Testers Wanted: Etcher - USB Image Writer Tool

This stylish open source USB Image Writer tool looks really nice. :slight_smile:

Supports Windows and Mac too!

Please test the tool the next time you need to write an image to a USB drive. Report back here to see how well it works on a variety of systems and platforms. :slight_smile:

This could be the recommended tool then what we have already for new users?

2 Likes

Hallo

UM 15.10
Downloaded the AppImage (71.3 MB).
Set permissions to “allow executing file as program”.
Upon double-clicking “please run this application as root or administrator”.
I tried that too.
Still nothing happens.
End of test.

Conclusion:
Something went wrong… :disappointed:

OK - I figured it out…

Open a terminal and start caja with sudo i.e.
[sudo caja]
enter your sudo password and wait a moment for caja to open.
Navigate to the AppImage file and double-click on it - and it runs! :relaxed:

1 Like

Small question here:

Does it do anything that Startup Disk Creator doesn’t?

SDC has been gutted of features in 16.04 (you can no longer create a persisting filesystem) but at least it’s back to actually working.

This tool is not advertising any feature beside “dd + sync” && looking pretty.

Edit: oh, and working on Windows, I guess there’s that.

While it’s pretty I’m not sure requiring node.js is a good idea. This could easily be written in Python and not require the node infrastructure.

So from initial impressions, maybe not a good choice for Linux? :penguin:

I noticed the same @alpinejohn, I would of had liked it to prompt with the password prompt (gksudo). It’s binary distribution and 40-odd file size is a bit of a turn-off I think.

@ouroumov, to me it looks like you answered your own question. :slight_smile:

I think the tool might be better recommended for Windows and Mac users looking to try Ubuntu MATE?

@ramblinman41, I guess it’s the argument of being based on web technologies then something more “native” like GTK or Qt. … even though it’s got the same functionality and nicer to look at… just many more bytes then say a 72.6 kB tool like dd. :wink:

2 Likes

There’s no reason you can’t have a Pretty GUI with Gtk3 and python which are already installed. I’ll give it some thought.

1 Like

I tested Etcher at work, the install and launching is clunky because it uses AppImage, so it doesn’t really integrate with Ubuntu MATE. I do agree this is a good option for documenting a single common solution for Windows and Mac OSX users though.

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Tried this on Windows…

Windows 7: Didn’t work. Blank window.
Windows XP SP3: Not compatible! :frowning:

So, no changes to make since it’s not really a tool that works well on all operating systems.

Can this tool actually provide a caspter-rw partition that can be used?

Fedora has a nice tool at https://fedorahosted.org/liveusb-creator/

Couldn’t it be rebranded?

Aren’t there quite a few single ISO to USB tools out there?
How many Multiple ISO > USB Cross Platform tools exist?

Honestly, I keep using Mutilsystem. One of the first things that I install since it allows for multiple ISO’s.

But, MultiSystem is Linux only if someone is a platform slider, (seems I’m becoming one) it’s not a good choice.
In the windows world, I use Yumi, but again, it’s only good on Windows machines.