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Bug#775814: installation-guide: Advise users against using unetbootin



Source: installation-guide
Version: 20141230
Severity: normal
Tags: patch

Hi!

Elsewhere (#775689), there has been a discussion of some of the problems
that unetbootin can pose when used with Debian install media. It would be
great to better document these problems and warn users against copying
images to USB sticks with unetbootin rather than having these problems exist
only in folklore.

The attached patches takes a stab at doing this as well as being a little
more explicit about which images the user can use on the USB stick (since
that is also a FAQ in #debian).

cheers
Stuart

(Patch 0001 of the series is a trivial typo patch that went to #763410)


-- System Information:
Debian Release: 8.0
  APT prefers testing-updates
  APT policy: (550, 'testing-updates'), (550, 'testing'), (60, 'unstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 3.16.0-4-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_AU.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_AU.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
>From 2be00a79afad623d02528434a59664c0753dc016 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Stuart Prescott <stuart@debian.org>
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 23:15:32 +1100
Subject: [PATCH 3/3] Warn against unetbootin

* Advise users not to use unetbootin
* Suggest win32diskimager as an alternativee to unetbootin

(See also #775689)
---
 manual/en/install-methods/boot-usb-files.xml | 6 ++++++
 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+)

diff --git a/manual/en/install-methods/boot-usb-files.xml b/manual/en/install-methods/boot-usb-files.xml
index aef357e..eddcffb 100644
--- a/manual/en/install-methods/boot-usb-files.xml
+++ b/manual/en/install-methods/boot-usb-files.xml
@@ -55,10 +55,16 @@ as follows, after having made sure that the stick is unmounted:
 <prompt>#</prompt> <userinput>sync</userinput>
 </screen></informalexample>
 
+The
+<ulink url="http://sf.net/projects/win32diskimager/";>
+win32diskimager</ulink>
+utility can be used under other operating systems to copy the image.
+
 </para><important><para>
 
 The image must be written to the whole-disk device and not a
 partition, e.g. /dev/sdb and not /dev/sdb1.
+Do not use tools like <command>unetbootin</command> which alter the image.
 
 </para></important><important><para>
 
-- 
2.1.4

>From 58c3c183d7f1f229f9fefa05dc4ce6aeabf06afb Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Stuart Prescott <stuart@debian.org>
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 23:04:00 +1100
Subject: [PATCH 2/3] List ISO images to use for simple USB method

Explicitly list the netinst, CD-1 and DVD-1 images as "which image should I
use" is a FAQ.
---
 manual/en/install-methods/boot-usb-files.xml | 3 ++-
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/manual/en/install-methods/boot-usb-files.xml b/manual/en/install-methods/boot-usb-files.xml
index e766cab..aef357e 100644
--- a/manual/en/install-methods/boot-usb-files.xml
+++ b/manual/en/install-methods/boot-usb-files.xml
@@ -32,7 +32,8 @@ information on for example a hard disk could be lost.
 
 Debian CD and DVD images can now be written directly to a USB stick,
 which is a very easy way to make a bootable USB stick. Simply choose
-a CD or DVD image that will fit on your USB stick. See
+a CD or DVD image (such as the netinst, CD-1 or DVD-1) that will fit
+on your USB stick. See
 <xref linkend="official-cdrom"/> to get a CD or DVD image.
 
 </para><para>
-- 
2.1.4


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