A few hints for creating the USB flash from the image on macOS

On macOS, the instructions are to

# lzma -d nomadbsd-x.y.z.img.lzma
# dd if=nomadbsd-x.y.z.img of=/dev/rdiskX bs=1m

Hint 1:

when writing to /dev/*, you need super-user rights, so you will need to

# sudo dd if=nomadbsd-x.y.z.img of=/dev/rdiskX bs=1m

Edit: I have been informed the # in front of the command means “super-user prompt”, so I removed this hint.

Hint 2:

If, like me, you have BSD CoreUtils installed (via HomeBrew, for example), the block size (bs) of 1m is invalid. You will need to use a capital M, so bs=1M

Hint 3:

If you have aggressive power savings settings, you might want to keep the computer awake during the process;

# caffeinate lzma -d nomadbsd-x.y.z.img.lzma
# caffeinate dd if=nomadbsd-x.y.z.img of=/dev/rdiskX bs=1m

Final thought; As I haven’t tested this it is not a hint, but a thought;
You probably could use BalenaEtcher to write the .img to the USB drive.

Have fun :slight_smile:

Remon

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Hi rmpel,

I am not very familiar with Apple operating systems, so I’m not sure how user / superuser rights work at the command prompt. I typically use the Debian GNU/Linux operating system. At a normal Debian command prompt, the # symbol indicates you are logged in with superuser authority and a $ at the command prompt indicates a normal user login.

When I installed NomadBSD I used the dd command with sudo in front (from a normal user login.) The # at the beginning of the NomadBSD dd instructions informs me that I must use sudo or be logged in as superuser. So, at least with regard to GNU/Linux operating systems, the instructions are good as they are. At least for me.

I think you know exactly how the user rights work on macOS, as macOS is basically BSD with extras. The terminal on macOS is the system, in contrast to Windows with WSL, where super-user in WSL does not make you super user in Windows.

The # in front of the line might tell you, or other experienced Linux/BSD/… users that you need to use sudo, or an elevated prompt, but it will not be as clear to users starting out with this.

Myself, I never looked at the # or the $ in the prompt. Today I have learned something :slight_smile: , thanks.

So that is one hint down. 2 remaining :wink: .