> On Oct 28, 2025, at 6:22 PM, NoisyCoil via Tails-dev <tails-dev@???> wrote:
>
> Hi all!
>
> A lot of time has passed since I last gave updates on the mailing list about the arm64 port of Tails. I've been quite busy at work and I still am (in fact, I am busier now than ever), but I've procrastinated writing this email for 6+ months now, so I thought I'd better start writing it now and finish whenever I finish :-) So here you go.
Thanks for posting!
> The first big update is last year I have upstreamed support for arm64 Linux to the Tor Browser and the Mullvad Browser [1]. In fact, the Tor Project has been building official Linux arm64 nightlies since last December, see e.g. [2]. Despite numerous requests from users and sponsors alike [3-14], alpha and release builds have not been made available yet. Oh, well. Because of this, my arm64 Tails images still come with my own release builds of the Tor Browser installed [15]. The code is the same as upstream, except that the build scripts are tweaked so I can use an arm64 builder (specifically, an Apple M1 Mini running Debian Forky) instead of the x86_64 (cross-)builders upstream uses.
>
> The second update is more personal, but Tails-related nonetheless. A few months ago I became a Debian Developer, uploading, to work on supporting Apple Silicon machines and on Rust $STUFF. This is Tails-related first of all because it is a spin-off of my work on the Tails port: to port Tails to Apple Silicon, I first had to port Debian, and in the process I learned a bunch of stuff which lead me to contribute to Debian and ultimately to become a DD. In particular, I became a member of the Bananas Team [16], which maintains all Apple Silicon related packages in Debian. Additionally, still within the Bananas Team, I'm now maintaining the infrastructure and extra packages (e.g. the Asahi kernel) needed to run Debian on Apple Silicon, that can't be in Debian proper because they are not fully upstreamed yet [17]. You can reach out to the Bananas Team on IRC at #debian-bananas or via the mailing list debian-arm-apple@???.
>
> The second way that is related to Debian is, starting from version 7.0, my Apple Silicon Tails port uses the same packages the Bananas Team is distributing to Trixie users via the debian repository at https://bananas-archive.debian.net/bananas-archive.
All of that looks very promising!
> As for the arm64 port in general, vanilla Tails 7.0 for arm64 (i.e. everything from the Debian archive, no meaningful departures from x86_64 Tails) was tested to work on a ThinkPad X13s with minor tweaks (essentially, add the DTBs, a couple of scripts and some optional boot parameters) which I've not merged to my main development branch (wip/arm64) yet, since the Apple Silicon port is based on that too, and I haven't had time to test the two of them in conjunction. I don't expect they will conflict though. On the other hand, something broke along the way of upgrading to Trixie in the Raspberry port (probably some kernel module is missing) and, again, no time to fix, so I'm not building that version for the moment.
I'm sad to hear about that. I think supporting Raspberry Pis is a great idea, since there are a *vast* number of them, they're inexpensive, and they already run Linux. I hope someone can track that down and fix it sometime.
I'm not a Tails or Tor developer, so I can't speak to their needs or resource limitations. But I *do* hope that Tails will eventually support ARM as well: at least Raspberry Pis, and ideally Macs as well. I'm happy to hear about the challenging work already done.
--- David A. Wheeler
