Linux @lemmy.ml tombruzzo @lemm.ee 5mo ago

Bootloader equivalent to Rufus

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?

53 comments

One of these should do what you're looking for. Each has a slightly different approach.

https://etcher.balena.io/

https://unetbootin.github.io/

https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html
- +1 for ventoy. With that you can just flash ventoy on it once, then copy iso's over to the usb drive without reformatting or reflashing anything.
  
  I've had issues with Ventoy on multiple computers with multiple isos. +1 for convenience, -1 for not working 3/4 of the time (for me, I'm sure there are numerous factors).
  
  I could never get Ventoy to work. From Windows ISO's to several versions of Linux, it never got detected as a bootable drive. YMMV
  
  I like the idea, but it would be great if it was more compatible with different setups.
- Popsicle from Pop!_OS is also very good - really simple. I’m not sure if it can create a bootable Windows USB though.
  
  https://github.com/pop-os/popsicle
  
  Fedora Media Writer is also another good option.
  
  https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fedora/latest/preparing-boot-media/
- Thanks, I'll check these out
- From this list, only Unetbootin can create Windows installation disk. For this, there is also WoeUSB but it's CLI only.
  
  Ventoy can do windows installations as well
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.
- Or just cat file.img > /dev/....
  
  I think you should use dd for that?
- TIL you can do that with udisksctl. How can you do that?
  
  I usually just use dd or Ventoy.
  
  I thought that was what Impression uses but it doesnt tell that anymore. So I dont know
- Raspberry pi imager is supposed to be pretty good
Ventoy ftw
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
If you want a GUI, I would use Balena Etcher. You might be able to use raspberri pi imager too.
dd if=image.img of=/dev/disk/flashdrive is usually all you need
- The cursed but arguably better way is cp image.img /dev/whatever
  
  is that more or less cursed than cat image.img > /dev/whatever?
  
  Betterest is pv image.img > /dev/sdx
- 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.
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.
- That's what I ended up going with on Fedora
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!
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
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.
ventoy is what has worked best for me
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.
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.
- Something like Ventoy?
  
  oms! this is exactly what I have been looking for.
  
  ooh. imma go google that. thanks.
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!
- Ah, "the linux community" 😌 🧘
https://github.com/pop-os/popsicle
I haven't found a good GUI (Balena's Etcher is cross platform, but the flatpak never worked for me)

dd has never failed me

sudo dd if=<path to ISO file> of=<path to USB> bs=4M status=progress conv=fsync

(double, triple and quadruple check that the output file, of=, is the correct device with multiple different commands before running this)
dd

Sometimes stuff won’t chain boot from within ventoy.

53 comments