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Handheld Tails

Given the general tendency of personal computing devices getting more and more "handheld" (tablets, smartphones …) we need to start working on better support for such platforms in order to stay relevant and not fade into oblivion.

Tasks

This is more of a meta-task listing tasks (some which eventually should have their own todo pages) necessary for this to become true:

  • Port Tails to ARM (#10972).
  • Make sure there’s good touchscreen support (both hardware- and software-wise). Is Jessie’s GNOME Shell good enough for touch usage? Do apps we ship work well for this usecase?
  • Make sure Tails has good hardware support for common handheld hardware in general (especially graphics cards, wireless NICs and 2G/3G/whatever modules). We may also want to disable some hardware, if possible, like GPS modules, bluetooth (#5751 (closed)).
  • Make sure that Tails works well on low-resolution screens (some of our current Tails specific applications have static window sizes that could be problematic, e.g. gpgApplet).
  • Make sure that our future persistence support works well on SD-cards (or whatever removable storage media moderns handhelds support).
  • Document how to use Tails on different handheld devices (may include stuff like jailbreaking).
  • To the previous point easier for the end user we may also consider improving our USB installer (#5820 (closed)):
    • Support SD cards and other removable storage devices (especially those supported by modern handhelds).
    • Detect handhelds connected via USB/Bluetooth/whatever, offer to jailbreak (if necessary) and install Tails to its (removable) storage media.

Let’s wait for "running GNU/Linux on handheld hardware" to be better supported in general.

Agreed. Should be easier on miniaturized PC x86 devices like the OQO and Sony UX Series and any future x86 device(s). Many Linux distributions already run unmodified on the OQO and Sony UX as these are just standard x86 computers in pocket-sized form factor. OQO Model 01+ & Debian Linux Ubuntu, Debian, Suse, Fedora, etc

Random ideas

  • Handheld Tails lends itself to being a handheld Tails VoIP device. See VoIP support (#5709). Tails may already work fine on the standard x86 pocket-sized OQO and Sony UX computers (testing needed, everything is likely to work fine except we don’t know if there is a driver for the inbuilt 3G modem). One could then also install mumble+onioncat and setup their own pocket-sized Tails VoIP device with some manual effort

Resources

Blueprint: https://tails.boum.org/blueprint/handheld/

Subtasks

Related issues

Original created by @tails on 6064 (Redmine)

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