Re: how2 format a flash drive

[Marc SCHAEFER]

Hello,

On Tue, Jun 25, 2024 at 09:53:41AM -0400, Lee wrote:
> My question is: how do I reformat the flash drive so it's usable as a
> "normal" flash drive again?

Nowadays, people rarely "format" (*) their "drives".

They create filesystems on raw devices.

For example `mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdX`, where /dev/sdX is the raw device
corresponding to your USB key (see the lsblk command, for example).

> Nothing I tried worked.. I ended up putting the thumb drive in a
> Windows machine and formatting it there; it would be nice to know how
> to restore the thumb drive to working order on Debian.

However, for Microsoft compatibility, in addition, you will need
a partition table. Linux, except for booting (because of BIOS
requirements), does not require partition tables.

So, first create a partition e.g. with fdisk[1]: this will make
/dev/sdX1 available in lsblk.

Then again, for Microsoft compatibility, you need to create
a Microsoft-compatible filesystem. One good alternative is
VFAT.

Thus with `mkfs.vfat /dev/sdX1`.

Please double-check you use the right raw device name, as fdisk and mkfs
commands are destructive.

(*) actually the last time I did format a device using a SCSI
command was in the nineties -- some people differentiate
"low-level formatting" with "high-level formatting", which
is better called "creating a filesystem" -- yes back then
it was sometimes useful to reformat using 256 bytes/sector
for RAID0 applications :)
[1] https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/create-a-partition-in-linux

Re: how2 format a flash drive

[Lee]

On Tue, Jul 2, 2024 at 5:27 AM jeremy ardley wrote:
>
>
> On 2/7/24 16:24, Lee wrote:
>
> And if I don't want to leave Internet footprints - or if I just want
> to give the finger to whoever is watching, I'll use the tor browser.
>
>
> That is probably the worst thing you can do. On my last check *most* Tor exit 
> points are operated by intelligence or police agencies.

OK.. I'll bite.  How do you know most Tor exit points are operated by
intelligence or police agencies?

I mean, it sounds reasonable, but how do you *know*?

> Going about your business just using a regular ISP makes it unlikely anyone 
> will pay attention to you unless you frequent disreputable sites.
>
> Using Tor will automatically put you on a watch list.

Yeah.  I've heard that too.  But using tor - or any encryption, is
still legal, so what I'm doing doesn't even rise to the level of civil
disobedience.
So if they're going to put me on a list, they're going to put me on a
list.  I've been using tor since however long ago when it came bundled
with privoxy, so I doubt that me not using tor now is going to make a
difference.

> Your identity can easily be found because your ip address at the exit point 
> will be recorded and matched with ISP records.

Indeed.  The TOR documentation used to be up-front about tor not being
proof against a global adversary, so I doubt the NSA needs to bother
my ISP asking for records.
I was just poking around on torproject.org (which has been rumored to
be enough to get one on a watch list) and I don't see any strong
warnings about using tor :(  Or even much of anything that would
discourage one from using TOR.
Oh well.. I guess they need lots of cannon fodder to provide covering
traffic for .. who?

Regards,
Lee

Re: how2 format a flash drive

[John Hasler]

George at Clug writes:
> While collecting information about individuals and selling their data
> is common practice these days

It's common practice because people won't pay for services but will
tolerate advertising.

> Of course, by the mere fact of visiting a web site (for example, that
> has Google Analytics installed)

I've never visited a site that cares that I block Google Analytics.

The best way to protect your "personal information" is to not have
accounts with any of the popular "social media" services, especially
Google, Facebook, and Twitter (and never use Windows, of course).
-- 
John Hasler 
j...@sugarbit.com
Elmwood, WI USA

Re: how2 format a flash drive

[jeremy ardley]

On 2/7/24 16:24, Lee wrote:

And if I don't want to leave Internet footprints - or if I just want
to give the finger to whoever is watching, I'll use the tor browser.



That is probably the worst thing you can do. On my last check *most* Tor 
exit points are operated by intelligence or police agencies.


Going about your business just using a regular ISP makes it unlikely 
anyone will pay attention to you unless you frequent disreputable sites.


Using Tor will automatically put you on a watch list. Your identity can 
easily be found because your ip address at the exit point will be 
recorded and matched with ISP records.

Re: how2 format a flash drive

[jeremy ardley]

On 2/7/24 12:47, George at Clug wrote:


Scott McNally’s quip that ‘you have no privacy, get over it’ is sadly 
true, but I don't think he meant that we have to resign ourselves to 
this fast, we can but do what we can to reduce the data collected, 
even while realising our efforts are mostly in vain.



Linedkin is worse than any organisation I know of. I signed up very 
reluctantly with a fake profile and a throw-awy email address and the 
first thing it suggested was to link to immediate family and people it 
had no way of knowing I was related to.


I can only guess they have profiled my browser signature and worked off 
that.


If you are or ever have been a user of Linkedin your privacy is worse 
than zero. You are a product that can be bought and sold and almost 
everything you see and hear will be managed by them or their customers.


I class that entirely differently to application telemetry with an 
option to opt out.


Back on my original post I use Visual Studio Code because it is a very 
useful tool and has a broad community of people in the open source 
community. I rate VS Code significantly less intrusive than github 
which, with no option to opt out, scans  all your private repositories 
to gain information about you that it can package and resell  
'anonymously'. Even if you aren't a user of github, your access to 
download is recorded and included in the data it resells.

Re: how2 format a flash drive

[Lee]

On Mon, Jul 1, 2024 at 6:13 PM jeremy ardley wrote:
>
>
> On 1/7/24 21:05, Lee wrote:
> >> Visual Studio Code allows you to edit HTML and preview it using Live
> >> Server plugin
> >>
> >> https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ritwickdey.LiveServer
> > Thanks, but no thanks.  That seems to include the Microsoft spyware
> > licensing:  https://code.visualstudio.com/license
> >Data Collection. The software may collect information about you and
> > your use of the software, and send that to Microsoft.
> >
> VS Code Telemetry is easily turned off.
>
> https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/getstarted/telemetry#_disable-telemetry-reporting

Except the license says
You may opt-out of many of these scenarios, but not all, as described
in the product documentation located at
https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/supporting/faq#_how-to-disable-telemetry-reporting.

So
1. you can't opt-out of _all_ telemetry.  .. at least according to the license.
2. opt-out is evil.  Any group that uses opt-out is evil.  They only
do opt-out because they _know_ almost no one would opt-in.

> In the more general case, telemetry is not in itself considered 'evil'.

Anything opt-out I consider 'evil'.

> For example Debian comes with telemetry that you can enable or disable.
> https://popcon.debian.org/

That's opt-in, so a completely different case.

> Firefox, and just about any other web browser you use also has
> telemetry. e.g. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/telemetry-clientid

I know & I don't like it.  But it's like apple vs. google -- which one
is less evil?
I have an iPhone so that should tell you what I think.

> To be certain your activity is private you will have to disconnect
> completely from the internet as any software that uses any internet
> resource will automatically leak information about you.

If I use Internet resources I know that I can be tracked .. but **only
when using the Internet**.  Microsoft spyware is always-on tracking
that can't be turned completely off.

And if I don't want to leave Internet footprints - or if I just want
to give the finger to whoever is watching, I'll use the tor browser.
So I have options when I get on the Internet.  I don't see any options
when the OS or my tools are spying on me other than don't use that OS
or those tools.

Regards,
Lee

Telemetry, data hoarding [was: how2 format a flash drive]

[tomas]

On Tue, Jul 02, 2024 at 04:09:39AM -0400, Jeffrey Walton wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 2, 2024 at 3:53 AM George at Clug  wrote:
> >
> > Is telemetry evil?  Are guns evil?  Philosophical questions?
> >
> > I find it objectionable when people gather "telemetry" about "me" and not 
> > just the causes of the "blue screens of death".
> >
> > I find it objectionable when people gather personal "telemetry" and then on 
> > sell that information to others for whatever purposes, whether it is to 
> > target me with ads, or political analysts like Cambridge Analytica, or to 
> > alter my "Social Credit Score", or to be used to cancel my Credit Cards, or 
> > for whatever other purpose.
> 
> For those interested in reading more, pick up a copy of Shoshana
> Zuboff's book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a
> Human Future at the New Frontier of Power
> ( and
> ).

Thanks for that ref. One of the most important books for our
trade, indeed.

If possible, don't buy it at Amazon :-)

Cheers
-- 
t


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Re: how2 format a flash drive

[Jeffrey Walton]

On Tue, Jul 2, 2024 at 3:53 AM George at Clug  wrote:
>
> Is telemetry evil?  Are guns evil?  Philosophical questions?
>
> I find it objectionable when people gather "telemetry" about "me" and not 
> just the causes of the "blue screens of death".
>
> I find it objectionable when people gather personal "telemetry" and then on 
> sell that information to others for whatever purposes, whether it is to 
> target me with ads, or political analysts like Cambridge Analytica, or to 
> alter my "Social Credit Score", or to be used to cancel my Credit Cards, or 
> for whatever other purpose.

For those interested in reading more, pick up a copy of Shoshana
Zuboff's book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a
Human Future at the New Frontier of Power
( and
).

Jeff

Re: how2 format a flash drive

[George at Clug]

Is telemetry evil?  Are guns evil?  Philosophical questions?



I find it objectionable when people gather "telemetry" about "me" and
not just the causes of the "blue screens of death".


I find it objectionable when people gather personal "telemetry" and
then on sell that information to others for whatever purposes, whether
it is to target me with ads, or political analysts like Cambridge
Analytica, or to alter my "Social Credit Score", or to be used to
cancel my Credit Cards, or for whatever other purpose.



While collecting information about individuals and selling their data
is common practice these days, I object. I cannot stop it, but I can
at least use systems that gather such data as minimally as possible.
Hopefully by using Linux for 99% of my computing experience, I am
giving Google and Windows less data.


Of course, by the mere fact of visiting a web site (for example, that
has Google Analytics installed), and by writing emails like this that
well be scanned, and then this data will be added to my profile by any
companies collecting data to gain some view of me, which they will
then sell to political groups, marketers, etc.


Scott McNally’s quip that ‘you have no privacy, get over it’ is
sadly true, but I don't think he meant that we have to resign
ourselves to this fast, we can but do what we can to reduce the data
collected, even while realising our efforts are mostly in vain. 



https://lockstep.com.au/library/quotes/


Privacy is an interesting topic.



What has privacy to do with a Debian User email list?  Well I am
hoping by using Debian less of my data ends up in large tech company
hands. At least let me dream that it does.


I encourage others to use Debian, if by doing so will let them sleep
better at night, even if it is in ignorance.



George.






On Tuesday, 02-07-2024 at 13:40 Stefan Monnier wrote:


> In the more general case, telemetry is not in itself
> considered 'evil'.

I consider it evil if it's opt-out rather than opt-in.


Stefan

Re: how2 format a flash drive

[tomas]

On Mon, Jul 01, 2024 at 11:40:56PM -0400, Stefan Monnier wrote:
> > In the more general case, telemetry is not in itself
> > considered 'evil'.
> 
> I consider it evil if it's opt-out rather than opt-in.

Absolutely.

Plus (a) I don't trust most vendors to be telling the truth
whenever their bottom line is at stake and (b) I've seen
enough dark patterns to nudge users to not opt out to be more
than disgusted.

Just... no.

Cheers
-- 
t


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Re: how2 format a flash drive

[gene heskett]

On 7/1/24 23:41, Stefan Monnier wrote:

In the more general case, telemetry is not in itself
considered 'evil'.


I consider it evil if it's opt-out rather than opt-in.


 Stefan

I think that highly depends on what that telemetry is sending. Crash 
reports, yes, contents of a list of phone numbers it found, not no, but 
hell no! Ditto for passwords and such.


Cheers, Gene Heskett, CET.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis

Re: how2 format a flash drive

[Stefan Monnier]

> In the more general case, telemetry is not in itself
> considered 'evil'.

I consider it evil if it's opt-out rather than opt-in.


Stefan

Re: how2 format a flash drive

[jeremy ardley]

On 1/7/24 21:05, Lee wrote:

Visual Studio Code allows you to edit HTML and preview it using Live
Server plugin

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ritwickdey.LiveServer

Thanks, but no thanks.  That seems to include the Microsoft spyware
licensing:  https://code.visualstudio.com/license
   Data Collection. The software may collect information about you and
your use of the software, and send that to Microsoft.


VS Code Telemetry is easily turned off.

https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/getstarted/telemetry#_disable-telemetry-reporting

In the more general case, telemetry is not in itself considered 'evil'. 
For example Debian comes with telemetry that you can enable or disable. 
https://popcon.debian.org/


Firefox, and just about any other web browser you use also has 
telemetry. e.g. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/telemetry-clientid


To be certain your activity is private you will have to disconnect 
completely from the internet as any software that uses any internet 
resource will automatically leak information about you.


.

Re: how2 format a flash drive

[tomas]

On Mon, Jul 01, 2024 at 09:05:51AM -0400, Lee wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 1, 2024 at 4:53 AM jeremy ardley  wrote:

[...]

> > https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ritwickdey.LiveServer
> 
> Thanks, but no thanks.  That seems to include the Microsoft spyware
> licensing:  https://code.visualstudio.com/license
>   Data Collection. The software may collect information about you and
> your use of the software, and send that to Microsoft.

Desperate for Data :-)

But yes, that's what they currently do.

Cheers
-- 
t


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Re: how2 format a flash drive

[Lee]

On Mon, Jul 1, 2024 at 4:53 AM jeremy ardley  wrote:
>
>
> On 1/7/24 10:32, Lee wrote:
> > Bluefish looks like a possible replacement for notepad++  but it
> > doesn't [seem to?] support WYSIWYG editing of html files.
>
>
> Visual Studio Code allows you to edit HTML and preview it using Live
> Server plugin
>
> https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ritwickdey.LiveServer

Thanks, but no thanks.  That seems to include the Microsoft spyware
licensing:  https://code.visualstudio.com/license
  Data Collection. The software may collect information about you and
your use of the software, and send that to Microsoft.

Regards,
Lee

Re: how2 format a flash drive

[Jeffrey Walton]

On Sat, Jun 29, 2024 at 4:13 PM Lee  wrote:
>
> On Tue, Jun 25, 2024 at 7:26 PM George wrote:
> > [...]
> > If you have any grips or difficulties, please mention them.
>
> My gripes and difficulties are the same thing. [...]
> something equivalent to notepad++,

You might give Notepadqq a spin. I've used it in the past, and it has
a comparable look and feel to Notepad++.

.

If TAB works kind of funny, then see this bug report and fix:
.
(I don't know if it was merged).

Jeff

Re: how2 format a flash drive

[jeremy ardley]

On 1/7/24 10:32, Lee wrote:

Bluefish looks like a possible replacement for notepad++  but it
doesn't [seem to?] support WYSIWYG editing of html files.



Visual Studio Code allows you to edit HTML and preview it using Live 
Server plugin


https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ritwickdey.LiveServer

Re: Browser traffic interception/inspection (was: how2 format a flash drive)

[Jeffrey Walton]

On Sun, Jun 30, 2024 at 9:46 PM Jeffrey Walton  wrote:
>
> On Sun, Jun 30, 2024 at 9:35 PM Lee  wrote:
> >[...]
> >   ... which is the downside of free software.  Technically, yes, I'm
> > free to build the software with whatever I want enabled, with whatever
> > changes I want added/deleted.
> > In practice, my ability to build Firefox is .. lacking :(
>
> Yeah, trying to build some of these projects is the pits.

One way out of this may be to make a Request for Packaging,
. Ask for debug builds of Firefox.

Since Debian is now supplying release builds in their release channel,
it might make sense for Debian to provide debug builds for web
developers. Web developers can install firefox-debug as a www-browser
alternative, and do things like debug protocol issues. Regular users
would still get the release version of Firefox, so regular users would
be protected from some of the security problems associated with the
debug build.

And you still might try the nightly build of Firefox, and see if it
provides the features that you are looking for. If the nightly build
has what you need, then you won't have to spend time on the RFP.

Jeff

Re: how2 format a flash drive

[Lee]

Hi,

On Sat, Jun 29, 2024 at 1:12 PM Dan Ritter wrote:
>
> Lee wrote:
> > My gripes and difficulties are the same thing.  No universal image
> > viewer like Ifranview,
>
> `apt search image viewer` suggests:  eog, eom, ephoto, photoqt..
> among dozens of others. But start with one of those.

Thanks, I'll check them out.

> > an html editor would be nice -- something along
> > the lines of the seamonkey html editor but current software and
> > supported
>
> `apt search html editor` offers a bunch of suggestions, but
> really most editors have support for specialized syntax checking
> and previews and such. You might try bluefish.

Bluefish looks like a possible replacement for notepad++  but it
doesn't [seem to?] support WYSIWYG editing of html files.

I'll save recipes that look good and try them later.  But I don't want
all the fluff that goes with most recipes, so I trim them down
drastically;
delete all the , all the comments,
all the kitchenware thry're trying to sell me...  All I want is the
recipe

> > , something equivalent to notepad++
>
> Assuming that you don't want the graphical forms of emacs or

Right.  If I was going to climb the emacs learning curve I'd have done
it 20 years ago :)

> vim,

While I like vim and occasionally do use it for html editing, what
usually happens is running the file thru tidy and then edit with vim.
I'd rather have a WYSIWYG html editor that lets me delete tables, rows
or columns at a time.  Or, since everybody wants to move to CSS,
delete all the goop in a specific 

> >, something equivalent to
> > winmerge (meld is nice, but isn't really a substitute)
>
> You will have to be specific about what makes meld "not a
> substitute". Assume whoever you are talking to doesn't know what
> winmerge is.

Meld is beautiful.  Meld looks **good**  But I find it a distraction
and _much_ harder to figure out what the difference is between two
files or merge updates from  file to  file.
Maybe I've just gotten used to winmerge &  to get to
the next difference and  to copy the missing text
from the left window to the right window.  I can do most everything
from the keyboard.  Maybe because I haven't used it that much but I
was using the mouse a lot in meld.

> > , a cloneSpy equivalent would be nice
>
> duff, perforate, rdfind, dupeguru...

Thank you.  More things to check out :)

> > Exact Audio Copy doesn't work on Linux, but supposedly does run under
> > wine so that's a possibility..
>
> You want to pull stuff off of an optical disk? cdparanoia, or
> one of the things that wraps it like ripit or ripperx.

Yup.  I want to pull music off a CD and make MP3s of it.
2 cars ago I had a CD caddy in the trunk - I could play 6 CD worth of
music without having to change anything.
Now my car has a USB port; that + a 16GB thumb drive is more than 12
hrs worth of drive time enjoyment (as much as droning along at 55MPH
can be called enjoyment)

> > Debian firefox does NOT allow one to do
> > TLS intercept - ie. this does not work:
> > C:\UTIL>cat firefox-tlsdecode.bat
> > set SSLKEYLOGFILE=C:\Users\Lee\AppData\Local\Temp\FF-SSLkeys.txt
> > start C:\"Program Files\Firefox\Firefox.exe"
> >
> > @rem wireshark:
> > @rem   edit / preferences
> > @rem   protocols / tls  (v2.6: protocols / ssl)
> > @rem paste SSLKEYLOGFILE filename into (Pre)-Master-Secret log
> > filename (was SSL debug file entry)
>
> I have no idea what you are trying to do there, but I'm sure a
> DOS batch file won't run here, especially since it appears to
> mostly be comments.
>
> Describe what you want to do, not how you want it to happen.

I want to be able to use wireshark to look at encrypted web traffic.  eg
https://everything.curl.dev/usingcurl/tls/sslkeylogfile.html

Regards,
Lee

Re: Browser traffic interception/inspection (was: how2 format a flash drive)

[Jeffrey Walton]

On Sun, Jun 30, 2024 at 9:35 PM Lee  wrote:
>
> On Sat, Jun 29, 2024 at 4:45 PM Jeffrey Walton wrote:
> >
> > On Sat, Jun 29, 2024 at 4:13 PM Lee wrote:
> > >
> > > [...] Debian firefox does NOT allow one to do
> > > TLS intercept - ie. this does not work:
> > > C:\UTIL>cat firefox-tlsdecode.bat
> > > set SSLKEYLOGFILE=C:\Users\Lee\AppData\Local\Temp\FF-SSLkeys.txt
> > > start C:\"Program Files\Firefox\Firefox.exe"
> > >
> > > @rem wireshark:
> > > @rem   edit / preferences
> > > @rem   protocols / tls  (v2.6: protocols / ssl)
> > > @rem paste SSLKEYLOGFILE filename into (Pre)-Master-Secret log
> > > filename (was SSL debug file entry)
> >
> > I'm not sure who your complaint is against -- Debian, Firefox or
> > Linux. I'm also not sure that it is a valid complaint.
>
> It is 100% a valid complaint.  And it's a complaint against Debian
> because they're the ones that turned off that functionality.
> They have , I disagree, I'm free to build Firefox for myself,
> get somebody else to doit for me, or get it somewhere else.

It looks like the change is due to NSS (Network Security Services),
not Firefox:  and
. I think the
3318 bug is most relevant, but I may be mistaken.

If I am parsing the various bug reports properly, it looks like
SSLKEYLOGFILE was disabled by default for release builds. It looks
like you might have to perform your own debug build to gain access
again. Or maybe the nightly builds of Firefox will have it.

>   ... which is the downside of free software.  Technically, yes, I'm
> free to build the software with whatever I want enabled, with whatever
> changes I want added/deleted.
> In practice, my ability to build Firefox is .. lacking :(

Yeah, trying to build some of these projects is the pits.

Jeff

Re: Browser traffic interception/inspection (was: how2 format a flash drive)

[Lee]

Hi,

On Sat, Jun 29, 2024 at 4:45 PM Jeffrey Walton wrote:
>
> On Sat, Jun 29, 2024 at 4:13 PM Lee wrote:
> >
> > [...] Debian firefox does NOT allow one to do
> > TLS intercept - ie. this does not work:
> > C:\UTIL>cat firefox-tlsdecode.bat
> > set SSLKEYLOGFILE=C:\Users\Lee\AppData\Local\Temp\FF-SSLkeys.txt
> > start C:\"Program Files\Firefox\Firefox.exe"
> >
> > @rem wireshark:
> > @rem   edit / preferences
> > @rem   protocols / tls  (v2.6: protocols / ssl)
> > @rem paste SSLKEYLOGFILE filename into (Pre)-Master-Secret log
> > filename (was SSL debug file entry)
>
> I'm not sure who your complaint is against -- Debian, Firefox or
> Linux. I'm also not sure that it is a valid complaint.

It is 100% a valid complaint.  And it's a complaint against Debian
because they're the ones that turned off that functionality.
They have , I disagree, I'm free to build Firefox for myself,
get somebody else to doit for me, or get it somewhere else.

  ... which is the downside of free software.  Technically, yes, I'm
free to build the software with whatever I want enabled, with whatever
changes I want added/deleted.
In practice, my ability to build Firefox is .. lacking :(

> Firefox uses its own certificate store. If you want to proxy your
> traffic, then the proxy's root cert needs to be in Mozilla's
> certificate store. See
> .

Right.  I have privoxy & occasionally do set it for +https-inspection
when I want it to inspect/modify web traffic.

> Chrome is different.

I've never used Chrome & don't intend to.

> When you are intercepting/inspecting traffic, you typically setup your
> proxy, and then proxy Firefox and Chrome traffic through your proxy.
> The proxy can run on your local machine, like 127.0.0.1. Your proxy's
> root certificate should be in the browser's store (as described
> above).

Or you can tell firefox to write the SSL key info to a file that
wireshark can read & then decrypt the traffic.
For example
  https://everything.curl.dev/usingcurl/tls/sslkeylogfile.html

Best Regards,
Lee

Re: how2 format a flash drive

[Keith Bainbridge]

On 30/6/24 06:43, mick.crane wrote:

On 2024-06-29 17:46, Lee wrote:


My gripes and difficulties are the same thing.  No universal image
viewer like Ifranview,


geeqie is quick,
something equivalent to notepad++,
Geany




+5 for geany
--
All the best

Keith Bainbridge

keithr...@gmail.com
keith.bainbridge.3...@gmail.com
+61 (0)447 667 468

UTC + 10:00

Re: how2 format a flash drive

[George at Clug]

On Sunday, 30-06-2024 at 02:46 Lee wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 25, 2024 at 7:26 PM George wrote:
> >
> > On Wednesday, 26-06-2024 at 05:43 Lee wrote:
> > > On Tue, Jun 25, 2024 at 11:47 AM Joe  wrote:
> > > >
> > > > On Tue, 25 Jun 2024 09:53:41 -0400
> > > > Lee wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > My old laptop died; I just got a new one and it has _no_
optical
> > > > > drive.  But the Debian install from flash instructions
were excellent
> > > > > & I now have a laptop running Debian.
> > > > >
> > > > > My question is: how do I reformat the flash drive so it's
usable as a
> > > > > "normal" flash drive again?
> >
> > Did you try gparted, a user friendly graphical partition manager?
> 
> No.  It wasn't installed and fdisk was, so I went with fdisk.
> 
> > > Yes, but I did the "burn the boats" thing with my new desktop &
wiped
> > > windows and installed debian.
> >
> > Good on you !  I support you in this move.
> >
> > If you have any grips or difficulties, please mention them.
> 
> My gripes and difficulties are the same thing.  No universal image
> viewer like Ifranview, an html editor would be nice -- something
along
> the lines of the seamonkey html editor but current software and
> supported, something equivalent to notepad++, something equivalent
to
> winmerge (meld is nice, but isn't really a substitute), a cloneSpy
> equivalent would be nice, I'm getting used to the linux privoxy log
> viewer vs. the iconified thing that sits there on the windows
taskbar,
> Exact Audio Copy doesn't work on Linux, but supposedly does run
under
> wine so that's a possibility.. Debian firefox does NOT allow one to
do
> TLS intercept - ie. this does not work:
> C:\UTIL>cat firefox-tlsdecode.bat
> set SSLKEYLOGFILE=C:\Users\Lee\AppData\Local\Temp\FF-SSLkeys.txt
> start C:\"Program Files\Firefox\Firefox.exe"
> 
> @rem wireshark:
> @rem   edit / preferences
> @rem   protocols / tls  (v2.6: protocols / ssl)
> @rem paste SSLKEYLOGFILE filename into (Pre)-Master-Secret
log
> filename (was SSL debug file entry)
> 
> But the major things that were keeping me from migrating to Debian
are
> fixable now in xfce:
> The xfce4-terminal window can be configured so that left double
click
> selects a "word" and right click pastes it in
> installing bits of the Chicago95 theme makes all the scrollbars
> permanently visible, with up & down arrows at either end of the
scroll
> bar that scroll by one line
> clicking in the scrollbar trough above or below the bar scrolls the
> window up one window size instead of jumping to that point in the
> scroll buffer
> 
> > > My remaining Windows 10 machine goes end of life... at the end
of the
> > > year?  So I need to learn how to live without windows -- which
I have
> 
> > I would like you to keep a diary of your journey, of what
challenges you face and how you moved past, this could help other
people you know who want to make this journey.
> 
> I don't know how helpful a diary of my journey would be.  My
workplace
> had a policy of Windows for the desktop and RedHat for servers in
data
> centers, so I got used to cygwin on windows to ssh into linux
servers
> (that other people maintained).  Then Microsoft came out with the
> Windows 10 spyware/operating-system-as-a-service and it was clearly
> time to abandon ship.  Which wasn't possible at work, but at home
I
> don't have to put up with the M$ crapware so.. new machine, blow
away
> everything that came installed on it and install Debian on the PC at
> home.
> 
> To make a long story short, I have years of experience with the
> end-user side of linux & almost none with the maintenance side..
like
> formatting thumb drives or anything requiring sudo access.
> 
> > I wonder what UI you are using?
> 
> Xfce

Hi Lee, 

Thanks for your response.   

I abandoned Windows after Windows 8 when I learned they had included
"telemetry" at a significant level of data gathering. I understand
that our data is valuable to Tech companies to gather and sell, but I
would prefer if they did not.

You are doing some way more technical things than I ask of Linux. I do
not even use Bluefish which is a nice HTML editor. I do so little
technical things with Linux I only need the Mousepad text editor, and
of course, I use 'nano' not 'vim'.

I like XFCE, simple but effective. However because I am too lazy to
install specific useful applications, I usually install both Cinnamon
and XFCE, but then only ever log into XFCE. Doing this installs a
number of useful applications that I like. For example this way I get
to use a program that calls itself "Image Viewer". I once tracked down
its real name, but have forgotten it, 'eog' maybe?

I have issues remembering things, hence I use GUI applications that
have visible menus over Terminal applications that require the
memorisation of typed in commands, well, where ever possible. I do
resort to using the terminal to run 'find' for locating files, and
files containing text strings.

Recently I have been attempting to get Wine to work. Gecko doe

Browser traffic interception/inspection (was: how2 format a flash drive)

[Jeffrey Walton]

On Sat, Jun 29, 2024 at 4:13 PM Lee  wrote:
>
> [...] Debian firefox does NOT allow one to do
> TLS intercept - ie. this does not work:
> C:\UTIL>cat firefox-tlsdecode.bat
> set SSLKEYLOGFILE=C:\Users\Lee\AppData\Local\Temp\FF-SSLkeys.txt
> start C:\"Program Files\Firefox\Firefox.exe"
>
> @rem wireshark:
> @rem   edit / preferences
> @rem   protocols / tls  (v2.6: protocols / ssl)
> @rem paste SSLKEYLOGFILE filename into (Pre)-Master-Secret log
> filename (was SSL debug file entry)

I'm not sure who your complaint is against -- Debian, Firefox or
Linux. I'm also not sure that it is a valid complaint.

Firefox uses its own certificate store. If you want to proxy your
traffic, then the proxy's root cert needs to be in Mozilla's
certificate store. See
.

Chrome is different. Chrome uses the Windows store by default, but
also has its own certificate store. For Chrome, your Windows admin can
make a change with a Group Policy, and Chrome will pick it up through
the Windows certificate store. Or you can manually install the proxy's
root cert. See 
.

Debian is not concerned about TLS interception in this case. But for
completeness, Debian has its own store at /etc/ssl/certs. You get the
certificates by installing the ca-certificates package. You can
install certificates into the store by dropping the root cert on the
filesystem at /usr/local/share/ca-certificates, and then running
update-ca-certificates. See
 and
.

When you are intercepting/inspecting traffic, you typically setup your
proxy, and then proxy Firefox and Chrome traffic through your proxy.
The proxy can run on your local machine, like 127.0.0.1. Your proxy's
root certificate should be in the browser's store (as described
above).

Jeff

Re: how2 format a flash drive

[mick.crane]

On 2024-06-29 17:46, Lee wrote:


My gripes and difficulties are the same thing.  No universal image
viewer like Ifranview,


geeqie is quick,
something equivalent to notepad++,
Geany

Re: how2 format a flash drive

[Dan Ritter]

Lee wrote: 
> My gripes and difficulties are the same thing.  No universal image
> viewer like Ifranview,

`apt search image viewer` suggests:  eog, eom, ephoto, photoqt..
among dozens of others. But start with one of those.


> an html editor would be nice -- something along
> the lines of the seamonkey html editor but current software and
> supported

`apt search html editor` offers a bunch of suggestions, but
really most editors have support for specialized syntax checking
and previews and such. You might try bluefish.

> , something equivalent to notepad++

Assuming that you don't want the graphical forms of emacs or
vim, how about bluefish, or notepadqq ?

>, something equivalent to
> winmerge (meld is nice, but isn't really a substitute)

You will have to be specific about what makes meld "not a
substitute". Assume whoever you are talking to doesn't know what
winmerge is.

> , a cloneSpy equivalent would be nice

duff, perforate, rdfind, dupeguru...

> Exact Audio Copy doesn't work on Linux, but supposedly does run under
> wine so that's a possibility..

You want to pull stuff off of an optical disk? cdparanoia, or
one of the things that wraps it like ripit or ripperx.


> Debian firefox does NOT allow one to do
> TLS intercept - ie. this does not work:
> C:\UTIL>cat firefox-tlsdecode.bat
> set SSLKEYLOGFILE=C:\Users\Lee\AppData\Local\Temp\FF-SSLkeys.txt
> start C:\"Program Files\Firefox\Firefox.exe"
> 
> @rem wireshark:
> @rem   edit / preferences
> @rem   protocols / tls  (v2.6: protocols / ssl)
> @rem paste SSLKEYLOGFILE filename into (Pre)-Master-Secret log
> filename (was SSL debug file entry)

I have no idea what you are trying to do there, but I'm sure a
DOS batch file won't run here, especially since it appears to
mostly be comments.

Describe what you want to do, not how you want it to happen.

-dsr-

Re: how2 format a flash drive

[Lee]

On Tue, Jun 25, 2024 at 7:26 PM George wrote:
>
> On Wednesday, 26-06-2024 at 05:43 Lee wrote:
> > On Tue, Jun 25, 2024 at 11:47 AM Joe  wrote:
> > >
> > > On Tue, 25 Jun 2024 09:53:41 -0400
> > > Lee wrote:
> > >
> > > > My old laptop died; I just got a new one and it has _no_ optical
> > > > drive.  But the Debian install from flash instructions were excellent
> > > > & I now have a laptop running Debian.
> > > >
> > > > My question is: how do I reformat the flash drive so it's usable as a
> > > > "normal" flash drive again?
>
> Did you try gparted, a user friendly graphical partition manager?

No.  It wasn't installed and fdisk was, so I went with fdisk.

> > Yes, but I did the "burn the boats" thing with my new desktop & wiped
> > windows and installed debian.
>
> Good on you !  I support you in this move.
>
> If you have any grips or difficulties, please mention them.

My gripes and difficulties are the same thing.  No universal image
viewer like Ifranview, an html editor would be nice -- something along
the lines of the seamonkey html editor but current software and
supported, something equivalent to notepad++, something equivalent to
winmerge (meld is nice, but isn't really a substitute), a cloneSpy
equivalent would be nice, I'm getting used to the linux privoxy log
viewer vs. the iconified thing that sits there on the windows taskbar,
Exact Audio Copy doesn't work on Linux, but supposedly does run under
wine so that's a possibility.. Debian firefox does NOT allow one to do
TLS intercept - ie. this does not work:
C:\UTIL>cat firefox-tlsdecode.bat
set SSLKEYLOGFILE=C:\Users\Lee\AppData\Local\Temp\FF-SSLkeys.txt
start C:\"Program Files\Firefox\Firefox.exe"

@rem wireshark:
@rem   edit / preferences
@rem   protocols / tls  (v2.6: protocols / ssl)
@rem paste SSLKEYLOGFILE filename into (Pre)-Master-Secret log
filename (was SSL debug file entry)

But the major things that were keeping me from migrating to Debian are
fixable now in xfce:
The xfce4-terminal window can be configured so that left double click
selects a "word" and right click pastes it in
installing bits of the Chicago95 theme makes all the scrollbars
permanently visible, with up & down arrows at either end of the scroll
bar that scroll by one line
clicking in the scrollbar trough above or below the bar scrolls the
window up one window size instead of jumping to that point in the
scroll buffer

> > My remaining Windows 10 machine goes end of life... at the end of the
> > year?  So I need to learn how to live without windows -- which I have

> I would like you to keep a diary of your journey, of what challenges you face 
> and how you moved past, this could help other people you know who want to 
> make this journey.

I don't know how helpful a diary of my journey would be.  My workplace
had a policy of Windows for the desktop and RedHat for servers in data
centers, so I got used to cygwin on windows to ssh into linux servers
(that other people maintained).  Then Microsoft came out with the
Windows 10 spyware/operating-system-as-a-service and it was clearly
time to abandon ship.  Which wasn't possible at work, but at home I
don't have to put up with the M$ crapware so.. new machine, blow away
everything that came installed on it and install Debian on the PC at
home.

To make a long story short, I have years of experience with the
end-user side of linux & almost none with the maintenance side.. like
formatting thumb drives or anything requiring sudo access.

> I wonder what UI you are using?

Xfce

Lee

Re: how2 format a flash drive

[sd]

On Wednesday, 26 June 2024 00:26:00 BST George at Clug wrote:
> On Wednesday, 26-06-2024 at 05:43 Lee wrote:
> > On Tue, Jun 25, 2024 at 11:47 AM Joe  wrote:
> > > On Tue, 25 Jun 2024 09:53:41 -0400
[snip] 
> If you have any grips or difficulties, please mention them. After five years
> of using XFCE, I no longer have desires to go back to Windows. Steam has
> helped me play the few Windows based games that I play with my children. I
> have yet to master Wine, but then Linux has all the programs I need so I
> don't have much need for Wine.

I've been mightily impressed by steam. The only reason my win10 is still 
around is because it has skyrim on it (and a load of mods). Skyrim works under 
steam but I can't be bothered figuring out how to get the mod manager and other 
tools to work.

Within steam you can elect to designate a particular proton (aka wine) version 
for a game. Google usually solves figuring that out.

Fwiw, the only thing about win10 which has impressed me is WSL2. Not enough to 
advocate keeping win10 but to avoid me coaching newbies through putty. Can't 
really recommend cygwin any more.


OP:
The best thing about linux is, when you gain a bit of knowledge, just how 
little the operating system matters wrt to your data. I've been depreciating a 
couple of centos boxes (raid 6 servers). They're now debian and the data disks 
are unchanged. Loosely, all I did was create a debian VM with passthrough to 
an ssd, copied the samba/nfs/iscsi configs over and stuck the ssd into an esata 
caddy on the back of the centos server. Downtime was reboot time plus time to 
go into the bios and change the boot drive to the esata.

Sod's law came into play (in reverse). I bought an rpi4 and a 5 bay usb 
enclosure. Spent many many days backing up (rsync) both boxes. If I'd not had 
a backup something horrible would have happened. ;-)

My old kmail client was running gentoo from, must be 15 years ago, KDE 3.5 
iirc. I exported all its emails then imported them into this kmail. I didn't 
expect it to work. Ditto backup so it did.

Re: how2 format a flash drive

[Lee]

On Tue, Jun 25, 2024 at 12:48 PM Hans wrote:
>
> You can easily refotrmat it, either using fdisk or if you want a GUI, use
> gparted.

I just learned about fdisk today -- thank you!

Lee

Re: how2 format a flash drive

[George at Clug]

On Wednesday, 26-06-2024 at 05:43 Lee wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 25, 2024 at 11:47 AM Joe  wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, 25 Jun 2024 09:53:41 -0400
> > Lee wrote:
> >
> > > My old laptop died; I just got a new one and it has _no_ optical
> > > drive.  But the Debian install from flash instructions were excellent
> > > & I now have a laptop running Debian.
> > >
> > > My question is: how do I reformat the flash drive so it's usable as a
> > > "normal" flash drive again?

Did you try gparted, a user friendly graphical partition manager?  I do not 
know if it would do what you want, but I expect it will, it has always helped 
me out.

> > >
> > > Nothing I tried worked.. I ended up putting the thumb drive in a
> > > Windows machine and formatting it there; it would be nice to know how
> > > to restore the thumb drive to working order on Debian.
> > >
> >
> > Experience suggests that if it will be used on a Windows machine, e.g.
> > for file transfer, it's probably best to format it in Windows.
> 
> Yes, but I did the "burn the boats" thing with my new desktop & wiped
> windows and installed debian.

Good on you !  I support you in this move.

If you have any grips or difficulties, please mention them. After five years of 
using XFCE, I no longer have desires to go back to Windows. Steam has helped me 
play the few Windows based games that I play with my children. I have yet to 
master Wine, but then Linux has all the programs I need so I don't have much 
need for Wine.

> My remaining Windows 10 machine goes end of life... at the end of the
> year?  So I need to learn how to live without windows -- which I have

I would like you to keep a diary of your journey, of what challenges you face 
and how you moved past, this could help other people you know who want to make 
this journey.

> mostly.  I just haven't adjusted to Linux and the horrible UI :(  Or

I wonder what UI you are using?  

Would you be using Gnome? There are many people who really like the Gnome UI, 
but I do not, I prefer KDE, Cinnamon, and XFCE.

Maybe because I am a long time Windows user, I prefer text based menus over the 
smartphone style icon based menus, like Gnome, Windows 3.x, Windows 8.x, 
Windows 11.

I use XFCE on my main PC, and very much appreciate it. Simple, elegant, and to 
the point menu system, customisable task bars, customisable system tray, etc.

When my wife returned to Linux this year, I set up her PC with KDE Plasma 6. I 
find this UI very attractive, modern, and a great temptation to leave XFCE, but 
XFCE is just so nice and simple to use so I will stay with XFCE for now. I use 
Menulibre to add menu items.

I also like Cinnamon, I find it 'beautiful' to look at, and a very simple and 
uncluttered UI. Great for computer users who never change the look and feel of 
their UI.

I think KDE is better for someone who is familiar with computers and wants to 
make a few changes to their UI's behaviour. 

So far I have not mentioned Mate. If I recall correctly, Mate has three main 
menus, I only see the need for one, hence prefer KDE, Cinnamon, and XFCE.


> how user _un_friendly linux can be.  Whoever came up with scroll bars
> that play hide & seek should be tarred & feathered.

If I recall correctly, in KDE and in Firefox I was able to turn scroll bars on 
permanently, so much nicer than "scroll bars that play hide & seek". I am 
currently using KDE, and my Firefox and File manager have permanently visible 
scroll bars, 'as it should be'. 

Disclaimer: These are my personal preferences. Other peoples experiences and 
preferences may vary.


> 
> Lee
> 
> 

Re: how2 format a flash drive

[David Wright]

Entire attribution and quote removed to avoid the mailing list
treating this post as spam.

I got the impression that Lee used windows in the past (and may
still), which is why I didn't suggest the same as Joe. (Lee did
write "on Debian").

And by devices, I was thinking more of TVs, printers, scanners,
set-top boxes, etc.

One of our six TVs can handle ext2/3; nothing else can.

Cheers,
David.

Re: how2 format a flash drive

[eben]

On 6/25/24 15:43, Lee wrote:

Whoever came up with scroll bars
that play hide & seek should be tarred & feathered.


Agree.  Most programs that do that crap can be convinced not to.  Same with
Thunderbird putting the menu bar below that next bit, whatever you call it.
Search the net for | scrollbar|.

--
Q: Why do black holes never learn?
A: Because they're too dense.  -- ZurkisPhreek on Fark

Re: how2 format a flash drive

[Lee]

On Tue, Jun 25, 2024 at 11:47 AM Joe  wrote:
>
> On Tue, 25 Jun 2024 09:53:41 -0400
> Lee wrote:
>
> > My old laptop died; I just got a new one and it has _no_ optical
> > drive.  But the Debian install from flash instructions were excellent
> > & I now have a laptop running Debian.
> >
> > My question is: how do I reformat the flash drive so it's usable as a
> > "normal" flash drive again?
> >
> > Nothing I tried worked.. I ended up putting the thumb drive in a
> > Windows machine and formatting it there; it would be nice to know how
> > to restore the thumb drive to working order on Debian.
> >
>
> Experience suggests that if it will be used on a Windows machine, e.g.
> for file transfer, it's probably best to format it in Windows.

Yes, but I did the "burn the boats" thing with my new desktop & wiped
windows and installed debian.
My remaining Windows 10 machine goes end of life... at the end of the
year?  So I need to learn how to live without windows -- which I have
mostly.  I just haven't adjusted to Linux and the horrible UI :(  Or
how user _un_friendly linux can be.  Whoever came up with scroll bars
that play hide & seek should be tarred & feathered.

Lee

Re: how2 format a flash drive

[Lee]

On Tue, Jun 25, 2024 at 1:28 PM Thomas Schmitt  wrote:
>
> Hi,

Hi,
I don't know what happened, but your msg _finaly_ showed up in my inbox.
Strange how it was delayed for so long..

> Lee wrote:
> > My question is: how do I reformat the flash drive so it's usable as a
> > "normal" flash drive again?
>
> You have to delete the partitions of the USB stick which came with
> the ISO.
> Then you create one or more partitions.
> Then you format them to a writable filesystem each.
>
> If it shall serve for file exchange with MS-Windows or Macs, then you
> probably want just one partition with FAT as filesystem.
>
> I would do the first and second step by program "fdisk" and the third
> step by program "mkfs.fat".

Yes.  That's the answer.
I was missing the fdisk bit and mkfs wasn't working for me.  Or at
least not working until I did the fdisk :)

> In hindsight it would of course have been advisable to make a copy
> of the USB stick to an image file before putting the netinst ISO onto it.
> Assuming that the USB stick is /dev/sdc and you home directory offers
> enough space for the size of the USB stick this would have been something
> like:
>
>   dd if=/dev/sdc bs=1M of="$HOME"/usb_stick.img
>
> Later you would put it back onto the USB stick the same way as you did
> with the netinst ISO image.

Thanks for that, but all I was using this thumb drive for was putting
movies on it & plugging it into a traver router so I could watch
movies on a TV with no ads.
In other words, there's nothing on the thumb drive that isn't expendable.

Thanks,
Lee

Re: how2 format a flash drive

[eben]

On 6/25/24 10:39, David Wright wrote:


Of course, we're not told what "normal" means, what was tried,
nor how normality was tested. It's possible that they need to
use, say, mkdosfs to get back to the state in which USB sticks
are typically bought, so it can be plugged into other devices.


I keep my thumb drives in extN, because interchangeability with other OSes
is not normally a concern.  So for me, that is normal and FAT is an aberration.

--
  Logic is a systematic method of coming to
the wrong conclusion with confidence.

Re: how2 format a flash drive

[Hans]

You can easily refotrmat it, either using fdisk or if you want a GUI, use 
gparted.


With fdisk (also you can use cfdisk) I suggest first to delete all partitions, 
then create new one. Then choose your type (it is 0b for FAT32).

Write to disk and quit fdisk.

Then format the new partition, for vfat use: mkfs.vfat /dev/sdc1 (or whatever 
your partition is).

Everything must be done as root (of course) so be carefull.

Hope this helps.

Best

Hans

Re: how2 format a flash drive

[Thomas Schmitt]

Hi,

i wrote:
> $ sudo mount offset=2291712 /mnt/fat

For the archives, this would of course have to be

  $ sudo mount offset=2291712 debian-12.2.0-amd64-netinst.iso /mnt/fat

The number 2291712 was computed from the partition start block 4476
multiplied by the block size 512.


Have a nice day :)

Thomas

Re: how2 format a flash drive

[Thomas Schmitt]

Hi,

David Wright wrote:
> Of course, we're not told what "normal" means,

I guess it's a single partition with FAT.
Around 2010 i got three USB sticks and kept their compressed original
content. For examination of their MBR partition tables it is enough to
cut off their heads:

  $ gunzip  what was tried, nor how normality was tested.

Yeah. More tangible info would help with helping.


> It's possible that they need to
> use, say, mkdosfs to get back to the state in which USB sticks
> are typically bought, so it can be plugged into other devices.

Since at least a decade, "man mkdosfs" describes "mkfs.fat".

But before creating a new filesystem, it is necessary to create a
suitable partition for hosting it.
An USB stick with the netinst ISO shows two partitions:

  $ /sbin/fdisk -l debian-12.2.0-amd64-netinst.iso

  Disk debian-12.2.0-amd64-netinst.iso: 628 MiB, 658505728 bytes, 1286144 
sectors
  Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
  Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
  I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
  Disklabel type: dos
  Disk identifier: 0x52bf7ba9

  Device   Boot Start End Sectors  Size Id Type
  debian-12.2.0-amd64-netinst.iso1 *0 1286143 1286144  628M  0 Empty
  debian-12.2.0-amd64-netinst.iso2   4476   23451   18976  9.3M ef EFI 
(FAT-12

Partition editors might react unfriendly on the "Empty" partition which
surrounds the EFI partition. The latter has a FAT filesystem which is
completely filled up:

  $ sudo mount offset=2291712 /mnt/fat
  $ df /mnt/fat
  Filesystem 1K-blocks  Used Available Use% Mounted on
  /dev/loop0  9450  9446 4 100% /mnt/fat

The files in this FAT are the initial boot stages for amd64 and i386:

  $ find /mnt/fat -type f
  /mnt/fat/efi/boot/bootx64.efi
  /mnt/fat/efi/boot/grubx64.efi
  /mnt/fat/efi/boot/bootia32.efi
  /mnt/fat/efi/boot/grubia32.efi
  /mnt/fat/efi/debian/grub.cfg

Their only purpose is to convince Secure Boot that the GRUB software is
acceptable and to find the ISO filesystem where the rest of GRUB's
equipment is stored.

So both partitions are of no use for the general purpose USB stick
and can be deleted.


Have a nice day :)

Thomas

Re: how2 format a flash drive

[Joe]

On Tue, 25 Jun 2024 09:53:41 -0400
Lee  wrote:

> My old laptop died; I just got a new one and it has _no_ optical
> drive.  But the Debian install from flash instructions were excellent
> & I now have a laptop running Debian.
> 
> My question is: how do I reformat the flash drive so it's usable as a
> "normal" flash drive again?
> 
> Nothing I tried worked.. I ended up putting the thumb drive in a
> Windows machine and formatting it there; it would be nice to know how
> to restore the thumb drive to working order on Debian.
> 

Experience suggests that if it will be used on a Windows machine, e.g.
for file transfer, it's probably best to format it in Windows.
Otherwise Windows will give the occasional error message about it,
offer to fix it, and fail miserably. It will still work.

Obviously only for the Windows formats, FAT or NTFS. Microsoft pretends
not to know about things Not Invented Here.

It's possible to have MS and Linux partitions on the same drive. I have
one like that, FAT for interchange and ext4 for files that Linux
software insists must have certain permissions.

-- 
Joe

Re: how2 format a flash drive

[David Wright]

On Tue 25 Jun 2024 at 16:23:16 (+0200), Thomas Schmitt wrote:
> Lee wrote:
> > My question is: how do I reformat the flash drive so it's usable as a
> > "normal" flash drive again?
> 
> You have to delete the partitions of the USB stick which came with
> the ISO.
> Then you create one or more partitions.
> Then you format them to a writable filesystem each.
> 
> If it shall serve for file exchange with MS-Windows or Macs, then you
> probably want just one partition with FAT as filesystem.
> 
> I would do the first and second step by program "fdisk" and the third
> step by program "mkfs.fat".
> If you prefer a GUI program, look for GParted or what your desktop
> offers for the tasks of partitioning and filesystem formatting.

Of course, we're not told what "normal" means, what was tried,
nor how normality was tested. It's possible that they need to
use, say, mkdosfs to get back to the state in which USB sticks
are typically bought, so it can be plugged into other devices.

Cheers,
David.

Re: how2 format a flash drive

[Thomas Schmitt]

Hi,

Lee wrote:
> My question is: how do I reformat the flash drive so it's usable as a
> "normal" flash drive again?

You have to delete the partitions of the USB stick which came with
the ISO.
Then you create one or more partitions.
Then you format them to a writable filesystem each.

If it shall serve for file exchange with MS-Windows or Macs, then you
probably want just one partition with FAT as filesystem.

I would do the first and second step by program "fdisk" and the third
step by program "mkfs.fat".
If you prefer a GUI program, look for GParted or what your desktop
offers for the tasks of partitioning and filesystem formatting.

---

In hindsight it would of course have been advisable to make a copy
of the USB stick to an image file before putting the netinst ISO onto it.
Assuming that the USB stick is /dev/sdc and you home directory offers
enough space for the size of the USB stick this would have been something
like:

  dd if=/dev/sdc bs=1M of="$HOME"/usb_stick.img

Later you would put it back onto the USB stick the same way as you did
with the netinst ISO image.


Have a nice day :)

Thomas

how2 format a flash drive

[Lee]

My old laptop died; I just got a new one and it has _no_ optical
drive.  But the Debian install from flash instructions were excellent
& I now have a laptop running Debian.

My question is: how do I reformat the flash drive so it's usable as a
"normal" flash drive again?

Nothing I tried worked.. I ended up putting the thumb drive in a
Windows machine and formatting it there; it would be nice to know how
to restore the thumb drive to working order on Debian.

Thanks,
Lee