how2 format a flash drive

[Lee <ler762@gmail.com>]

My old laptop died; I just got a new one and it has _no_ optical
drive.  But the Debian install from flash instructions were excellent
& I now have a laptop running Debian.

My question is: how do I reformat the flash drive so it's usable as a
"normal" flash drive again?

Nothing I tried worked.. I ended up putting the thumb drive in a
Windows machine and formatting it there; it would be nice to know how
to restore the thumb drive to working order on Debian.

Thanks,
Lee