Creating a Live USB stick

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Sorry if this comes through twice. I thought I’d posted it earlier but it’s not showing up anywhere…

Today I downloaded the iso file to create an OpenSuse Live USB stick. Last year I’d created one (for Zorin linux) using a creation tool called UUI (Universal USB installer). UUI does offer OpenSuse as one of its options but the finished USB stick only had a few files and folders. So I followed the OpenSuse recommendation and switched to using balenaEtcher. But balenaEtcher seems to have created an empty (unformatted) USB stick. balenaEtcher even verified the OpenSuse stick and reckoned it was okay!!

The file I downloaded is called openSUSE-Tumbleweed-GNOME-Live-i686-Snapshot20220708-Media.iso

Am I doing something obviously stupid…?

2

As a warning: I do not know about these so called “life” ISOs, but with a normal installation ISO, I just copy it byte for byte to the USB device. That gives me a bootable USB mass storage device. In my case for installation, but I think when it is bootable, it can also start a “life” system.

As root:

dd if=openSUSE-Tumbleweed-GNOME-Live-i686-Snapshot20220708-Media.iso of=/dev/sdX

Where X is the correct letter for the USB device. Don’t get this wrong, you might overwrite another disk on your system!

3

Also for new linux users who do not have that much experience with commandline and stuff…there is a good wiki about how to dump an ISO to a stick. If you have already another Opensuse installation, the easisest way for you would be to use Imagewriter.
https://en.opensuse.org/Create_installation_USB_stick

4

I guess I could boot into Zorin linux and give that a try - though in the past, I’ve tended to find that simply copying files over to a USB stick doesn’t make it bootable.

Another question… does it look like I’ve downloaded the correct iso file? It seems strange that balenaEtcher and UUI both failed to make it work.

5

I wonder why you ask here. You got two advices, one for the CLI and one for the GUI, that will do the byte for byte copy. One advice is based on openSUSE document where the link is given.

When you nevertheless want to use other methods, that is up to you, but please do not expect much help from people here when using other distributions. Many of them may not even have heard of them.

6

Oops sorry, have I posted on a wrong forum? I thought this was for questions about installing & booting OpenSuse?

7

Correct and we told you the openSUSE way of doing what you want. But you then say you want to use ‘Zorin linux’. We can not advice on that.

8

Well, I assume you can use dd on every Linux system. After all it is more then 40 years old.

9

No, no - I’m only using Zorin for comparison purposes. Since my last post I’ve managed to install Zorin on a spare USB drive (twice) using both my old installer (UUI) and also with balenaEtcher.

So I’m guessing there’s something wrong with the openSuse image I downloaded - **openSUSE-Tumbleweed-GNOME-Live-i686-Snapshot20220708-Media.iso

**I’m just trying to find out if I’ve maybe downloaded the wrong iso file.

10

As you do not inform us about the place you got it from (URL), you can not expect much comment on a file you have locally.

11

Hi
So this is a 32bit not a 64bit system?

12

Additional question: you really have a 32bit machine as you downloaded the 32bit ISO?

P.S.: overlap with Malcom’s comment…

13

It came from here though I’m not sure which particular mirror:-

https://download.opensuse.org/tumbleweed/iso/openSUSE-Tumbleweed-GNOME-Live-x86_64-Snapshot20220708-Media.iso.mirrorlist

though I’m pretty sure it’s the one with (GB) at the end. And it’s a 64-bit system.

BTW - this site isn’t sending me reply notifications. Is that soemthing I need to set up somewhere?

14

ok General rule for openSUSE

DO NOT USE special installer software since this often modifies the ISO image. This is not needed for openSUSE the iso is completely ready to run without change I use cp. Any change will likely break it. Simply do a clean binary copy to the USB device (note not a partition direct to the device)

I use cp many use dd but any program the does an unmodified binary copy works. Special “installer” programs are not needed.

15

Okay, it’s getting late here but I’ll try that tomorrow. Will the USB stick need to be in a Linux format or will FAT32 do?

16

That is useless. The dd (or cp) will overwrite the device from the beginning. Anything that is on there will be overwritten. And that includes partition table, file systems, whatever.