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Re: New Linux User needs some guidance



On Tue 08 Oct 2019 at 14:48:08 +0200, Thomas Schmitt wrote:

> Tony van der Hoff wrote:

[...]

> > To create a bootable image from a .iso, you need 'dd', i.e.
> 
> dd is a great tool, indeed, and i use it for the purpose out of tradition.
> But it does nothing essential for the copied image to be able to work.
> Any program run which produces a correct byte-by-byte copy of the image on
> the USB stick will do.
> 
> For example some useless use of "cat":
>   cat image.iso >/dev/sde

I still use this command out of habit on occasion, but it ceased to be a
recommended Debian method some time ago. See #660776:

 https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=660776

> > Make sure you identify the correct usb stick for sdx, or you may end up
> > overwriting something important.
> 
> Yeah. This is a big problem. We'd need a desktop-user-safe GUI tool which
> by some AI detects the USB stick which is least worthy of preservation.

The cp or dd commands must run with root privileges. I run 'lsblk' before
and after plugging the USB device in. Writing an image to a USB stick is
not something to rush if you don't want a system disk to suffer.

-- 
Brian.


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