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…

  • davel@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1301·
    18 days ago

    ♬ Hello dd my old friend
    I’ve come sudo with you again ♬

  • Brickfrog@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    58·
    18 days ago

    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·
      18 days ago

      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·
        18 days ago

        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.

        • madame_gaymes@programming.devEnglish
          2·
          17 days ago

          I know, but just because someone doesn’t understand something or ignores it doesn’t mean it isn’t the best/simplest choice for 90% of cases.

      • dev_null@lemmy.ml
        22·
        17 days ago

        It’s faster to drag and drop a downloaded ISO and choose the target from a dropdown, than do it on a command line. And get a progress bar. As much as command line is usually faster, it isn’t in this case.

        Yes you can also get a progress bar on the command line but it’s more typing again, and realistically you need to look the option up every time if you use dd once every 3 months.

        • madame_gaymes@programming.devEnglish
          4·
          17 days ago

          Lmao. Uses a computer, typing is too much. It took more typing to write your comment than to craft a tab-completed dd command, even if you had to call the help menu to refresh your available options, jus’ sayin’

          I get it though, the general public are scared of the big bad 'puter magic and need GUIs.

            • madame_gaymes@programming.devEnglish
              2·
              17 days ago

              Shhh, that’s too advanced. Besides, CLI is outdated and slower than GUIs, this is just insane behavior /s

              I honestly didn’t even need to specify tab-completed. It’s still less typing than their comment unless your paths are miles long.

          • dev_null@lemmy.ml
            11·
            17 days ago

            Let me try: Lmao. Uses a computer, still does stuff the slower way because learning new things is too difficult.

            To be serious, I am looking for the best solutions for my use cases, not adequate ones. Yes dd works perfectly fine and as you noted doesn’t take long to use anyway. But just because it’s fine doesn’t mean other approaches aren’t better.

            A GUI tool can offer or take a list of download URLs for common distros so downloading isn’t a separate step, it can check if the target device is a flash drive and not a hard drive by mistake, it can automatically choose the optimal block size for the device, it can verify the process by reading it back from the device, can show you the current filesystem, label, and usage of the target device to confirm, it can handle flashing to multiple devices at the same time with separate and total progress bars.

            If I wanted to do all that on the command line it’d be quite a lot of commands or a sizeable script to write. Or I can use a simple dd command and lose out on all of the above. Either way it’s a worse option. I will only use dd when a GUI tool isn’t installed, or when I’m on a system without a DE.

            • madame_gaymes@programming.devEnglish
              1·
              17 days ago

              We will have to agree to disagree.

              At least you came back with reasons beyond “I don’t like typing.”

              ETA: > learning new things is too difficult.

              I could use this argument for folks that don’t want to learn CLI as well, doesn’t really track in either direction.

    • Firnin@feddit.org
      7·
      17 days ago

      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·
        17 days ago

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

  • pH3ra@lemmy.ml
    461·
    18 days ago

    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·
      17 days ago

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

    • umbrella@lemmy.ml
      20·
      18 days ago

      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
    37·
    17 days ago

    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·
        17 days ago

        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·
          17 days ago

          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·
            17 days ago

            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
    36·
    18 days ago

    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·
      18 days ago

      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·
        18 days ago

        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·
        18 days ago

        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·
        18 days ago

        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·
          17 days ago

          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·
    18 days ago

    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·
        18 days ago

        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·
          18 days ago

          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
      212·
      18 days ago

      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·
        18 days ago

        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·
        17 days ago

        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·
    18 days ago

    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.

    • SatyrSack@feddit.orgEnglish
      2·
      17 days ago

      Completely aside from the blob issue mentioned, the Tails team has recommended against using a multiboot utility like Ventoy to install Tails. Ventoy works fine for basically any other operating system (again, aside from the blob issue), just not Tails, which is what this post is about.

    • CarbonBasedNPU@lemm.eeEnglish
      43·
      18 days ago

      My luck with Ventoy has been very poor. The isos will work a few times and then something breaks and I need to re download all my isos and format and try again.

      • Xanza@lemm.eeEnglish
        8·
        18 days ago

        That’s… Interesting. I’ve been using Ventoy professionally for like… 2-3 years now and I’ve not once had an issue with daily use. Unironically like 2500-3000 uses without issue.

      • Telorand@reddthat.com
        3·
        18 days ago

        This has been my experience as well. Some people love it, but I’m not gonna rely on it for critical backup or recovery tools (also, there’s that whole binary blob thing, besides).

        • ObsidianZed@lemmy.world
          5·
          18 days ago

          I have had no complaints about it, but with that said, I absolutely would not use it for any vital backup your recovery tools.

          It was fantastic however, to use to load up with handfuls of different live distro ISOs to play around with.

  • Atlas_@lemmy.world
    21·
    17 days ago

    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.

  • Andromxda 🇺🇦🇵🇸🇹🇼@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    233·
    17 days ago

    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
      12·
      17 days ago

      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
            16·
            17 days ago

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

            • Abnorc@lemm.ee
              2·
              16 days ago

              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·
              16 days ago

              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·
          16 days ago

          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·
            16 days ago

            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·
              16 days ago

              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·
        17 days ago

        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·
          17 days ago

          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·
            17 days ago

            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.