GNOME Boxes aims at providing a simple interface to create and use virtual machines for Linux with GNOME. GNOME Boxes does not allow the use of a Persistent Storage.

Running Tails inside a virtual machine has various security implications. Depending on the host operating system and your security needs, running Tails in a virtual machine might be dangerous.

The following instructions have been tested on Debian 12 (Bookworm).

Installation

To install GNOME Boxes in Debian or Ubuntu, execute the following command:

sudo apt install gnome-boxes

Running Tails from an ISO image

  1. Download Tails as an ISO image, instead of a USB image.

  2. Start GNOME Boxes.

  3. Click on the New in the top-left corner.

  4. In the dialog Create a Virtual Machine, choose Create virtual machine from file and browse for the ISO image that you want to start from.

  5. In the Preparing dialog, click Next to accept the Unknown OS template.

  6. In the Review and Create dialog, click on the Create button on the top of the window.