replacing the Startup Disk Creator

[Marc Deslauriers]

On 2015-09-19 09:27 AM, J wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 18, 2015 at 8:42 PM Marc Deslauriers <marc.deslauriers at canonical.com
> <mailto:marc.deslauriers at canonical.com>> wrote:
> 
>     Hi,
> 
>     Thanks for trying it.
> 
>     On 2015-09-18 06:01 PM, J wrote:
>     > I'm just going to throw this out there, because I abandoned SDC
>     > (usb-creator-gtk) ages ago in favor of unetbootin, and this thread prompted me
>     > to spend some time this afternoon checking it out and seeing if it was
>     usable or
>     > not.
>     >
>     > Keep in mind, this is my sample size of one, but I tried three ISOs:
>     >
>     > original 14.04, most recent 15.04 and todays 15.10 daily live.
>     >
>     > I also tried 3 different USB sticks, an ADATA 16GB USB3, a Sony 8GB USB2 and a
>     > generic 4GB USB2 stick.
>     >
>     > I use LTSs for desktop, thus I have a current and fully updated 14.04.3
>     system.
>     > I also, for grins, tried creating these using both a USB3 hub that I use
>     mostly,
>     > and directly attached to a USB3 port on my system, an HP Z220 workstation.
>     >
>     > 1: Not all of the options via CLI seem to work
>     > https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/usb-creator/+bug/1497431
> 
>     I can reproduce this on vivid. Thanks for reporting it.
> 
> 
> FWIW, that particular command is also broken in the all Trusty versions
> (original, the version currently in updates, and the version in proposed).  I
> presume the fix (which is linked already to the bug) will SRU at some point into
> Trusty.

Yes, it's a simple fix and should be SRUed.

> 
>     > 2:  I was, using three different sticks, three different ISOs on my updated
>     > trusty system, unable to create ANY successful usb stick:
>     > https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/usb-creator/+bug/1497445
> 
>     This is because the usb-creator that is in trusty-proposed, and already marked
>     as "verification-failed" is broken. Could you please try it again with the
>     version that is in trusty?
> 
> 
> As noted in the bug, I tried (just the 14.04.3 ISO this time) with the version
> in trusty-updates AND the original trusty  version, and both failed at the
> bootloader install point.  Bug updated.

That's because you downgraded the package without rebooting, so you were still
running the broken dbus service from -proposed. Please install 0.2.56.3ubuntu0.1
and reboot and try again.

>  
> 
>     > 3:  I discovered that not only was I unable to create a usb stick using
>     > usb-creator-gtk, it also fails to clean up after itself after it fails to
>     create
>     > usb sticks, leaving all sorts of mounted filesystems behind:
>     > https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/usb-creator/+bug/1497449
> 
> 
> My first failure today was because of no available loop devices... I tried a few
> more things yesterday and forgot to clean up all the loop mounts, so when I
> tried this morning, I couldn't mount anything because all the loop devices were
> used up.

Yes, clean up should definitely be handled better. This is another issue that
would be solved by removing the persistence feature and simply writing out the
image.

> 
>  
> 
>     >
>     > So, point is, I completely understand the frustration that the others feel,
>     > because I feel it myself, and have for some time, especially when usb-creator
>     > has over 450 open bugs right now of varying importance, 205 of which are still
>     > in the New state going all the way back to Lucid and still untriaged.  I,
>     > myself, have 10 bugs filed against it, none of which were every moved
>     beyond New
>     > or Confirmed.
>     >
>     > There appear to be 899 total bugs for usb-creator
>     > 424 in some open state (New, Confirmed, Triaged, Incomplete)
>     > 0 in In Progress or Fix Committed
>     > 229 in Fixed Released
> 
>     That's not so bad, there are currently 3676 open bugs for the kernel and 2018
>     open bugs for Unity :)  
> 
> 
>  Good point.  Thats a different perspective, certainly :D
> 
>     > Today, when I want to try a daily image, I use a VM because I don't have
>     to make
>     > a bootable usb stick to boot a VM.  If I want to install to bare metal, I have
>     > to use unetbootin, because for all its flaws, it works far more often than
>     not,
>     > and certainly more often than SDC, for me.
>     >
>     > And I can only base this on my one experience, because while you may, somehow,
>     > be able to build USB sticks all day long using this tool, I, generally,
>     have had
>     > the opposite experience with it, going all the way back to pre-Lucid.
>     > So it would seem to me that there are quite a few open and reported issues for
>     > usb-creator that present the perception of essentially being ignored.
>     >
>     > In any case, the above is my personal experience, and I don't presume to speak
>     > for anyone else in this discussion, so grain of salt, YMMV, and all that.
> 
>     Every bug is important. What's needed is volunteers to help fix them.
> 
> 
> True, the perception remains though, and honestly, with a nod to Nick, I don't
> have an answer for that issue.  It stems, I think, from (AIUI) the fact that
> most bugs filed are filed by users, not developers (e.g. people who really
> haven't got the skill set to actually fix the bugs they find), which is actually
> one reason I find the all too common bug reply of "Patches welcome LOLZ" to be
> particularly galling. 
> 
> From my own perspective, yeah, I may actually be able to fix the three bugs I
> reported (I say May having never actually looked at the source code), but I have
> work to do of my own and I can't spend time fixing things that annoy me because
> I have to fix things that impact my daily work. (And yeah, I understand the
> issue from the developer side too.  As I said, there's no easy answer I can
> think of, so again, props to Nick for trying to solve these issues).
> 
> Anyway, thanks for peeking at those bugs, I've updated them with info this morning.
>  

Yes, definitely a big thanks for starting this thread. It certainly highlights
issues and frustrations users are having, and they most certainly need to be
addressed whether by replacing SDC with something better or by fixing it.

Marc.