I’ve been trying to find a linux programming similar to Rufus to flash images of OSes on a thumb drive.

Nothing from the listicles on the internet or the programs in flatpak have worked for me as well as Rufus on Windows.

What have you used that’s worked well? Or, could I run Rufus on my linux machine with WINE?

  • boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net
    22·
    17 days ago

    What?

    Rufus just flashes ISOs to disks. On Linux you can doo that with

    • udisksctl or dd
    • Impression
    • Fedora Media Writer
    • KDE Iso Image writer
    • Balena Etcher

    But you are talking about something completely different and Ventoy does that.

        • qpsLCV5@lemmy.ml
          2·
          16 days ago

          using dd for that is outdated info that everyone keeps blindly parroting with zero understanding why. cat is simpler and works fine.

          note: both cat and dd only work for this when the image is made in a compatible way, my linux isos always work fine but a windows iso didnt and needs a more specific tool.

            • ShortN0te@lemmy.ml
              5·
              16 days ago

              No, cat is not for writing files. Cat is for reading files and directing the data to standard output.

              With “>” you are directing standard output to a file, in this case a blockdevice.

            • tuna@discuss.tchncs.de
              2·
              13 days ago

              /dev/sdX is a file, and both dd, cat can read files in full. You can even try something like zstd to compress it too.

              One of the nice things about dd though is you can see the progress with --status=progress

  • Nibodhika@lemmy.world
    10·
    16 days ago

    Personally I have a USB drive with Ventou and have been using that for a long time.

    But before that I just did a dd. Although I seem to remember someone doing a benchmark and realizing that piping the file was faster. Here’s what I mean by that:

    In bash you have the echo command which prints text:

    echo "Hello"

    Will print Hello.

    In bash you can send the output of a command to a file, so:

    echo "Hello" > hello.txt

    Will write Hello in the hello.txt file.

    In bash you can use the cat command to read files:

    cat hello.txt

    Will print the Hello we wrote in that file earlier.

    In Linux drives are files, so if your USB drive is in /dev/sdb (DON’T JUST BLINDLY COPY THIS) you can create an image of it like so:

    cat /dev/sdb > usb.iso

    But also the devices are writable, so you can flash an image to a disk by doing it the other way around:

    cat image.iso > /dev/sdb
    • Barzaria@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      3·
      16 days ago

      if is short for input file if is short for output file

      This dd command from the command line is what I use because it is built in and perfectly bare bones for my needs. I like to use the command flag --status=progress to show a status bar while duplicating the data. A word of caution: the dd, or ‘data duplicator’ program is sometimes known as the ‘destroy disk’ program because if you flash the iso file to the wrong disk/drive you can mess up the drive. Use the appropriate level of caution because there is no undo button. You can use the lsblk command to list the block devices on your machine and use the correct device. Quick instructions: use lsblk to list your block devices and locate your flash drive. If the flash drive is mounted (the /sdb/ will have something like /media/files if it is) you can unmount with $umount /path/to/sdb. Once the drive is unmounted you can use the dd program to duplicate the data (iso file) to your drive.

  • owenfromcanada@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    17 days ago

    They obviously don’t have the features that Rufus has, but I’ve ended up using the default USB image writers that come pre-installed (found them on both Mint and Manjaro, probably available on others). If you’re just looking to write an ISO, check to see if you already have one.

  • Corgana@startrek.website
    3·
    16 days ago

    Balena Etcher is what you want, though AFAIK if you’re making a Windows installer no Linux programs have the convenient options to disable TPM and online account etc that make Rufus so nice.

  • foremanguy@lemmy.ml
    3·
    16 days ago

    The principal alternative to Rufus is Balena etchter, but for me it works 1/5 times. But now I’m using Ventoy and… Just use it, it damn fucking good!

  • tombruzzo@lemm.eeOP
    3·
    17 days ago

    Thanks everyone. I tried ventoy but it didn’t work straight away. I do like the idea of having a list of isos to pick from, but it might take more tweaking to get right.

    I went with the boot loading tool in Fedora since I just wanted to flash mint to do a reinstall on my kids’ laptop

  • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
    2·
    17 days ago

    darn I thought this was about my dream thing which would be a flashed boot loader on a drive where you had a folder you could add iso’s and it would automatically give you a list of isos to boot from.

  • psion1369@lemmy.world
    2·
    16 days ago

    My honest recommendation is dd It works, it does it’s job, and doesn’t need to many bells and whistles. My only complaint is that there isn’t an easy way to show progress. But as a background command, it works.

  • scratchandgame@lemmy.mlTiếng Việt
    1·
    15 days ago

    What have you used that’s worked well? Or, could I run Rufus on my linux machine with WINE?

    A BLOODY STUPID IDEA!

    Using Wine is just stupid enough.

    dd is safe. I have used Balena’s Etcher 2 years ago but it seems the drive isn’t bootable in UEFI mode!