtime to the epoch for large files whose content generally does not change between releases. This forces rsync to compare the actual content of these files, when preparing an IUK, instead of blindly adding it to the IUK merely because the mtime has changed, while the content is the same.

  - Make local hooks logging consistent.

- Test suite

- Migrate from JRuby to native Ruby + rjb.

- The test suite can now be run on Debian Wheezy + backports.

- Fix buggy "persistence is not enabled" step (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 5465]]).

- Use IPv6 private address as of RFC 4193 for the test suite's virtual network. Otherwise dnsmasq from Wheezy complains, as it is not capable of handling public IPv6 addresses.

- Delete volumes after each scenario unless tagged @keep_volumes.

- Add an anti-test to make sure the memory erasure test works fine.

- A *lot* of bugfixes, simplifications and robustness improvements.

# Known issues in 0.23~rc1

- Selecting a non-English locale [[!tails_ticket 6885 desc="breaks bridge mode"]].

All these issues are being worked on and will hopefully be fixed in Tails 0.23.