Booting the LiveCD from an USB Stick

English Install/Boot/Login
#1

-I could use a hand in installing opensuse on my 2009 Intel Macbook

-I need to use a USB stick for the install, my optical drive doesn’t work.

-I am trying to reformat my macbook to run 64-bit opensuse 11.3 instead of Apple’s proprietary operating system, OS X

-So I started here:
Chapter 1. Installation with YaST

-And in this article, under section 1.1. Choosing the Installation Media, i found this sub-section: **Booting the LiveCD from an USB Stick
**.

-So i followed those steps to create a bootable USB stick in Terminal, and i got an error in Terminal and was unable to go any further;

-this was the error in Terminal:
dd: bs: illegal numeric value

Would anyone know what the error means, and what i should have typed instead? Is it because my USB stick is generic instead of being a specific type like a U3 stick?

Ryan

#2

Try:


dd if=ISO_IMAGE of=USB_STICK_DEVICE bs=4m

Notice the lower case ‘m’. Found this out from
http://www.libbyh.com/2008/01/17/cloning-my-boot-camp-partition-to-a-new-hard-drive/
And the specific part from it:

“dd: bs: illegal numeric value” – you may have typed “bs=1M” when you meant “bs=1m”; just doublecheck it

#3

First of all, verify the .iso that you downloaded.

A little info on how to do that is provided on the download page:
software.opensuse.org: Download openSUSE 11.3
Scroll down a little.

ETA: Probably obsolete now with ah7013’s post.

#4

Thanks for your replies,

now Terminal is giving off this error after using ah’s advice:
dd: /dev/disk1s1: Resource busy

How can i make sure the USB stick is not being used, and why would it be busy?

I restarted the computer a couple times, tried the opposite USB slot, but it still gives me the “resource busy” message.

#5

I think you need to unmount the usb stick. See here

#6

I keep getting this:
dd: /dev/disk1s1: Resource busy

#7

what’s the output of mount command? (before ejecting/unmounting the usb stick and after)

#8

Ryan-MacDonalds-MacBook:~ Ryan$ mount
/dev/disk0s2 on / (hfs, local, journaled)
devfs on /dev (devfs, local, nobrowse)
map -hosts on /net (autofs, nosuid, automounted, nobrowse)
map auto_home on /home (autofs, automounted, nobrowse)
/dev/disk2s2 on /Users/Ryan (hfs, local, nodev, nosuid, journaled, nobrowse)
/dev/disk1s1 on /Volumes/FAT (msdos, local, nodev, nosuid, noowners)

#9

∧∧ Before ∧∧

After:

Ryan-MacDonalds-MacBook:~ Ryan$ mount
/dev/disk0s2 on / (hfs, local, journaled)
devfs on /dev (devfs, local, nobrowse)
map -hosts on /net (autofs, nosuid, automounted, nobrowse)
map auto_home on /home (autofs, automounted, nobrowse)
/dev/disk2s2 on /Users/Ryan (hfs, local, nodev, nosuid, journaled, nobrowse)

#10

Might be a weird Mac OS bug, I searched on google and seems more users were talking about similar issues.

One solution mentioned was to use the DiskUtility.app instead of command line umount… link: Using dd I’m getting a Resource Busy error - MacRumors Forums

or try in command line:

diskutil umount force /Volumes/FAT

Sorry but I never used a Mac so I don’t know much about it. Maybe somebody else has other solutions.

#11

Thanks a lot for your’s and ah’s help. Managed to get Linux onto my macbook today and am really happy about that!

Yeah my disk drive on the macbook went a couple months ago, and the audio controller not long after. Oh and the ceramic trackpad on the late-2009 macbook, of which i am an owner, stopped working about one year ago. and OS X itself lacks sophistication. my experience with mac = not the greatest.

that is why i am open to giving linux a try.

and thanks again!!

#12

No problem :wink:

#13

You can try a lazy unmount:

umount -l /dev/disk1s1