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USB Stick Writer

Writing a disk image to a USB stick, and checking that it arrived

USB Stick Writer (Launchpad, or right-click an image in Files → Open With) puts a disk image on a USB stick — an Aurora ISO to install from, or any other system's.

  1. Choose the image: an .iso or .img. Compressed downloads work as they are (.gz, .xz, .bz2, .zst, and a .zip holding a single image): they are unpacked while they are written, so there is no need to unpack a five-gigabyte download first.
  2. Choose the stick. Only removable and USB disks are listed, and the disk this system is running from is never among them — nor, on a live session, the stick you booted from. A disk that is mounted says where, and is unmounted for you.
  3. Erase and Write. The dialog names the stick, its size and the image; everything on the stick is replaced.

Checking the download first

Check the download compares the file with its SHA-256 — the long line of letters and numbers a download page gives you. If the download came with one beside it (aurora-os-0.1-amd64.iso.sha256, or a SHA256SUMS naming it), it is filled in for you; otherwise paste it from the page. Named checksum records must match the complete image filename; GNU text/binary and BSD SHA256 (filename) = hash records are supported. Check reads the file through and says whether it matches. Worth doing before writing: a half-finished download makes an installer that fails in the middle, and the check is the only way to tell one from a good one by looking.

Options

Check the stick afterwards
On by default. Reads the stick back when the write is done and compares it with the image, byte for byte. Worth the extra minute: a stick that quietly drops writes is the usual reason a freshly made installer won't boot, and a counterfeit stick that claims more space than it has is caught here rather than halfway through an installation.
Eject when finished
On by default. Flushes the stick and powers it down, so it can be pulled out as soon as the window says so.

Both are remembered for next time.

Giving a stick its life back

A stick that has carried an installer is no use for files: it holds a read-only image, and Windows offers to format it. The menu's Erase the Stick… makes it one empty disk again, with a name you choose and a format: exFAT (the default — Windows and macOS read it too, and it holds files larger than 4 GB), FAT32 (what the oldest things read) or Ext4 (Linux only, with permissions).

Writing asks for your password, because overwriting a disk needs it. The checks above are made again by the part that runs with those privileges (/usr/libexec/aurora-usb-write), so a mistake or a misbehaving program cannot talk it into writing over the system's own disk.