The Tails project has announced the release of its privacy-focused Linux distribution, Tails 6.15, featuring several improvements and fixes.
The bundled Tor Browser jumps to the latest upstream version, 14.5.1, bringing along backported fixes from Firefox 138 and other security hardening work.
Under the hood, Tails now runs on top of a newer, long-term support Linux kernel, version 6.1, specifically 6.1.135, which plugs recently disclosed vulnerabilities and expands hardware support. This version also backports several BPF verification fixes that have been drawing attention in the mainline thread.
Moreover, Tails 6.15 removes firmware blobs for Broadcom’s aging BCM4301 and BCM4306 Wi-Fi chipsets. The project believes machines carrying those radios are already too old to boot current Tails images; nevertheless, users who see their wireless interface disappear are encouraged to report back.
Lastly, on the bugfixes side, the latest update addresses several issues, with the most important being:
- No more crash residue. A rare scenario in which a system crash could leave data behind in UEFI variables or ACPI tables has been stamped out.
- Cleaner Secure Boot visuals. The GRUB boot menu’s appearance under Secure Boot has been polished, eliminating garbled fonts and misaligned entries.
For a full list of changes, refer to the changelog or the release announcement.
If you are currently running Tails 6.0 or later, you can upgrade automatically to 6.15. A manual upgrade is recommended if the automatic upgrade fails to start or if Tails does not boot correctly afterward.
If you’re new to Tails or want to do a fresh installation without preserving your Persistent Storage, you can follow the installation instructions for Windows, macOS, and Linux.
Please note that if you choose a fresh install instead of an upgrade, the Persistent Storage on your old Tails USB stick will be lost.
