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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Personally I use Ventoy
Basically I can just throw a whole bunch of ISOs on a USB drive and when I boot it it brings me to a menu to pick which one I want to boot
It's freaking great
I've got various windows ISOs and Linux distros just living on a 64GB flash drive
Any "How To" that doesn't just use Rufus isn't worth the page its text is rendered on. Rufus can do Linux boot disks, but is indispensable for Windows boot disk utilities. It's one of the only ways I know of to make a Windows ToGo installation (equivalent of a Linux Live USB), which I used to install Windows on a friends SD card for their Steam Deck so they can dual-boot.
If you're looking to make a Linux boot USB from Linux itself, BalenaEtcher is probably a better bet since Rufus is Windows-only.
https://github.com/balena-io/etcher
I've noticed there's tons of how-to's for making a bootable disk on Windows, hardly any for Linux. Perhaps we ought to remedy that?
For Linux you don't need a GUI tool, most how tos just dd the ISO onto the USB medium, e.g.
sudo dd if=<file> of=<device> bs=16M status=progress oflag=sync
like described in the Debian FAQs
I don't remember where, but i read that this method only works because linux distributors "abuse" the ISO format to allow this. If I remember right, it's not possible to use this ISOs on regular disks
Of course the command you provided is right and it's what I use, it's just a fun fact
Yes and no, it's the other way round. The ISOs often are hybrid images which you can burn onto a CD/DVD or dd onto a USB pen drive. Until approximately 10-15 years ago, if I remember correctly, the distributed Linux ISOs where standard not hybrid images, thus you always needed some other program to create bootable USB media.
Ventoy for life
Arch currently doesn't work with it :c
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/USB_flash_installation_medium#Using_ventoy
Note: archlinux-2024.05.01-x86_64.iso should be run in GRUB2 mode to work. See Ventoy issue #2825.
I thought I tried that too, but I'll try again then lol
It doesn’t? Been a month or two since I updated the ISO but I’ve never had a problem
For me it didn't, on two PCs. I reinstalled Ventoy and redownloaded and verified the ISO. On the latest version. It tries to mount /dev/2024-04-xx-xx-xx unsuccessfully. And indeed, that device does not exist.
Isn't that just 'sudo cp image.iso /dev/sdX && sync' ?
The only thing you would have achieved that was would be to copy an iso file onto your stick. EFI or Boot doesn't know how to do anything with it.
A lot of Linux ISOs are hybrid images which can be booted if flashed directly to a USB stick.
Op was just using cp to copy the iso onto the drive no flashing or anything...
The cp command will write the ISO file directly onto the device. This is the official way that is recommended by Debian:
cp debian.iso /dev/sdX
Source: https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/ch04s03.en.html
Woah...
Damn I'm sorry for questioning this method, I didn't know.
This works because block devices like /dev/sdX are just files. If you cp a file onto another file, it overwrites the data of the destination with the source. A block device represents the device itself, not the filesystem; if you wanted to put the ISO inside the filesystem, you'd have to mount it first.
Next time I'll test out another distro I'll try just that... Sadly I just hopped yesterday from Fedora 40 to LMDE.
Some people need everything to have a GUI. They evaporate as soon as they’re required to open the terminal.
Isn't it cool that you only need to use the terminal when you really need it? Simple tasks as flashing an usb stick shouldnt require knowledge of the terminal.
If you’re talking about me I didn’t say that I’m one of those. I love CLI and rather hate GUI.
And that's why It's great to have choice. Also, if you start off in CLI, it can be quite overwhelming. The first time I had to partition my drive I was super scared not to mess it up. A few months later I knew exactly what I was doing.... when I was using a graphical installer or Gparted. Earlier today, I partitioned my drive using cfdisk (fdisk feels kinda painful; press this, then this, and if, like me, you don't know the commands by heart, it can take too long), and I installed Arch manually cuz I was bored. It was my first time doing a manual install with systemd-boot (always did grub in the past), so I didn't realise I had to write my own boot entries for all 3 kernels (mainline, zen and lts), and because of font issues, I just switched back to Fedora (going up a version from 39 to 40 in the process) where I had an issue with a qt component that meant my sddm theme was not working. It isn't the theme's fault, that's for sure, as it worked perfectly on Fedora 39 and elsewhere, and because pretty much all themes I could find relied on this qt module (it's qtgraphicaleffects, packaged as qt5-qtgraphicaleffects on Fedora) , I got a bit angry and then sat down and rewrote the theme, removing any dependency on graphicaleffects (was only used for drop shadows in some popups), though for some reason some of the colours also got a bit funky but it works and it works well (I also had to hide one of the popups but it wasn't an essential one).
But I digress. Point is, if it's more comfortable for you, you'll use it. If it isn't but you want it to be, then to ill force yourself to use and get better. If you don't, you just won't. That's the power of choice in Linux.
For example, when you want to install desktop environments, you need to use CLI. There’s no GUI option. I guess that’s why Linux is considered “difficult” for Windows/MacOS users, while they can use Chromebook, which is also Linux.
The point of original post is how zdnet is trying to let people use Linux, right?
No GUI option you say? Then why can I for example install Kde-full via mints app store? Or any Desktop meta package via Synaptic.
Also ChromeOS Is as much Linux as Android is. Barely.
If you're already on linux there is no need to install special tools. Simply copy the iso directly to the USB device.
dd if=distribution.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=1M && sync
oflag=sync also works instead of && sync. Might as well drop a status=progress in there too