Tails no longer recommending balenaEtcher
-
just trying to understand what I did wrong.
You might not have done anything wrong.
There is also the possibility of a bad USB drive or write memory failure. There is lots of things that could go wrong that's not your fault. Might try a different USB or a different USB port on your machine.
You might want to try zeroing out the USB,
if=/dev/zero. Then you might need to make a new partition table. You can use something like gparted. Or https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-manipulate-partition-tables-with-fdisk-cfdisk-and-sfdisk-on-linuxYou can try GPT or DOS. I dont think it matters.
Not sure if the ISO will have the partition table so you might want make the new partition table just to be sure the stick defiantly has one. If dd overwrites it from the iso no harm no foul.
Thats all the troubleshooting steps I can think of right now.
-
Here's a wildcard people might not know about: Raspberry Pi Imager
I use it because it's faster than Etcher and it also has a bunch of quick links to download popular images (mainly for RPI and other arm-based SBCs) in one click which is handy if you use those regularly.
-
Are the scissors broken in your house, son?
At least one person got the reference!
-
If that happens to you, that's both a great reminder that mindlessly copy-pasting commands from the internet is a terrible idea, and a chance to practice your restore-from-backup routine! I see no downsides.
-
The comment said "SD Card" so it would be
/dev/mmcblk* -
This is why people trying to pass this as a primary option baffle me a bit. dd is not that bad in isolation, but all of these little commands add up.
If we want Linux to be mainstream, we need to accept that most users aren't going to be linux enthusiasts. They just want a PC that works normally.
-
Dude really goes to a cyber security community and hits them with the 'i have nothing to hide'
-
i still had issues using 150MB electron based bloated and heavy software instead of rufus, not that it worked for me anyway
-
https://circle.gnome.org? Never tried their ISO software, I just use dd.
-
I use a microSD to usb adapter and have 2 spinning rust disks. So it's /sdc for me, but i still always double check. Dd isn't called the disk destroyer for nothing.
-
Unrelated to balenaEtcher but I haven't been able to flash ISO files from Windows 11, either by using Rufus, Etcher, Fedora Media Writer, or even the WSL. I need to borrow a computer running a FLOSS operating system or to install OpenBSD first, then from OpenBSD to download and burn an ISO file on my USB drive.
-
Thats a shame, it was one of the few disk imagers that "just worked"
-
I don't think
oflags=directhas any influence on the result. Apparently that's about disabling the page cache in the kernel, which can avoid a situation in which the system slows down due to buildup yet-to-write pages. -
I also read this as Ron's voice!Nah as much as i love doing stuff via terminal, I am extra paranoid specifically about writing to the wrong device and losing data; I prefer as many confirmations as possible that I'm writing to the correct drive, and graphical installers tend to give me just a few more reassurances. A few examples would be stuff like
- a graphical representation of partitions (the general layout of a drive tends to offer an easy 'fingerprint' in my mind; like the pattern of partitions help me confirm I'm looking at, say, a Debian install USB compared to a single-partition general purpose storage disk)
- icons for different types of devices, like an SD card, USB, or hard disk icon
- confirmation dialogues summarizing what device is targeted, and what all will be performed
I'm also the kind of person who stares at a written email worrying about every last nuance of my phrasing, so
️ definitely a me problem, I think! -
I only tried to use it once, and same. 150MB of a Web app to copy an ISO? I think I was using a Macbook to flash it and decided to use ventoy instead, with my PC.
-
It reminded me when I told a coworker he could force the Windows shutdowns with the command 'shutdown -p -f" from either a Run.exe or a cmd window.
Then he said it wasn't working, and that the cmd window would just open and close quickly but no shutdown.
Imagine my surprise when he was doing shutdown -pf
. -
Perhaps not. But the flag allows for dire I/O for data, bypassing buffers which can be overrun with certain size blocks, potentially causing dirty buffer depending on the machine being used. My understanding is that it's "more reliable" for writing (especially on shitty USB Flash drives) and getting the exact ISO properly written.
But it could be useless all the same - I'm just pointing out that OPs command is not the one recommended by Fedora when writing their ISO. Also OP is less likely to pull the drive before buffers have flushed this way.
-
That sounds like an issue with your computer rather than W11. I just used Etcher on my W11 desktop to flash Mint XFCE yesterday with no issues.
-
I understand that it needed a GUI, but 150 megs?? When :
~ ❯ ll `which dd` -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 63K Sep 29 16:36 /usr/bin/dd* ~ ❯ -
Yeah Mac has dd too, I often forget about the terminal existing there. I wish Ventoy for Mac was a thing tho.
