Native Linux
It is quote easy to copy an ISO file to a USB stick, and if the ISO is already 'bootable', so too will the USB. There are two tricks involved: one to find the device name of the USB, and the other is the copy command.
Summary TL:DR (warning, be aware of overwriting block device):
dd if=Downloads/iso/debian-trixie-DI-rc1-amd64-netinst.iso of=/dev/sda bs=4M oflag=sync status=progress
To find the device name, run the following command to watch what happens as the USB stick is inserted:
$ sudo tail -f /var/log/kern.log Nov 20 14:12:04 z800 kernel: [65065.953532] usb 7-5: new high-speed USB device number 3 using ehci-pci Nov 20 14:12:04 z800 kernel: [65066.185552] usb 7-5: New USB device found, idVendor=058f, idProduct=6387 Nov 20 14:12:04 z800 kernel: [65066.185556] usb 7-5: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3 Nov 20 14:12:04 z800 kernel: [65066.185558] usb 7-5: Product: Mass Storage Nov 20 14:12:04 z800 kernel: [65066.185559] usb 7-5: Manufacturer: Generic Nov 20 14:12:04 z800 kernel: [65066.185561] usb 7-5: SerialNumber: 026C5B24 Nov 20 14:12:04 z800 kernel: [65066.186095] usb-storage 7-5:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected Nov 20 14:12:04 z800 kernel: [65066.186635] scsi host7: usb-storage 7-5:1.0 Nov 20 14:12:05 z800 kernel: [65067.212014] scsi 7:0:0:0: Direct-Access Generic Flash Disk 8.07 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2 Nov 20 14:12:05 z800 kernel: [65067.213013] sd 7:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg3 type 0 Nov 20 14:12:05 z800 kernel: [65067.214210] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdc] 4014080 512-byte logical blocks: (2.06 GB/1.91 GiB) Nov 20 14:12:05 z800 kernel: [65067.214955] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is off Nov 20 14:12:05 z800 kernel: [65067.214958] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: 03 00 00 00 Nov 20 14:12:05 z800 kernel: [65067.215551] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdc] No Caching mode page found Nov 20 14:12:05 z800 kernel: [65067.215556] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through Nov 20 14:12:05 z800 kernel: [65067.250236] sdc: sdc1 sdc2 Nov 20 14:12:05 z800 kernel: [65067.253546] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI removable disk
The final lines show [sdc]. Use this in the next command. Be sure to use the correct device name, else you run the risk of over-writing something you really didn't want to. This uses the iso file as the input, and writes to the device as output with a 4MB block size.
$ sudo dd if=~/Downloads/iso/debian-testing-amd64-netinst.20161105.iso of=/dev/sdc bs=4M 71+1 records in 71+1 records out 300941312 bytes (301 MB, 287 MiB) copied, 38.0829 s, 7.9 MB/s
To confirm that the data is present, mount the physical device and check it out:
$ mkdir cd $ sudo mount /dev/sdc cd mount: /dev/sdc is write-protected, mounting read-only $ ls cd autorun.inf css dists efi g2ldr install isolinux pics README.html README.mirrors.txt README.txt tools boot debian doc firmware g2ldr.mbr install.amd md5sum.txt pool README.mirrors.html README.source setup.exe win32-loader.ini $ sudo umount cd $ rmdir cd
Cygwin
Cygwin needs to be started as an administrator.
Then run the following to determine partitions:
$ cat /proc/partitions
major minor #blocks name win-mounts
8 0 125034840 sda
8 1 102400 sda1
8 2 124930048 sda2 C:\
8 16 976762584 sdb
8 17 976759808 sdb1 D:\
8 32 254336 sdc
8 33 253312 sdc1 E:\
Ensure you double confirm which drive you are sending this to, as it could overwrite your operating system or data!! A regular dd should then do the trick (here I have a too small usb key):
$ dd if=/cygdrive/d/Data/ISO/debian-9.2.1-amd64-netinst.iso of=/dev/sdc bs=4M dd: error writing '/dev/sdc': No space left on device 63+0 records in 62+0 records out 260440064 bytes (260 MB, 248 MiB) copied, 33.5776 s, 7.8 MB/s
The ArchLinux Wiki was used as a source of information for this.
