@ green ice It is commonly accepted that using tails makes you a target for NSA surveillance, whether that is true or not, only the NSA know for sure.
If you want to experiment with using a secure distro and use TOR to browse the web anonymously then try tails, I wouldnt recommend you use it to do things like set up silk road 3 though.
The admin password is disabled by default in tails. You need to set one to do things like set up a persistant volume. If I remember rightly there is a "more options" choice at the load screen where you can set an admin password. Also if I remember correctly, when you set an admin password it is only good for one session, after that is disabled again.

On this page it gives 4 download possibilities.
- the cd/dvd/usb HYbrid ISO (via bittorrent) either amd64 or i386

- the cd/dvd/usb HYbrid ISO either amd64 or i386.

My system is Win 7 64 pro. But TAILS is a 32 bit Debian system. Which of these 4 choices would be best to download? I assume i386 would be closest to TAILS.

Since, as you say Linux Mint is a derivative of a derivative, I will avoid that.

I don't know much about bittorrent, but I can learn it if is better.

Thanks for your assistance here.

NOTE TO WIDGET:

Thanks for explaining the accounts

In TAILS in the command line the default user is
amnesia@amnesia

when I type in sudo su

it asks me for the password, which I give then it gives me

root@amnesia /home/amnesia#

I think the # sign means I am root. But I cannot figure out why with some commands even as root TAILS will tell me "Permission Denied."

On your end it doesn't matter if you use bittorrent or not, torrents just put less load on Debian's servers because you download the iso from people who have already downloaded the iso (called "seeders") instead of from Debian's servers. The iso is the same for both torrent and "regular" (i.e. "direct") download.

As tails is 32-bit, Debian i386 will obviously resemble it more, but I can't think of any way that the interface would differ between the two architectures (including the cli). debian-live-8.1.0-i386-mate-desktop.iso would be the closest to TAILS in terms of default GUI layout and architecture (but again, I don't see why the architecture is relevant in this case).

Keep in mind that the page I hyperlinked is for live CDs/DVDs. If you plan to install Debian onto a virtual (or physical) hard disk, I recommend you don't install it from the live CD but from a "netinst" CD. This will give you more installation options and is more likely to configure grub and initramfs correctly than the livecd; the livecd can do strange things when installing with non-default options. The "netist" CD downloads the packages from the Internet as you install the OS so after installation, it's already completely up to date.

I downloaded the i386 file from the torrent site that you linked to in this post, because I do plan to use it on a VM for the learning phase.

You downloaded the netinst ISO or the live ISO?

On the site you linked to I downloaded this:

debian-8.1.0-i386-netinst.iso.torrent

But Windows cannot open it. It may be the torrent part that windows cannot deal with.

I may have to go back and try the non torrent file.

Ya you'll need a torrent client like Deluge to use torrent files.

At this step you'll want to select (with the spacebar) "MATE" if you want a TAILS-familiar GUI out of the box.

a .torrent is NOT the operating system

it is the locations of files that you USE a torrent CLIENT with

Microsoft windows nor osx nor any linux can do anything with them
you HAVE to use a torrent client ( for your operating system) to get the iso

bittorrent or Deluge

-- think of
" The Pirate BAY "

that evil horrible wicked place (according to the mpaa ) but is in fact a GREAT source for things and a really GOOD place

that is a torrent

torrents are GOOD



some free advice

seeing as you do not yet know what a iso or a torrent are

installing a operating system might be a bit past your current skill level

and want to use a VERY "james bond'ish" OS as your VERY FIRST linux install - tails

now Debian 8.1 is NOT tails , but a lot of learning is still needed on your part

some further reading and studding would seam to be in order

like READING the install instructions
start by reading the documentation
https://www.debian.org/doc/
and the install guide
https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/installmanual

fixed that for you.

apart from that, i 100% agree with what JohnVV just wrote.

start with ubuntu or linux mint and work your way up from there.
i did the same 4 years ago.

Are you saying I should not use "Deluge" as Archy1 suggested?

Rather I should use "gbtorrent" or "transmission"?

In fact, are you saying I should not use Debian 8 at all, rather ubuntu or linux mint? Then this would be a different download from a different site.

gbittorent is down right now, so I went to transmission.

You say I need the torrent client before I can download a debian file.

Where do I find the client on the transmission site. I looked here:
http://www.transmissionbt.com/download/

There is a collection of icons including Debian. But at the top right of the collection is one icon labelled "source code"

Under that is a link labelled "transmission-2.84.tar.xz"

Is this is the client I download before downloading Debian?

sorry for late reply.
the steps to install transmission on debian are:

apart from that -

i meant qbittorrent with a Q, not G.

also belated apologies to archy1 - i confused deluge with vuze.
vuze is a java-based pile of... well, java.
deluge seems to be largely python-based, and is thus intrinsically Good.
both claim to be "platform-independent" - hence the confusion.

but for everyday purposes, transmission is totally sufficient, and since i'm not a big fan of gtk3, qbittorrent might be another "user-friendly" alternative.

although i tend to use transmission's web interface more and more often, thus you only need to install transmission-cli, no gui dependencies at all.

Thanks to those who posted on this thread.

I have switched to Linux Mint for the time being, so the password issues may be somewhat different.

sorry, do you have now any problem, or your issue is now solved?

1 members found this post helpful.

@pan64, this thread has long meandered from the original question.

@greenice & all:
i don't know why we ended up talking about bt clients, but i have discovered that "transmission-cli" is even better for my needs - it's a daemon: it takes very little resources, because no backend, and stays alive even after killing the Xsession - and comes with a nice web interface (check out my github stuff).