please stop "recommending" Etcher and dd mode

[skidoo]

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Etcher, and "dd mode" should be regarded as last resort.

Today's page1 ActiveTopics in the forum contains 2 topics in which Helpful Harriets are recommending use of dd mode...

...and another in which the new user is strugging to understand why they are unable to use persistence.
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For someone already running linux, the "recommended" tool should be MX Linux wiki :: live-usb-maker

For someone booted to Windows who has downloaded an iso and intends to create a liveboot USB drive,
the utility I "recommended" is rufus
~~ browse to select the iso file
~~ set a custom VolumeLabel (optional)
~~ then just click,click,click accept the defaults, including "isohybrid mode"

Unless someone requests assistance toward dealing with a special use case,
we should probably "think twice" before recommending other extra-featured, edge-case-handling tools, e.g. multiBootUSB.

[duane]

I agree that people should consider the level of experience a user has when giving out advise. Both rufus and live-usb maker are useful depending of what the user has available and what they are trying to accomplish.

[asqwerth]

Agreed.

Helpers should explain in plain English that writing an iso to a USB stick using the dd command is the USB equivalent of burning a non-rewritable DVD/CD-ROM, meaning you can't write changes to a live USB made that way and thus there's no persistence. If you say things like "dd copies the read-only iso9660 file system", not everyone will know what that means.

So, if one already had a MX installation or in fact an earlier MX Live USB - even one that was made with dd - one could use MX's live-usb-maker program found on the MX installation/live USB to then create a (second) proper full-featured MX Live USB with all the persistence options and functions.

But if one were coming fresh to MX from Windows or another Linux distro, you have to first use rufus/dd to create that non-rewritable MX live USB as the first step.

OR, from another Linux distro, you could install and run MX's live-usb-maker directly from BitJam's github this way:

1) download the MX iso file that you want to write to USB
2) install the git package if not already installed
3) plug in a usb stick

4) then:

Code: Select all

git clone https://github.com/BitJam/live-usb-maker
git clone https://github.com/BitJam/cli-shell-utils
cd live-usb-maker
sudo ./live-usb-maker

5) this will run L-U-M and you can make your full-featured MX Live USB at once.

see BitJam's post here:
viewtopic.php?p=498022#p498022

I know the direct "clone program from github and run" method is something that is not sufficiently publicized. I raised it once before.....

[skidoo]

But if one were coming fresh to MX from Windows or another Linux distro, you have to first use rufus/dd to create that non-rewritable MX live USB as the first step.

I worry that the quoted wording conflates the various scenarios::outcomes

Windows + rufus (isohybrid mode, which is the default)
^---v
The resulting pendrive is immediately usable for liveboot + persistence. AFAIK, the sole "less than full featured" aspect of a LiveUSB created this way is related to (dealing with permissions assignment for) the optional "Live-usb-storage" directory*

*the max 4Gb per-file filesize (due to the FAT32-formatted-by-rufus liveboot media) stands as a separate, generic, potential issue

[i_ri]

Hello skidoo and everyone
If it is known or determined that the usb created will be directed at Installing the system I might use dd to create it and mark it "installer." It used to save a few minutes instead of live iso mode. Now the time difference for creation of the usb is not much difference and most end up, not by dd, with the "live" on the tag.
Hey MX,, why not put mx live keytags in the store with the mx stickers? for all those usb being made with MX-Linux on them.
Some chat here prompted me to visit the rufus site. it changed site name. it changed. Checking the change log from sixty days ago shows new features for Windows versions isos.