ZorinOS' own Bootable USB Creator

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#1

Fedora already comes with a media writer tool and I think it's a great way of letting new users create USB installers without hassle.
I strongly believe ZorinOS should provide an installer like that as well and it's not too hard to make either.

Balena Etcher is open source and an electron app. GitHub - balena-io/etcher: Flash OS images to SD cards & USB drives, safely and easily.

It's licensed under Apache 2, It'll be pretty easy to modify and automatically download and flash ZorinOS ISO in minutes. I think Artyom should definitely consider doing it.

#2

If you are suggesting something based on Balana Etcher, then I would be pretty concerned, considering the problems with that USB creator reported here on the forum.

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#4

Forking Balena Etcher is one option. However, I would suggest forking Fedora Media Writer. It's GTK which means it doesn't consume 300MB of RAM like Etcher, which uses Electron. It also means it looks native. Plus, it's already created for downloading a specific distro's ISO and flashing it; replacing links and branding should be pretty easy.

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#5

The only USB boot tool that worked for me so far with any USB drive was Ventoy or Rufus. So that's that.

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#6

I use rufus if on win, ventoy or unetbootin on linux.

I guess the question is the benefit worth the development cost/time? There are instructions for making a usbdrive in windows that are easy to follow, same for linux, and mac. The tool would have to be updated constantly as Zorin Image is updated. even tool such belana etcher have bugs and require constant dev work, and they have whole devs dedicated to supporting them. It might be useful to unetbootinwin(32) as a preinstalled app in iso To make creating a usb easier. but again doesnt always work on every system and would create more help request

#7

Ventoy is the bomb ....... that said Popsicle is a great writer :wink:

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#8

+1 for Ventoy! It is the only tool I use for Bootable Images. It's the best tool out there by far!

Installed Zorin OS 16.1 perfectly!
:sunglasses:

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#9

It wouldn't have to be updated again and again if it fetches the ISO directly and downloads and flashes it.

Forking Fedora's Media Writer is a good option too.

#10

It should, every-time the iso updates, the checksums change, the tool would have to update first to be able to verify the checksum, and verify the iso is still valid. Then there is also the updating of any zorin side configurations or changes, as these tools are updated by the creators code changes and settings depreciate or incompatibilities arise such as a tool will work with isolinux using 5.13.0-40 but -41. S even utilizing someone else's tool and adding customization adds dev overhead and resources. Given the small size of the Dev team it may not be worth the investment at the moment.

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