[gentoo-user] LiveGUI USB Image

[hitachi303]

Hi there,

long time since I needed something to boot the pc. I see there is a
LiveGUI USB Image to download but the handbook does not mention it. How
to get a bootable USB stick?

Reagds

[Dale]

Post by hitachi303
Hi there,
long time since I needed something to boot the pc. I see there is a
LiveGUI USB Image to download but the handbook does not mention it.
How to get a bootable USB stick?
Reagds

You can get it here:


https://www.gentoo.org/downloads/


I suspect most just use dd to put the iso on the stick.  You can use
Ventoy as well.  It allows you to put multiple ISOs on a single stick. 
I was made aware of it a while back and used it several times on another
rig.  It is awesome.  Just copy it over to a directory and boot it. 


https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html


That thing is the best thing since sliced bread and frozen pizza. 
Instead of 4 or 5 USB sticks, I have one, with everything from memtest
to rescue images up to full distro install media. 

If you plan to use dd, this is the command I have in my notes. 


dd if=/path/to/iso-image of=/dev/sd? bs=4M status=progress


Replace the obvious bits. 

That help?

Dale

:-)  :-) 

[Peter Humphrey]

Post by Dale

Post by hitachi303
long time since I needed something to boot the pc. I see there is a
LiveGUI USB Image to download but the handbook does not mention it.
How to get a bootable USB stick?

https://www.gentoo.org/downloads/
I suspect most just use dd to put the iso on the stick.

I've alwas done that too, until I bought this new NUC i5, which wouldn't boot
from any of my USB sticks. I had to use an app to make the transfer to USB. I
forget what it was now. Nel B. can explain about ISO images and booting.

--->8

Post by Dale
If you plan to use dd, this is the command I have in my notes.
dd if=/path/to/iso-image of=/dev/sd? bs=4M status=progress
Replace the obvious bits.

I've tried a few values of block size over the years, but so far I haven't
noticed any difference. I haven't run any proper tests though.

[Adam Carter]

Post by Peter Humphrey

Post by Dale
dd if=/path/to/iso-image of=/dev/sd? bs=4M status=progress
Replace the obvious bits.

I've tried a few values of block size over the years, but so far I haven't
noticed any difference. I haven't run any proper tests though.

I think it's just that the default blocksize is (or was) very small (512
bytes?) so setting it to anything non-small helps a lot.

eg one example (from
https://superuser.com/questions/234199/good-block-size-for-disk-cloning-with-diskdump-dd#234204)
seems to show that most gains are in by around 16k. There's probably a lot
of testing noise in these results.

$ ./dd_obs_test.sh
block size : transfer rate
512 : 11.3 MB/s
1024 : 22.1 MB/s
2048 : 42.3 MB/s
4096 : 75.2 MB/s
8192 : 90.7 MB/s
16384 : 101 MB/s
32768 : 104 MB/s
65536 : 108 MB/s
131072 : 113 MB/s
262144 : 112 MB/s
524288 : 133 MB/s
1048576 : 125 MB/s
2097152 : 113 MB/s
4194304 : 106 MB/s
8388608 : 107 MB/s
16777216 : 110 MB/s
33554432 : 119 MB/s
67108864 : 134 MB/s

[Peter Humphrey]

Post by Adam Carter

Post by Peter Humphrey

Post by Dale
dd if=/path/to/iso-image of=/dev/sd? bs=4M status=progress
Replace the obvious bits.

I've tried a few values of block size over the years, but so far I haven't
noticed any difference. I haven't run any proper tests though.

I think it's just that the default blocksize is (or was) very small (512
bytes?) so setting it to anything non-small helps a lot.
eg one example (from
https://superuser.com/questions/234199/good-block-size-for-disk-cloning-with
-diskdump-dd#234204) seems to show that most gains are in by around 16k.
There's probably a lot of testing noise in these results.
$ ./dd_obs_test.sh
block size : transfer rate
512 : 11.3 MB/s
1024 : 22.1 MB/s
2048 : 42.3 MB/s
4096 : 75.2 MB/s
8192 : 90.7 MB/s
16384 : 101 MB/s
32768 : 104 MB/s
65536 : 108 MB/s
131072 : 113 MB/s
262144 : 112 MB/s
524288 : 133 MB/s
1048576 : 125 MB/s
2097152 : 113 MB/s
4194304 : 106 MB/s
8388608 : 107 MB/s
16777216 : 110 MB/s
33554432 : 119 MB/s
67108864 : 134 MB/s

Interesting. I think I'll stick to my usual 64MB block size.