[nmglug] Bootable flash media

[Mark Galassi]

> One of the biggest hassles for me, as a Linux user and hobbyist, has been
> creating bootable flash drives to use as live and/or installation media.

I don't use the GUIs.  I download the medium, let's say to /tmp, with:

wget https://whatever/mydistro.iso
# insert USB drive
# use df or mount to see what devices/partitions got mounted with that
# insertion.  assume here that it's /dev/sdu1, though it will more often
# be something like /dev/sdb1 or /dev/sdd1, but I don't want to give
# example dd commands with /dev/sdd in case someone just pastes it in.
sudo umount /dev/sdu1
sudo dd if=mydistro.iso of=/dev/sdu bs=10M        # note no '1'
sync
sync
# pull out the USB drive

I do a lot of them to give out to students, and I like to have it in my
shell history.