After downloading a live image, it must be written to bootable media, such as a USB drive, SD card, or CD/DVD.
Create a bootable USB drive or SD card on Linux
Identify the Device
Before writing the image, identify the device you’ll write it to. You can do this using fdisk(8). After connecting the storage device, identify the device path by running:
# fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 7.5 GiB, 8036286464 bytes, 15695872 sectors
Disk model: Your USB Device's Model
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
In the example above, the output shows the USB device as /dev/sda. On Linux, the path to the device will typically be in the form of /dev/sdX (where X is a number) for USB devices, /dev/mmcblkX for SD cards, or other variations depending on the device. You can use the model and size (7.5GiB above, after the path) to identify the device if you’re not sure what path it will have.
Once you’ve identified the device you’ll use, ensure it’s not mounted by unmounting it with umount(8):
# umount /dev/sdX
umount: /dev/sdX: not mounted.
Write the live image
First, wipe any partition table information from the target device, as there may be a partition table left. This is especially common if you had a GPT hybrid OS written in there before (like an x86_64 Linux media) and you are overwriting it with hybrid APM media (which is needed for PowerPC). You can easily do it using wipefs(8):
Warning: this will destroy any data currently on the referenced device. Exercise caution.
# wipefs -a /dev/sdX
/dev/sdX: 8 bytes were erased at offset 0x00000200 (gpt): 45 46 49 20 50 41 52 54
/dev/sdX: 8 bytes were erased at offset 0x12bffe00 (gpt): 45 46 49 20 50 41 52 54
/dev/sdX: 2 bytes were erased at offset 0x000001fe (PMBR): 55 aa
The dd(1) command can be used to copy a live image to a storage device. Using dd, write the live image to the device:
# dd bs=4M if=/path/to/void-live-ARCH-DATE-VARIANT.iso of=/dev/sdX
90+0 records in
90+0 records out
377487360 bytes (377 MB, 360 MiB) copied, 0.461442 s, 818 MB/s
dd won’t print anything until it’s completed (or if it failed), so depending on the device, this can take a few minutes or longer.
Finally, ensure all data is flushed before disconnecting the device:
$ sync
The number of records, amount copied, and rates will all vary depending on the device and the live image you chose.
Burning to a CD or DVD
Any disk burning application should be capable of writing the .iso file to a CD or DVD. The following free software applications are available (cross-platform support may vary):
Note: with a CD or DVD, live sessions will be less responsive than with a USB or hard drive.
