72 lines
2.3 KiB
Markdown
72 lines
2.3 KiB
Markdown
# Booting from a USB flash drive {#sec-booting-from-usb}
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The image has to be written verbatim to the USB flash drive for it to be
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bootable on UEFI and BIOS systems. Here are the recommended tools to do that.
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## Creating bootable USB flash drive with a graphical tool {#sec-booting-from-usb-graphical}
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Etcher is a popular and user-friendly tool. It works on Linux, Windows and macOS.
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Download it from [balena.io](https://www.balena.io/etcher/), start the program,
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select the downloaded NixOS ISO, then select the USB flash drive and flash it.
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::: {.warning}
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Etcher reports errors and usage statistics by default, which can be disabled in
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the settings.
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:::
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An alternative is [USBImager](https://bztsrc.gitlab.io/usbimager),
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which is very simple and does not connect to the internet. Download the version
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with write-only (wo) interface for your system. Start the program,
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select the image, select the USB flash drive and click "Write".
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## Creating bootable USB flash drive from a Terminal on Linux {#sec-booting-from-usb-linux}
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1. Plug in the USB flash drive.
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2. Find the corresponding device with `lsblk`. You can distinguish them by
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their size.
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3. Make sure all partitions on the device are properly unmounted. Replace `sdX`
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with your device (e.g. `sdb`).
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```ShellSession
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sudo umount /dev/sdX*
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```
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4. Then use the `dd` utility to write the image to the USB flash drive.
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```ShellSession
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sudo dd if=<path-to-image> of=/dev/sdX bs=4M conv=fsync
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```
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## Creating bootable USB flash drive from a Terminal on macOS {#sec-booting-from-usb-macos}
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1. Plug in the USB flash drive.
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2. Find the corresponding device with `diskutil list`. You can distinguish them
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by their size.
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3. Make sure all partitions on the device are properly unmounted. Replace `diskX`
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with your device (e.g. `disk1`).
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```ShellSession
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diskutil unmountDisk diskX
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```
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4. Then use the `dd` utility to write the image to the USB flash drive.
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```ShellSession
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sudo dd if=<path-to-image> of=/dev/rdiskX bs=4m
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```
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After `dd` completes, a GUI dialog "The disk
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you inserted was not readable by this computer" will pop up, which can
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be ignored.
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::: {.note}
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Using the 'raw' `rdiskX` device instead of `diskX` with dd completes in
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minutes instead of hours.
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:::
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5. Eject the disk when it is finished.
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```ShellSession
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diskutil eject /dev/diskX
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```
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