That and verifying the checksum are the big reasons I can think of. I feel like for the most part though using something like balenaEtcher is so much easier.
That and verifying the checksum are the big reasons I can think of. I feel like for the most part though using something like balenaEtcher is so much easier.
It’s because the Linux desktop landscape is a complete and utter mess. Any standard Linux GUI has a tool to make a bootable flash drive, but the steps to get there and the buttons to click are all different. Using the command line often works on every platform. I generally use Gnome’s disk tool, though KDE’s partition manager is also very competent. On the more minimal distros, Gparted always seems to work for disk operations. I’ve never really had any problems because of a bad cbecksum when it comes to Linux but I’m pretty sure there are GUI tools for verifying those too.
Among some Linux users there’s also a feeling of superiority about using the command line instead of the GUI, but those people usually come from distros that expect their users to know what a dd is and how to find the right drive in /dev. Those users seem to throw their hands in the air and go “download <some GUI tool>” when you ask them about Windows, though, because they don’t seem to care about the command line in Windows (even though Powershell is equally competent and in some areas even superior to most Linux shells).
Some people are all so annoyed by etcher’s large file size, but I can’t say I’m too annoyed about having to download 150MiB when I’ve just downloaded a 6.7GiB installer image that contains two office suites and five image editors in case I need them.