Help Me Test Drive Mint Please

[Snowhog]

The internal '1st HDD' is always going to be 'a'. The first connected USB storage device will be 'b'. But even without that, your output shows just two drives, and one is 465.8 GB in size. Pretty sure that isn't your USB.

And, you can always remove it and rerun lsblk to see which one isn't listed anymore.

[logan01]

Ok, thanks. Here it is with usb removed.

richard@richard-HP-15-Notebook-PC:~$ lsblk
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda      8:0    0 465.8G  0 disk 
├─sda1   8:1    0   650M  0 part 
├─sda2   8:2    0   260M  0 part /boot/efi
├─sda3   8:3    0   128M  0 part 
├─sda4   8:4    0 296.4G  0 part 
├─sda5   8:5    0   860M  0 part 
├─sda6   8:6    0  21.1G  0 part 
├─sda7   8:7    0   7.5G  0 part [SWAP]
├─sda8   8:8    0    28G  0 part /
└─sda9   8:9    0  55.9G  0 part /home
sr0     11:0    1  1024M  0 rom  
richard@richard-HP-15-Notebook-PC:~$

So I assume since my flash drive is 8G and the readout indicates 7.5 (Lexar), when I run sudo dd if=/PATH/TO/THE/ISO/FILE.iso of=/dev/sd? bs=4M && sudo sync

I will replace ? with sdb1 and not sdb

[Snowhog]

No. dd works with devices, not partitions. Based on the lsblk output, you would specify of=/dev/sdb

[Qqmike]

Correct, of course.

sdb is your USB (i.e., the device /dev/sdb is your USB)
sdb1 is the first partition of your (formatted) USB

Use, as Snowhog says,
of=/dev/sdb

[logan01]

Great. Thanks guys. Glad I asked. I see now. where sdb shows "disk" (drive) and sdb shows "part" (partition). That could have led to a little disaster.

One more question (at the moment):

When the Sandisk is inserted it contains a folder named Sandisk Secure Access and perhaps another folder / file. The Lexar flash drive, when opened, is empty. What's that all about?

[Qqmike]

Quickly (I'm on the run out the door for awhile), flash drives may come with manufacturer installed files/apps/utilities. IME, you can remove these. Sometimes the manufacturer provides a utility you can use on its web page to remove such things. Sometimes you can just delete the files.

Like here:

Removing SecureAccess from a flash drive
http://kb.sandisk.com/app/answers/de...-a-flash-drive

They did it in Windows using a simple Delete (I think). So you could (I think) use a simple Delete in Linux.

Another thing I do is clear out the entire flash drive by writing zeros to every bit on the flash drive:

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX bs=16M

It may take awhile--10, 15, 20, 30 minutes ? (/dev/zero is just a place that provides all the zeros you could ever wish for.)

Then it's clear and clean and you can write your iso to it using dd; or you could plug it in and format it (as anything--ext4, FAT32, etc.) using GParted.

[elijathegold]

My Sandisks had had something similar, a button you could press and have a backup automatically done to the key. Windows only of course so I did the only rational thing but I used /dev/urandom as my input.

[elijathegold]

That could have led to a little disaster.

Nothing another dd couldn't fix

[logan01]

Nothing another dd couldn't fix

Noooooooooooooooooo!

[logan01]

I believe all the Linux Mint distros will run live and have a built in installer.

If your computer is good enough, I would download your chosen iso in Linux and run it in VirtualBox which should be in the Kubuntu repository. You can find out by running apt-cache policy virtualbox and if it's there install it with sudo apt install virtualbox. If you really want to make bootable usb key then plug it in and run sudo fdisk -l and identify which device it is, sda, sdb or sdc etc. When you are sure that you have the correct drive identified, run sudo dd if=/PATH/TO/THE/ISO/FILE.iso of=/dev/sd? bs=4M && sudo sync. Your replace the ? with the device identifier.

Once you press enter, there is no going back and if you have chosen the wrong output device, you can hose your data or system. It's why I call dd Data Destroyer. I've been doing that for years and still panic for a while after pressing enter; then the key flashes and I relax

I downloaded VirtualBox which is named Oracle VM VirtualBox Manager. Hope this it it.

Process using VB:
Download Mint of choice which will be found in my Downloads folder.
Insert flashdrive and launch VM. Is it self explanatory (to me) after that?

Alternative which appears to be the preferred method:
Download Mint of choice.
Insert flash drive.
Open Konsole.
Enter the following since we know my usb is [sdb] and my new Mint iso file is [linuxmint-17.3-cinnamon-64bit.iso]: sudo dd if=/home/richard/ Downloads/linuxmint-17.3-cinnamon-64bit.iso of=/dev/sdb bs=4M && sudo sync
Hit enter.
Stuff happens and is finished when I see my prompt?
Punch out of Konsole
Kill pc
Start pc with usb inserted
PC starts up and the GRUB screen appears showing multiple boot options. Find the usb drive, select it and hit return and it should boot to it.
If and when it boots, I'll get that window that gives the option of trying or installing Mint?
Take a Mint cruise and exit / shut down as normal Kubuntu
Remove flash drive if so desired.

[elijathegold]

To use virtualbox, you don't need the flash drive.

1. Install VirtualBox by running sudo apt install virtualbox-qt
2. Download the Mint iso
3. Start VirtualBox^1[ from your menu and create a new virtual machine - give it at least 10GB hadrdisk space[sup]2[//sup]
4. Use the settings to give the VM at least 1GB or more if you can memory³
5. Mount the mint iso as a virtual CD.
6. Start the VM

If you think a tutorial with screen shots would help, I'll try and put one together later today.

¹I think it's called Virtualbox Manager
²It won't take full space allocated straight away. But it will never get bigger.
³Also allocate as much memory as you can to the graphics subsystem.

[jlittle]

I hunted through all that info for arguably the most important number, forwards, backwards, looking for "RAM" or "GB", until I found it "Memory 7874.74MB.

Then, and only then, I noticed the .sig, and realized it described the same system.

With 8 GB, IMO you've got enough to run Mint in a VM.

[logan01]

To use virtualbox, you don't need the flash drive.

1. Install VirtualBox by running sudo apt install virtualbox-qt
2. Download the Mint iso
3. Start VirtualBox^1[ from your menu and create a new virtual machine - give it at least 10GB hadrdisk space[sup]2[//sup]
4. Use the settings to give the VM at least 1GB or more if you can memory³
5. Mount the mint iso as a virtual CD.
6. Start the VM

If you think a tutorial with screen shots would help, I'll try and put one together later today.

¹I think it's called Virtualbox Manager
²It won't take full space allocated straight away. But it will never get bigger.
³Also allocate as much memory as you can to the graphics subsystem.

That'd be good or I can try the dd to my usb method (preferred). Is this correct less the brackets [ sudo dd if=/home/richard/ Downloads/linuxmint-17.3-cinnamon-64bit.iso of=/dev/sdb bs=4M && sudo sync] or do I omit /home/richard/Downloads

[Qqmike]

When you issue that command, if you are already in the directory /home/richards/Downloads, then you can omit /home/richard/Downloads. However, no matter where you are at (even if you are in /home/richards/Downloads) when you issue that dd command, you can always safely use the entire absolute path name: /home/richard/ Downloads/linuxmint-17.3-cinnamon-64bit.

[elijathegold]

First draft of the tutorial is available at my long unused blog. If you have any questions or need let me know and I can improve the post.