[OSGeoLive] problem with bootable usb stick creation via dd

[Ben Caradoc-Davies]

Astrid,

I note that the good and bad sticks are on /dev/sdf and /dev/sdd in your 
screenshots, the opposite to when you were copying. I do not think this 
matters.

Your use of dd looks good to me. The part I do not like is writing to a 
stick and then reading back. One read error could ruin your 
osgeo12beta3.img. Did you see any errors at the command line? In the 
kernel logs (with journalctl)?

Have you tried writing the raw ISO with dd?:

sudo dd if=osgeolive-12.0beta3-amd64.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=8M; sync

Your dd will copy the entire stick, including the empty space. If you 
are going copy from a stick, consider using the dd count option to 
reduce the image size. Overestimating, 4.5 GB is 576 blocks of 8M, so 
you can use count=576 to copy only 4.5 GB into your image. You can also 
use gzip:

sudo dd if=/dev/sdX bs=8M count=576 | gzip > osgeo12beta3.img.gz

gzunzip < osgeo12beta3.img.gz | sudo dd of=/dev/sdY bs=8M count=576; sync

Kind regards,
Ben.

On 17/08/18 00:20, Astrid Emde (OSGeo) wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> I am preparing the USB-Stick production and Philipp (my collegue) and I 
> tried it with the beta3 iso.
> We wanted to work on a solution with dd to be able to make mass 
> production with 10 port usb3 hubs (Alex and I will bring them to Dar).
> 
> But at the moemnt we failed. Sticks are not bootable.
> 
> 
> This was our workflow:
> 
> # 1. create img from a stick that was created with the usbcreator
> (usb-creator-gtk)
> sudo dd if=/dev/sdd
> of=~/Dokumente/Schulungssticks/usbiso/osgeo12beta3.img bs=8M && sync
> 
> # then 2.
> sudo  dd if=~/Dokumente/Schulungssticks/usbiso/osgeo12beta3.img
> of=/dev/sdd bs=8M status=progress; sync
> 
> But the problem is, that only one pratition will be created (only the
> data partition and not the efi partition) - all 16 GB. And then the
> stick does not boot.
> 
> * does not boot with uefi mode
> * does not boot with legacy mode
> 
> I send 2 screenshots
> * result_from_usbcreator_partition_good_bootable 
> https://imagebin.ca/v/4COCH6SEE7gH
> * result_from_dd_only_one_partition_not_bootable 
> https://imagebin.ca/v/4COCg53WPHj7
> 
> If we do not find a solution with dd we can always use the
> usb-creator-gtk to create the sticks.
> 
> Any idea for a solution?
> 
> Astrid
> 

-- 
Ben Caradoc-Davies <ben at transient.nz>
Director
Transient Software Limited <https://transient.nz/>
New Zealand