What is needed for Tor Browser on non-X86 hardware?

General Discussion
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A few years ago, I tried compiling Tor Browser from source on ARM and it failed because there was what looked like a binary blob that couldn’t be used on ARM. I remember asking on the tor-talk mailing list about this and the answer that I was given was that the Tor Browser developers have a specific build system that only works for Intel-based machines.

I would like to know what does the Tor Browser Dev team need in order to port it to ARM and other architectures like the new RISC-V architecture? Do you need more test hardware, do you need more experts in those architectures, do you need more volunteer developers? What can the community do to help with this?

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If interested you can find compiled Tor Browser builds ported to Arm for download here: Tor Browser Ports - Browse Files at SourceForge.net

It’s the most popular ports available for Arm currently and I currently run it on some of my Arm machines.

Keep in mind this is not approved (far as I know), or created by Tor Project.

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See this discussion: Package for architecture armhf (e.g. for raspberry pi) (#40347) · Issues · The Tor Project / Core / Tor · GitLab

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There’s a patch (by me) for ARM support in Tor Browser awaiting review. Perhaps you’d like to test it?

There’s also a patch (by me again) for PPC64LE support in Tor Browser, which you may find interesting/relevant.

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i’m really interested in ARM and 16 Gb SSD on RPi 1,2,3,4 B+ units, could anyone help me or guide me to the developers?

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I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking for help with; can you clarify? Are you looking to test the patch I posted?

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Hi JR, sorry not for answering earlier, ans we’ve been using RPi units as tor relays, but we could sure need Tails and Tor Browser installs.

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I haven’t tried my ARM branch of Tor Browser on an RPi (I don’t have one; I’m testing on an Asus C201 and an Asus C100), but feel free to test it out and let me know how it goes. Let me know if you need help testing.

I don’t know what Tails’s plans are regarding non-x86 architectures. I believe the Whonix devs are favorable (I run Whonix on my ppc64le system as a daily driver).

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Hi JR, i would like to test it on RPi 4 and i need instructions to do so :smiley:

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Which OS are you running on your RPi 4? (In particular, is it armhf or arm64?) Are you comfortable building from source on an x86_64 machine, or do you prefer that I provide a binary for you? (Note that if I give you a binary, it’ll be one that was built on Cyberia infrastructure that isn’t under my physical control, so while I don’t think it’s dangerous, I cannot personally vouch for the safety of the binary. My preference is that you build from source, but I’m a flexible person and if you really want a binary, I can get you one.)