Tails - Replacing balenaEtcher with Rufus as installer for Windows
tails.net

I am shocked by this - the quote in below is very concerning:

“However, in 2024, the situation changed: balenaEtcher started sharing the file name of the image and the model of the USB stick with the Balena company and possibly with third parties.”

Can’t see myself using this software anymore…

  • Brickfrog@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    58·
    3 个月前

    That’s interesting, apparently it was mentioned on github but nothing seems to have changed in the end

    https://github.com/balena-io/etcher/issues/3784

    Haven’t used that software in a long time but maybe there’s an opt-out somewhere during runtime? Although I don’t see why a user needs to be required to opt out of nonsense like this when just writing firmware to a USB disk.

    Only ever touched balenaEtcher when some project or distro recommended it. Overall prefer Rufus for this sort of thing when working on Windows.

    • wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      7·
      3 个月前

      I’ve used Sardu on Windows for making multi-iso bootable USB sticks a long time ago in the past, but I’d admittedly never looked at their ToS or Privacy Policy. My use case was slapping some live boot antivirus scanners, data recovery tools, and one or two lightweight liveboot-Linux ISOs on one USB as a portable toolkit.

      When I’m making anything else from Windows, I’ve always stuck with Rufus. Had never heard of BalenaEtcher before now.

      • Cataphract@lemmy.ml
        5·
        3 个月前

        I"m horrible with names of programs and mess with a lot of junk comps switching out OS’s and just tinkering around so I’m always using crazy utility programs. BalenaEtcher is used in a lot of tutorials or guides for installations, I think recently both Elementary OS and even Ubuntu had instructions pointing towards BalenaEtcher.

        I never thought it was a great program, it was finicky to use and errors out quickly multiple times. Looking back I saw the signs, weird new program being promoted above other “well established” burn programs, ads, and now scrolling down their webpage it’s just a bunch of promotional subscription bullshit. I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit looking at the “balenacloud” and “balenasense”, like if they’re collecting your data through etcher then all of that shit is probably compromised. Another fucking google wannabe corp.

  • pH3ra@lemmy.ml
    47·
    3 个月前

    If you need a FOSS, cross platform GUI for bootable USB sticks, Raspberry Pi Imager is a really good solution.
    It is mainly used to flash SD cards for RPIs, but also you can burn any ISO on any support with it.

    • phar@lemmy.ml
      7·
      3 个月前

      I used to use the fedora media writer but the RPi imager software is so easy I switched

    • Firnin@feddit.org
      7·
      3 个月前

      It is indeed the best way, but somehow I am still anxious using this command, even after flashing countless USB drives 😅

      • memphis@sopuli.xyz
        3·
        3 个月前

        I’ve made it a habit to type out the command without sudo at first, when it yells at me about permissions I am reminded to go back and double-check.

    • ☂️-@lemmy.ml
      20·
      3 个月前

      nah, plenty of good stuff with good ui.

      balena had effects and stuff but a pretty tasteless gui tbh, and ads promoting other shit…

  • PullPantsUnsworn@lemmy.mlEnglish
    36·
    3 个月前

    Is no one aware of Fedora Media Writer? It’s FOSS and the most trustworthy ISO burning software in existence. It’s only issue is that its named as if it is written only for producing Fedora bootable media. It works for everything.

      • Rowan Thorpe@lemmy.ml
        4·
        3 个月前

        The article at the end mentions they suggest dd as alternative for MacOS (due to Unix user space). It seems the balena -> rufus decision is about the easiest-onramp Mac+Win-portable option, for those uncomfortable dropping to low-level device-writing CLI tools in their current system.

        Side-note: Last time I was on a friend’s Windows I installed dd simply enough both as mingw-w64 (native compiled) and under Cygwin. So for Windows users who are comfortable using dd it only requires a minor step. When I once used WSL devices were accessible too, but that was WSL1 (containerized), whereas WSL2 (virtualized) probably makes device-mapping complex(?) enough to not be worth it there.

        • desktop_user@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          1·
          3 个月前

          WSL2 has relatively easy (a few powershell commands iirc) device mounting, provided you aren’t trying to mount C: or the windows install drive (not necessarily the same).

          • Rowan Thorpe@lemmy.ml
            2·
            3 个月前

            Thanks, that’s good to know, but for raw-writing a bootable image to a device do you (or anyone reading) know if there are also straightforward powershell commands for mapping devices at the block level? (as opposed to mounting at filesystem level)

  • renzev@lemmy.worldEnglish
    34·
    3 个月前

    I remember a while back, years before this surfaced, there was a thread on /g/ with a group photo of Balena’s employees and a caption like “why does it take so many people to develop an electron wrapper around dd”. Obviously it was low effort engagement bait (balena does much more than etcher), but the comments were full of people calling the company a glowie honeypot and the like. Moral of the story: Trust the schizos, they sense spyware form lightyears away.

    • CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      4·
      3 个月前

      In my early days of Linux, I royally fucked up a USB thumb drive (back when they were expensive) using dd and as a result do not trust myself with it.

      I would use Hannah Montana Linux if it was the only GUI option to burn a USB ISO.

      • shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip
        2·
        3 个月前

        Weird. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve used that command. But it’s probably been several thousand. And I’ve never screwed up a flash drive that way.

        There has been once or twice where I’ve pulled the flash drive out too quickly after it finished writing and it actually hadn’t finished writing and had to redo it, but other than that, I’ve not actually screwed up any drives beyond repair or anything.

      • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        5·
        3 个月前

        Rufus.

        And who cares if there’s spyware on windows, you’re already using windows so there is, it’s windows. At that point you may as well just use etcher, but I’d use Rufus anyway because let’s be real it’s just better. The only reason not to use Rufus is because it’s windows exclusive, but if you’re using windows that probably doesn’t bother you, so…

      • shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip
        31·
        3 个月前

        Oh, sorry. I didn’t realize you were on Windows. That’s a Linux command. I haven’t used Windows very much since about 2018, so I don’t even consider Windows anymore unless it’s brought up.

        • purplemeowanon@lemmy.mlEnglish
          1·
          3 个月前

          The article was about Windows. And, no, I’m not on Windows. i use GrapheneOS on my phone and triple-boot Arch/Debian/Fedora on my laptop. I’m just making the point that the article was about Windows so replying with UNIX commands doesn’t really make sense.

  • lime!@feddit.nuEnglish
    30·
    3 个月前

    i still don’t understand why anyone would use etcher. it’s an electron wrapper over dd. it’s 80MB where rufus is 1.5. when it appeared there were already other programs that did its job better.

      • lime!@feddit.nuEnglish
        4·
        3 个月前

        that’s correct. on windows, rufus is a better tool, and on linux or mac it’s just a built-in command with a manual packed in.

        also, ubuntu ships with startup image creator, and gnome disks ships as a flatpak, if those are more your speed.

        • chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          3·
          3 个月前

          Thanks for the info, I’m on linux mint and after checking these out it isn’t immediately apparent from their websites whether or how I could install them. Still think etcher occupies a niche that alternatives don’t fill, its website directs you straight to installing it, it’s cross platform, and using it is very easy, so it’s something that could reasonably be linked to in various install tutorials.

    • HelloRoot@lemy.lolEnglish
      202·
      3 个月前

      I like clicking buttons that have a text on them saying what they do instead of trying to memorize a gajillion terminal commands and flags where I have to enter more commands and flags to see what they do.

      • SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de
        15·
        3 个月前

        plus it’s some some sanity checks like not showing you your system drives. Or warning you when the drive you are about to nuke is suspiciously large and maybe not the usb drive you actually want to use.

        This is basically the main feature. Stopping you from fatfingering the wrong drive

      • lime!@feddit.nuEnglish
        3·
        3 个月前

        weird that the installation guide is hosted on a separate website that hasn’t been updated in eight years. that’s irresponsible of them. anyway rufus is a better version of etcher that you can download for windows.

  • N0x0n@lemmy.ml
    22·
    3 个月前

    I tried belenaEtcher once on my Mac… And it seemed to me more like a spyware than an actual software, I was a bit confused and never used it again.

  • Andromxda 🇺🇦🇵🇸🇹🇼@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    232·
    3 个月前

    Just use dd. It’s not that hard. You pass it 2 arguments: if= the file you want to flash, and of= the destination. If you’re feeling fancy, pass in some status=progress. And don’t forget to prepend it with sudo. That’s it.

    • harsh3466@lemmy.ml
      11·
      3 个月前

      I just tried this the other day and was unable to boot from the USB. Any chance you could shed some light on what I might have screwed up?

      The command was:

      dd if=fedora.iso of=/dev/sdc bs=4M status=progress

      The USB stick was not mounted and the fedora image was verified. The command completed successfully but I couldn’t boot from it. When I used fedora writer to burn the same image to the same USB stick it booted no problem.

      Edit: spelling & capitalization

          • Rogue@feddit.uk
            15·
            3 个月前

            You didn’t screw up, you beautifully proved why the CLI is never a simple solution.

            • Abnorc@lemm.ee
              2·
              3 个月前

              This is why people trying to pass this as a primary option baffle me a bit. dd is not that bad in isolation, but all of these little commands add up.

              If we want Linux to be mainstream, we need to accept that most users aren’t going to be linux enthusiasts. They just want a PC that works normally.

            • admin@sh.itjust.works
              1·
              3 个月前

              It reminded me when I told a coworker he could force the Windows shutdowns with the command 'shutdown -p -f" from either a Run.exe or a cmd window.

              Then he said it wasn’t working, and that the cmd window would just open and close quickly but no shutdown.

              Imagine my surprise when he was doing shutdown -pf .

        • gnuhaut@lemmy.ml
          1·
          3 个月前

          I don’t think oflags=direct has any influence on the result. Apparently that’s about disabling the page cache in the kernel, which can avoid a situation in which the system slows down due to buildup yet-to-write pages.

          • massacre@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            3 个月前

            Perhaps not. But the flag allows for direct I/O for data, bypassing buffers which can be overrun with certain size blocks, potentially causing dirty buffer depending on the machine being used. My understanding is that it’s “more reliable” for writing (especially on shitty USB Flash drives) and getting the exact ISO properly written.

            But it could be useless all the same - I’m just pointing out that OPs command is not the one recommended by Fedora when writing their ISO. Also OP is less likely to pull the drive before buffers have flushed this way.

            • gnuhaut@lemmy.ml
              2·
              3 个月前

              Oh yeah that’s where I was getting at, but I didn’t have time to write that out earlier. I agree that OP probably pulled out the usb stick before buffers were flushed. I imagine that direct I/O would mitigate this problem a lot because presumably whatever buffers still exist (there would some hardware buffers and I think Linux kernel I/O buffers) will be minimal compared to the potentially large amount of dirty pages one might accumulate using normal cached writes. So I imagine those buffers would be empty very shortly (less than one second maybe?) after dd finishes, whereas I’ve seen regular dd finish tens of seconds before my usb stick stopped blinking it’s LED. Still if you wait for that long the result will be the same.

      • Maiq@lemy.lol
        3·
        3 个月前

        Did you make sure that the of is correct? lsblk to make sure.

        If your sure it wrote to the right drive i would make sure that you have a good download. Did you run your checksums?

        I think fedora works with secureboot but you might want to disable it just to see if that is the issue. I believe you can reenable it after install.

        Make sure to go into the bios and boot from external drive/usb.

        Out of 15 years of using dd i have never had a problem.

        • harsh3466@lemmy.ml
          2·
          3 个月前

          I did verify with lsblk, with a listing before and after plugging in the stick to be absolutely sure.

          I also did verify the checksum of the ISO.

          I’ll double check SecureBoot, but as I mentioned, the same ISO written to the same stick with Fedora writer did boot in the same machine it wouldn’t boot from with the dd version.

          I know it’s something I did or didn’t do to make it work correctly, so this is not me trying to dunk on dd, just trying to understand what I did wrong.

          • Maiq@lemy.lol
            1·
            3 个月前

            just trying to understand what I did wrong.

            You might not have done anything wrong.

            There is also the possibility of a bad USB drive or write memory failure. There is lots of things that could go wrong that’s not your fault. Might try a different USB or a different USB port on your machine.

            You might want to try zeroing out the USB, if=/dev/zero. Then you might need to make a new partition table. You can use something like gparted. Or https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-manipulate-partition-tables-with-fdisk-cfdisk-and-sfdisk-on-linux

            You can try GPT or DOS. I dont think it matters.

            Not sure if the ISO will have the partition table so you might want make the new partition table just to be sure the stick defiantly has one. If dd overwrites it from the iso no harm no foul.

            Thats all the troubleshooting steps I can think of right now.

  • Atlas_@lemmy.world
    21·
    3 个月前

    Rufus is great! I worked with the maintainer to fix a bug in hardware they didn’t have and it was a very pleasant experience.