Hi,

At https://www.debian.org/CD/faq/#write-usb I think Balena Etcher [1]
should be recommended either replacing win32diskmanager or in addition
to it. This is very easy to use and also works on Mac OS.

[1] https://www.balena.io/etcher/

Thanks
Praveen

Note: please cc me on replies

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On Tue, Aug 17, 2021 at 10:21:18PM +0530, Pirate Praveen wrote:

Hi,

At https://www.debian.org/CD/faq/#write-usb I think Balena Etcher [1] should be recommended either replacing win32diskmanager or in addition to it. This is very easy to use and also works on Mac OS.

[1] https://www.balena.io/etcher/

Thanks
Praveen

Note: please cc me on replies

No - under no circumstances, in my opinion. It doesn't add very much to
what we have.

It is not stable software. It's distributed as a flatpak so anybody who
really wants it can install it. It's an Electron app which means that it's
huge and has interesting security problems.

It works relatively well for SD cards: I am not yet convinced that it
works as well for USB sticks.You might as well suggest Raspberry Pi imager
from the Raspberry Pi Foundation - their Ubuntu package sadly doesn't
work at all on Debian :(

I have used it, but, to be honest the potential downsides massively outweigh the benefits.

All the very best, as ever,

Andy Cater

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On Tue, Aug 17, 2021 at 10:21:18PM +0530, Pirate Praveen wrote:

Hi,

At https://www.debian.org/CD/faq/#write-usb I think Balena Etcher

[1] should

be recommended either replacing win32diskmanager or in addition to

it. This

is very easy to use and also works on Mac OS.

[1] https://www.balena.io/etcher/

Thanks
Praveen

Note: please cc me on replies

No - under no circumstances, in my opinion. It doesn't add very much

to

what we have.

Support for Mac OS does not count? See the target audience here is not
people who already have Debian or a GNU/Linux. The main audience is
people who are currently using Windows or MacOS. For GNU/Linux users cp
or dd already covers.

It is not stable software. It's distributed as a flatpak so anybody

who

really wants it can install it. It's an Electron app which means

that it's

huge and has interesting security problems.

This is quite normal and widely used, element, slack client, signal etc
there are so many popular electron based apps. We are giving it as an additional option. Yes, there are people who hate electron based apps,
but they are still widely developed, used and loved by people. Same for
flatpak or appimage or docker.

It works relatively well for SD cards: I am not yet convinced that it
works as well for USB sticks.You might as well suggest Raspberry Pi

imager

from the Raspberry Pi Foundation - their Ubuntu package sadly doesn't
work at all on Debian :(

Again add this as another option.

I have used it, but, to be honest the potential downsides massively

outweigh

the benefits.

I don't think being electron based is enough to disqualify a useful
software.

All the very best, as ever,

Andy Cater

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Pirate Praveen <[email protected]> (2021-08-17):

At https://www.debian.org/CD/faq/#write-usb I think Balena Etcher [1] should be recommended either replacing win32diskmanager or in addition to it. This is very easy to use and also works on Mac OS.

[1] https://www.balena.io/etcher/

If it helps decide whether it's trustworthy enough to recommend
deploying Debian images with, Etcher has been the recommended way to
deploy Tails from Windows and macOS for a while:
https://tails.boum.org/install/win/usb/
https://tails.boum.org/install/mac/usb/

(That being said, I have never used it myself.)

Note: please cc me on replies

Done.


Cheers,
--
Cyril Brulebois ([email protected]) <https://debamax.com/>
D-I release manager -- Release team member -- Freelance Consultant

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On Thu, Aug 19, 2021 at 02:38:39AM +0530, Pirate Praveen wrote:

On Tue, Aug 17, 2021 at 10:21:18PM +0530, Pirate Praveen wrote:

Hi,

At https://www.debian.org/CD/faq/#write-usb I think Balena Etcher [1] should
be recommended either replacing win32diskmanager or in addition to it. This
is very easy to use and also works on Mac OS.

[1] https://www.balena.io/etcher/

Thanks
Praveen

Note: please cc me on replies

Hi

No - under no circumstances, in my opinion. It doesn't add very much to what we have.

I stand by this - see also below.

Support for Mac OS does not count? See the target audience here is not
people who already have Debian or a GNU/Linux. The main audience is people who are currently using Windows or MacOS. For GNU/Linux users cp or dd already covers.

If you've got a Mac, you've got software that will deal with it included
in MacOS. (Or just use dd from terminal - it might not be as fully
featured as the corresponding version in Debian - sorry, I can't check.]

It is not stable software. It's distributed as a flatpak so anybody who really wants it can install it. It's an Electron app which means that it's huge and has interesting security problems.

This is quite normal and widely used, element, slack client, signal etc
there are so many popular electron based apps. We are giving it as an additional option. Yes, there are people who hate electron based apps, but they are still widely developed, used and loved by people. Same for flatpak or appimage or docker.

I mistyped. It's an appimage. It's 100MB of obscured single file for one
simple file copy.

Note: slack, signal are all non-free software and wouldn't be packaged for Debian.

It works relatively well for SD cards: I am not yet convinced that it
works as well for USB sticks.You might as well suggest Raspberry Pi imager from the Raspberry Pi Foundation - their Ubuntu package sadly doesn't
work at all on Debian :(

Again add this as another option.

I have no good means of validating how good or bad the installer is. It's obviously being well used by people who are writing Raspberry Pi OS images.
I did use this one on a Windows machine to write Raspberry Pi OS and it
worked for me. I also used it to write an arm64 DVD image to a USB stick
so I know that it worked for me to do that.

I have used it, but, to be honest the potential downsides massively

outweigh

the benefits.

I don't think being electron based is enough to disqualify a useful
software.

Please look very, very carefully indeed at the security problems with the Electron framework apps. In my opinion, I'd not want to recommend them but
your choice is your own to make.

All the very best, as ever,

Andy Cater

All the very best, as ever,

Andy Cater

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On Tue, Aug 17, 2021 at 10:21:18PM +0530, Pirate Praveen wrote:

Hi,

At https://www.debian.org/CD/faq/#write-usb I think Balena Etcher

[1] should

be recommended either replacing win32diskmanager or in addition to

it. This

is very easy to use and also works on Mac OS.

[1] https://www.balena.io/etcher/

Thanks
Praveen

Note: please cc me on replies

No - under no circumstances, in my opinion. It doesn't add very much
to
what we have.

It is not stable software. It's distributed as a flatpak so anybody
who
really wants it can install it. It's an Electron app which means that
it's
huge and has interesting security problems.

Does Balena Etcher has security problems or in general, electron apps
have security problems?

It works relatively well for SD cards: I am not yet convinced that it
works as well for USB sticks.

Balena Etcher works well for me in Debian. I downloaded an appimage from
their website and I flash my USB drives using Balena Etcher. It is very
easy to use as well. Therefore, I think that Balena Etcher should be recommended.

PS: Please CC me (ravi at ravidwivedi.in) in your replies as I am not in
the mailing list.
(This is a reply to
https://lists.debian.org/debian-cd/2021/08/msg00009.html)

--
Ravi Dwivedi
https://ravidwivedi.in/
GPG Keys-> https://ravidwivedi.in/files/ravidwivedi.asc
Why care about privacy? https://www.socialcooling.com/

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