dd literally has the nickname "disk destroyer", and it is a well-earned title. Once you have a bad default choice and no pre-installed alternative, you'll have at minimum 3 competing tools. Just the way the world works.

Unraid doesn't use images you can download. They check the USBs UUID GUID before installing. I am not defending this, but as it's going to be the boot device for the server this is a little handy feature.

It says 'run as root', not installed using root privileges. You'd also need root privilege to dd an image onto a drive either.

i've talked waaay to much shit to anybody who listen about windows to ever be seen using it again, i'm gonna have to install in the dead of night when everybody is sleeping, black ops type shit

Love my Unraid tons of built in features that make it easy to use as a home server. Not that you can't manually do everything yourself without it but it makes things a whole lot simpler. I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to save time and effort if one wants.

For example they have an app store for docker containers. But what if they are missing something? Oh you can still just write and run yaml and it'll work just fine.

Genuinely curious what would people recommend for a home server that is less of a do it all yourself processes and more of a do some of it yourself processes.

I have a flag set in my brain that says I shouldn't use Balena etcher. I dont remember the cause exactly but have they had any issues in the privacy/security space recently?