6 ms·

To be honest I don't care too much about the default desktop, but I think this commit message is particularly well-written and leaves little room for the (inevi

by r0muald 13y ago

To be honest I don't care too much about the default desktop, but I think this commit message is particularly well-written and leaves little room for the (inevitable?) flame-wars about the topic. The closing sentence got me laughing.

Filligree 13y ago
Why are CD images still so popular? My last few computers have only included CD drives for the purpose of booting installers that are inconvenient to put on USB. USB drives, on the other hand, are quite universal.
- jafaku 13y ago
  Because they are write-once (more secure).
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    I doubt many people favor CDs over usb drives because they fear that somebody might rewrite the image on the media in the minutes between writing the image and actually sticking it in the other machine and using it. In fact, it isn't even clear to me that CDs are favored in the first place. Everybody I know has been just using netinst from a usb stick for quite a while now... CDs are probably primarily used by people who want to give other people the install media, people who can't boot from USB on their computers, and people who still have a stack of CDs that they want to get rid of.
    - arielweisberg 13y ago
      Can't I just be a luddite who has never done it any other way?
      - jlgreco 13y ago
        Well sure! To be honest, the only reason I stopped using CDs is that for the past several years my computers haven't had optical drives (netbooks, now a chromebook). Otherwise I tend to be rather resistant to change.
    - davidgerard 13y ago
      "and people who still have a stack of CDs that they want to get rid of." Ha! Yeah. I got a stack of 50 CDs several years ago, and the last 10 or so ... just didn't get used for anything. We eventually gave them to the younger teen for music school, 'cos the actual makes-money music industry still works with physical demo CDs. Some sort of proof-of-work thing, I think.
- dlitz 13y ago
  Debian's CD images are actually hybrid CD/DVD/USB images: http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch04s03.html.en http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch04s03.html.en It's been a feature of isolinux for a while now: http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/Doc/isolinux#HYBRID_CD-ROM.2FHARD_DISK_MODE http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/Doc/isolinux#HYBRID_C...
  - keithpeter 13y ago
    When trying to transfer an ISO to a USB stick, I find dd if=<file> of=<device> bs=4M; sync as per Debian wiki [1] works for me with Debian isos and recently a CentOS live CD image when installing on another laptop. Oddly enough, USB sticks prepared using unetbootin fail with Debian ISOs (boots but continually complains about not being able to find CD-ROM) but also works with CentOS based ISOs. [1] http://www.debian.org/CD/faq/#write-usb http://www.debian.org/CD/faq/#write-usb
  - pippy 13y ago
    Every single Debian USB image I've tried to flash with dd has failed in the last few years. I have to boot up a windows virtual machine and use LinuxLive USB Creator to create one. It's odd as the RaspberryPi debian image works perfectly fine.
    - a-l-c-o 13y ago
      Strange.. I do it without problem at every install.
      - pippy 13y ago
        I'd love to see a cross browser app, one that worked on Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux that just required to to drag and drop an image and write to USB.
    - lukeschlather 13y ago
      Ubuntu's usb-creator-gtk works fine for me. I do agree it's disappointing you can't just dd it.
- jlarocco 13y ago
  Because they can be used on CDs, used directly by VMs, and also imaged to USB/flash drives with tools like UNetBootin. It's just a convenient disk image format. http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/#features http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/#features
- voltagex_ 13y ago
  It might also be because that's the way debian-installer's written. I'd like to get it working with a copy of the CD filesystem on a drive - boot via UEFI
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

by r0muald 13y ago

Filligree 13y ago

Why are CD images still so popular? My last few computers have only included CD drives for the purpose of booting installers that are inconvenient to put on USB. USB drives, on the other hand, are quite universal.

jafaku 13y ago
Because they are write-once (more secure).
- jlgreco 13y ago
  I doubt many people favor CDs over usb drives because they fear that somebody might rewrite the image on the media in the minutes between writing the image and actually sticking it in the other machine and using it. In fact, it isn't even clear to me that CDs are favored in the first place. Everybody I know has been just using netinst from a usb stick for quite a while now... CDs are probably primarily used by people who want to give other people the install media, people who can't boot from USB on their computers, and people who still have a stack of CDs that they want to get rid of.
  - arielweisberg 13y ago
    Can't I just be a luddite who has never done it any other way?
    - jlgreco 13y ago
      Well sure! To be honest, the only reason I stopped using CDs is that for the past several years my computers haven't had optical drives (netbooks, now a chromebook). Otherwise I tend to be rather resistant to change.
  - davidgerard 13y ago
    "and people who still have a stack of CDs that they want to get rid of." Ha! Yeah. I got a stack of 50 CDs several years ago, and the last 10 or so ... just didn't get used for anything. We eventually gave them to the younger teen for music school, 'cos the actual makes-money music industry still works with physical demo CDs. Some sort of proof-of-work thing, I think.
dlitz 13y ago
Debian's CD images are actually hybrid CD/DVD/USB images: http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch04s03.html.en http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch04s03.html.en It's been a feature of isolinux for a while now: http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/Doc/isolinux#HYBRID_CD-ROM.2FHARD_DISK_MODE http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/Doc/isolinux#HYBRID_C...
- keithpeter 13y ago
  When trying to transfer an ISO to a USB stick, I find dd if=<file> of=<device> bs=4M; sync as per Debian wiki [1] works for me with Debian isos and recently a CentOS live CD image when installing on another laptop. Oddly enough, USB sticks prepared using unetbootin fail with Debian ISOs (boots but continually complains about not being able to find CD-ROM) but also works with CentOS based ISOs. [1] http://www.debian.org/CD/faq/#write-usb http://www.debian.org/CD/faq/#write-usb
- pippy 13y ago
  Every single Debian USB image I've tried to flash with dd has failed in the last few years. I have to boot up a windows virtual machine and use LinuxLive USB Creator to create one. It's odd as the RaspberryPi debian image works perfectly fine.
  - a-l-c-o 13y ago
    Strange.. I do it without problem at every install.
    - pippy 13y ago
      I'd love to see a cross browser app, one that worked on Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux that just required to to drag and drop an image and write to USB.
  - lukeschlather 13y ago
    Ubuntu's usb-creator-gtk works fine for me. I do agree it's disappointing you can't just dd it.
jlarocco 13y ago
Because they can be used on CDs, used directly by VMs, and also imaged to USB/flash drives with tools like UNetBootin. It's just a convenient disk image format. http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/#features http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/#features
voltagex_ 13y ago
It might also be because that's the way debian-installer's written. I'd like to get it working with a copy of the CD filesystem on a drive - boot via UEFI
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]