Talk:Tails (operating system)

Undue Section: Known Problems

The undue-section template was added by someone else. I agree with him/her. Many of the problems listed are negligible. The source's list also has the potential to change frequently, making it hard to maintain an up-to-date mirror here on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. I therefore propose that the section in question be deleted or turned into prose that is supported by third party sources. --Dodi 8238 (talk) 19:03, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

How many other software entries on wikipedia have the entire known issues documentation listed in full? Perhaps the section could be replaced with a link to the known issues page at https://tails.boum.org/support/known_issues/index.en.html DGedye (talk) 06:19, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. I have now reduced the entire section to a link in the "External links" section. --Dodi 8238 (talk) 13:26, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

NSA monitoring web pages related to Tails

I don't suppose this news is relevant to the article itself, but it seemed worth mentioning it on the talk page at least. "Use Tor or 'EXTREMIST' Tails Linux? Congrats, you're on an NSA list" - The Register --98.86.118.112 (talk) 20:19, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

It is already mentioned in the history section. --Dodi 8238 (talk) 23:10, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Exactly why did you edit the title of my post? I've restored the original, as the edit was definitely unnecessary. 98.86.121.73 (talk) 23:37, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Tails (operating system) article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. "FYI, the NSA may be monitoring this article and any IPs that access it" is not a good title if you want to discuss improvements to the article. That is why I changed it to "NSA monitoring web pages related to Tails". I assume that information was what you wanted to be added to the article. --Dodi 8238 (talk) 09:52, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Add signature / fingerprint info to "Release history" section?

It seems like we should add basic signature / fingerprint info here so users can verify. Thoughts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by JonathanCross (talk • contribs) 22:55, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Basic signature / fingerprint info belongs on Tails's official website, not in an encyclopedia. The current Release history section already contains too much indiscriminate information. According to WP:IINFO, it should be trimmed so that it only contains releases that have received attention in third-party sources. --Dodi 8238 (talk) 09:11, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Picture

In the History section, it would be nice to add File:Daniel Ellsberg speaks with Edward Snowden for the first time.jpg, with a caption like "Daniel Ellsberg uses Tails to communicate with Edward Snowden in September 2013."

I don't actually have a COI with Tails, but my employer is mentioned in that section as a financial sponsor so best to avoid any appearance of issues. Legoktm (talk) 06:26, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Unfortunately, if the image was put in the history section, it would create MOS:SANDWICH with the infobox, which Wikipedia tries to avoid. If this article is expanded, this image should be considered for inclusion. Z1720 (talk) 14:26, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

@Z1720: that's a fair point, we could re-arrange the sections so Features comes before History like how Fedora Linux is laid out though I'm not sure it would fix the sandwich issue entirely without the addition of more content - but I can look into that!

Would it be fair to interpret your response that once the MOS sizing issues are fixed, it's okay to add the image? I think it has a lot of encyclopedic value in that communicating with Snowden is probably the most high-profile usage of Tails, and it's pretty rare to even see pictures of people using anonymity software, let alone a freely licensed one! Legoktm (talk) 17:00, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

I think the image is fine, though I would personally prefer an image that actually shows the software (maybe an image of what a conversation on the software looks like?) Z1720 (talk) 16:02, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Re-organizing the article

I have some knowledge of this topic and thought the article would benefit from some re-organization, which I'm going to work on in the next days! I'm a very new editor so please do tell me if I'm making any mistakes and feel free to contest or revert my changes. My plans are mostly:

• In Features, address included software in a different paragraph from the "everything goes through Tor" feature, since the latter is an important and unique Tails feature and deserves its own paragraph in my opinion.
• Move some things from the lead to the rest of the article, and more generally better ensure the lead summarizes the rest of the article, which I understand is the general rule per MOS:LEAD (for example, currently Tails running on virtual machines is only mentioned in the lead and not in the article).
• Remove the paragraph about graphics drivers from Hardware support because it's a generic Linux thing, not specific to Tails (the source used doesn't even mention Tails).

MangoStillness (talk) 09:53, 13 June 2026 (UTC)