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Tails no longer recommending balenaEtcher (tails.net)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
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I am shocked by this - the quote in below is very concerning:

"However, in 2024, the situation changed: balenaEtcher started sharing the file name of the image and the model of the USB stick with the Balena company and possibly with third parties."

Can't see myself using this software anymore...

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[–] 37 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Is no one aware of Fedora Media Writer? It's FOSS and the most trustworthy ISO burning software in existence. It's only issue is that its named as if it is written only for producing Fedora bootable media. It works for everything.

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  • [–] 15 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Opensuse has one too. And dd exists for the brave or the foolish

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    The article at the end mentions they suggest dd as alternative for MacOS (due to Unix user space). It seems the balena -> rufus decision is about the easiest-onramp Mac+Win-portable option, for those uncomfortable dropping to low-level device-writing CLI tools in their current system.

    Side-note: Last time I was on a friend's Windows I installed dd simply enough both as mingw-w64 (native compiled) and under Cygwin. So for Windows users who are comfortable using dd it only requires a minor step. When I once used WSL devices were accessible too, but that was WSL1 (containerized), whereas WSL2 (virtualized) probably makes device-mapping complex(?) enough to not be worth it there.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    WSL2 has relatively easy (a few powershell commands iirc) device mounting, provided you aren't trying to mount C: or the windows install drive (not necessarily the same).

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    Thanks, that's good to know, but for raw-writing a bootable image to a device do you (or anyone reading) know if there are also straightforward powershell commands for mapping devices at the block level? (as opposed to mounting at filesystem level)

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I dunno... I just use dd.

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