#1 2019-12-07 01:32:20

makarovnik

Member

Registered: 2019-03-28

Posts: 27

Etcher won't run

Hey guys. I downloaded etcher from their website and extracted the zip file to my home directory file= balenaEtcher-1.5.66-x64.AppImage.

When I click on it nothing happens. I followed all the advice online regarding missing dependencies but it turns out all those were already installed on my system. I would like to get this working because the dd command just doesn't create a reliable bootable iso for me. I do use gnome-multi-writer and it always works but it always gives me nasty file access errors.

If anyone uses etcher and can give install advice it would be greatly appreciated.

damo

....moderator....

Registered: 2015-08-20

Posts: 6,040

Re: Etcher won't run

AFAIK Etcher is a "bloated frontend for dd", as someone here once said!

For creating bootable isos BL recommends using cp or dd, which have been the go-to methods for most of us. And Debian also recommends win32diskimager for windows machines.

You say that dd doesn't produce "reliable" results? What is the command you have been trying?

EDIT: there is a deb package available - https://github.com/balena-io/etcher#deb … nux-x86x64. Whether that borks your Stable system is something you can discover for yourself! Try just downloading the deb, and using gdebi - it will tell you if there are dependency problems.

EDIT2: The Etcher download is a 90MB zip archive! No thanks

(dd is part of coreutils, which is a total of 15MB)

Last edited by damo (2019-12-07 02:41:04)

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beaker

Member

Registered: 2016-03-06

Posts: 152

Re: Etcher won't run

doesn't create a reliable bootable iso for me

Which iso?

manyroads

Member

From: around here, somewhere

Registered: 2019-04-16

Posts: 61

Website

Re: Etcher won't run

fwiw... I generally find dd to be the most reliable approach in producing bootable isos.  For MX & antiX, antiX/MX LiveUSB is best. For *buntu variants sometimes only unetbootin seems to works. For other failures I encounter when initially using dd, I need to go with Suse Imagewriter or Etcher.

For me at least, there is no 100% usable solution.

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rbh

Member

From: Sweden/Vasterbotten/Rusfors

Registered: 2016-08-11

Posts: 447

Re: Etcher won't run

Hey guys. I downloaded etcher [...] because the dd command just doesn't create a reliable bootable iso for me.

I don't know if you actualey tried to do what you wrote...

Etcher is a frontend for dd, to transfer iso filesystem from for instance an iso file to an usb disk.
That is usable to boot live dist / start install, from usb-disk instead of CD/DVD.

You shall not crate an iso-file if you want to bootfrom usb-disk...

What's the command you use with dd?

Last edited by rbh (2019-12-07 16:50:38)

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Circlight

New Member

Registered: 2020-06-23

Posts: 2

Re: Etcher won't run

Fully understand the comments regarding preferential use of dd, which I often do myself, however sometimes I like to use etcher. Here's how I just got it running on Lithium:

Download the .deb from here: Github etcher

I got balena-etcher-electron_1.5.100_amd64.deb.

Do

sudo dpkg -i balena-etcher-electron_1.5.100_amd64.deb

There will be dependency errors, so now do

sudo apt install gconf2 gconf-service libappindicator1 libgconf-2-4

Yes, some more dependency errors. Fix those by:

sudo apt --fix-broken install

Etcher is now installed to /opt/balenaEtcher.

Now:

cd /opt/balenaEtcher
sudo chown root:$USER chrome-sandbox
sudo chmod 4755 chrome-sandbox

balenaEtcher will appear in jgmenu under Applications / Accessories and runs as expected.