[[!meta title="Call for testing: 2.6~rc1"]]

[[!meta date="2016-09-03 01:02:03"]]

[[!tag announce]]

You can help Tails! The first release candidate for the upcoming version 2.6 is
out. Please test it and report any issue. We are in particular interested in
feedback and problems relating to:

* Icedove's automatic configuration wizard. Using it to set up a new
  account is (most of the time) as easy as entering your email address
  (and password), and Icedove will configure your account for you.

[[!toc levels=1]]

How to test Tails 2.6~rc1?
==========================

**Keep in mind that this is a test image.** We tested
that it is not broken in obvious ways, but it might still contain
undiscovered issues.

But 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 first check if it is a
<a href="#known_issues">known issue of this release</a> or a
[[longstanding known issue|support/known_issues]].

Download and install
--------------------

<a class="download-file" href="https://tails.boum.org/torrents/files/tails-i386-2.6~rc1.torrent" >Tails 2.6~rc1 torrent</a>

<a class="download-file use-mirror-pool" href="http://dl.amnesia.boum.org/tails/alpha/tails-i386-2.6~rc1/tails-i386-2.6~rc1.iso" >Tails 2.6~rc1 ISO image</a>
<span class="openpgp-small-link">[[OpenPGP signature|torrents/files/tails-i386-2.6~rc1.iso.sig]]</span>

To install 2.6~rc1, follow our usual [[installation instructions|install]],
skipping the **Download and verify** step.

Upgrade from 2.5
----------------

1. Start Tails 2.5 on a USB stick installed using *Tails Installer* and
   [[set an administration password|doc/first_steps/startup_options/administration_password]].

1. Run this command in a <span class="application">Root
   Terminal</span> to select the "alpha" upgrade channel
   and start the upgrade:

       echo TAILS_CHANNEL=\"alpha\" >> /etc/os-release && \
            tails-upgrade-frontend-wrapper

1. After the upgrade is installed, restart Tails and choose
   <span class="menuchoice">
     <span class="guimenu">Applications</span>&nbsp;▸
     <span class="guisubmenu">Tails</span>&nbsp;▸
     <span class="guimenuitem">About Tails</span>
   </span>
   to verify that you are running Tails 2.6~rc1.

What's new since 2.5?
=======================

Changes since Tails 2.5 are:

  * Major new features and changes
    - Install Tor 0.2.8.6. (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 11351]])
    - Enable kASLR in the Linux kernel. (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 11281]])
    - Upgrade Icedove to 1:45.2.0-1~deb8u1+tails1: (Closes:
      [[!tails_ticket 11714]])
      · Drop auto-fetched configurations using Oauth2.  They do not
        work together with Torbirdy since it disables needed
        functionality (like JavaScript and cookies) in the embedded
        browser. This should make auto-configuration work for GMail
        again, for instance.  (Closes: #[[!tails_ticket 11536]])
      · Pin Icedove to be installed from our APT repo. Debian's
        Icedove packages still do not have our secure Icedove
        autoconfig wizard patches applied, so installing them would be
        a serious security regression. (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 11613]])
      · Add missing icedove-l10n-* packages to our custom APT
        repository (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 11550]])
    - Upgrade to Linux 4.6: (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 10298]])
      · Install the 686 kernel flavour instead of the obsolete 586
        one.
      · APT, dpkg: add amd64 architecture. The amd64 kernel flavour is
        not built anymore for the i386 architecture, so we need to use
        multiarch now.
      · Build and install the out-of-tree aufs4 module. (Closes:
        [[!tails_ticket 10298]])
      · Disable kernel modesetting for QXL: it's not compatible with
        Jessie's QXL X.Org driver.

  * Security fixes
    - Hopefully fixed an issue which would sometimes make the Greeter
      ignore the "disable networking" or "bridge mode"
      options. (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 11593]])

  * Minor improvements
    - Install firmware-intel-sound and firmware-ti-connectivity.  This
      adds support for some sound cards and Wi-Fi adapters.  (Closes:
      [[!tails_ticket 11502]])
    - Install OpenPGP Applet from Debian. (Closes:
      [[!tails_ticket 10190]])
    - Install gnome-sound-recorder (again). (Closes:
      [[!tails_ticket 10950]])
    - Port the "About Tails" dialog to python3.
    - Run our initramfs memory erasure hook earlier (Closes:
      [[!tails_ticket 10733]]). The goal here is to:
      · save a few seconds on shutdown (it might matter especially for
        the emergency one);
      · work in a less heavily multitasking / event-driven
        environment, for more robust operation.
    - Install rngd, and make rng-tools initscript return success when
      it can't find any hardware RNG device. Most Tails systems around
      probably have no such device, and we don't want systemd to
      believe they failed to boot properly. (Closes:
      [[!tails_ticket 5650]])
    - Don't force using the vboxvideo X.Org driver. According to our
      tests, this forced setting is:
       · harmful: it breaks X startup when the vboxvideo *kernel*
         driver is loaded;
       · useless: X.Org now autodetects the vboxvideo X.Org driver and
         uses it when running in VirtualBox and the vboxvideo kernel
         is not present.
    - Port boot-profile to python3 (Closes:
      [[!tails_ticket 10083]]). Thanks to heartsucker
      <heartsucker@autistici.org> for the patch!
    - Include /proc/cmdline and the content of persistent APT sources
      in WhisperBack bug reports. (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 11675]],
      [[!tails_ticket 11635]])
    - Disable non-free APT sources at boot time. (Closes:
      [[!tails_ticket 10130]])
    - Have a dedicated page for the homepage of Tor Browser in
      Tails. (Closes: # 11725)
    - Only build the VirtualBox kernel modules for the 32-bit kernel.
      It's both hard and useless to build it for 64-bit in the current
      state of things, as long as we're shipping a 32-bit userspace.
      Also, install virtualbox-* from jessie-backports, since the
      version in Jessie is not compatible with Linux 4.x.

For more details, see also our [changelog](https://git-tails.immerda.ch/tails/plain/debian/changelog?h=testing).

<a id="known_issues"></a>

# Known issues in 2.6~rc1

* [[Longstanding known issues|support/known_issues]]
