Hi, i wrote: > > Pete Batard, the author of Rufus, writes in > > > > https://github.com/pbatard/rufus/wiki/FAQ#user-content-Why_doesnt_Rufus_recommend_DD_mode_over_ISO_mode_for_ISOHybrid_images_Surely_DD_is_better
[email protected] wrote: > Ah, thanks for doing the reading for me. I assure you that the Rufus FAQ is not poisonous. :)) If you ever are interested to get an impression what a large user base on MS-Windows does to the hobby life of a good willing developer of free software, then skim over it. I as developer of xorriso can afford to be mercilessly friendly to the few users who contact me. He needs a pitch fork to keep them off his neck. > As I assume "dd" here is just > a strawman: rufus has some magic extra bootloader thingy which checks > fingerprints of chosen files at boot. The quoted section of the FAQ is about Rufus "ISO" mode versus its "DD" mode. In ISO mode it un-isos the Debian ISO into a FAT filesystem on a USB stick, which it also equips with boot loader software. (One would have to locate the regular user manual for telling more. I only know it from conversations with Pete Batard and from the wiki FAQ.) In "DD" mode it does what on GNU/Linux would be done by cp, cat, dd, and others, namely a byte-for-byte copy onto the plain USB stick device. Of course, "ISO" is the mode in which Pete Batard invested more. And of course there are use cases where this work pays off for his users. On the other hand the producers of Linux distro ISOs and myself have invested our work in getting images which work on DVD and USB stick, on Legacy BIOS and EFI alike, and which can be brought to USB stick by the most fundamental Unix tools. > So the rufus people should rather criticise the construction of the boot > image, that would be adequate, not the "dd" itsef, right? Yep, the Rufus man dislikes the concept of isohybrid. We isohybrid producers like it because it delivers a single blob which has the sole purpose to boot on nearly every x86 machine. Beauty and usability of the USB stick as storage device are not the main goal. (Technical background of isohybrid can be found in https://sources.debian.org/src/libisofs/1.5.6.pl01-1.1/doc/boot_sectors.txt Debian's ISO isohybrid layout much like the one in SYSLINUX isohybrid for MBR, UEFI and x86-Mac which of course refers to previous sections about x86 boot lures.) Both concepts cannot cover every use case. Rufus needs to know internals about the boot related files in the ISO. isohybrid might not work on some ideosyncratic x86 firmware for which Rufus could apply specific workarounds. Have a nice day :) Thomas
