Windows Util

[nupiuser]

Hate to be vague! I'm a brand new, 1st time user, and I have the PI 2 B+ board, and was extremely excited to get it to a point to use. I am a PC technician and no stranger to OSs, Boot sequences, OS images, hardware, networking, etc. But this problem with the win utility that extracts the image, and writes it to a SD card, gave a very strange dialog box. It informed me that the utility will NOT execute because it needs a higher lever???????? (HUH) I'm already doing things at the ADMINISTRATOR level, and I have no idea of what they are talking about. If for some reason you folks can't help directly with this problem, maybe someone here can suggest a different utility to get this image file written to a SD card, so I can get things going. THANKS IN ADVANCE for any, and all, help and pointers!

[mahjongg]

which windows utility is that?

[texy]

Hi and welcome to the forum.
You fail to tell us which OS you've downloaded and which 'win utility' you are referring too?
For 'windows' world SD writer, one of the favourites is win32diskimager. This is ideal to write, for example, Raspbian, once unzipped, to an SD card as a '.img' file.
Texy

[DougieLawson]

If you're a new user you will have a much better experience if you use NOOBS. There's clear instructions for going from a download to a bootable NOOBS SDCard

https://www.raspberrypi.org/help/noobs-setup/
and
https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentati ... n/noobs.md

You don't need that SD formatter utility for a factory fresh SDCard (if it's less than 64GB), in the unlikely event that it needs re-formatting just stick it in your phone or tablet.

[Joe Schmoe]

If you're a new user you will have a much better experience if you use NOOBS...

You don't need that SD formatter utility for a factory fresh SDCard (if it's less than 64GB), in the unlikely event that it needs re-formatting just stick it in your phone or tablet.

I'm surprised to read this from you, Dougie. Are you sure someone else (someone sensible) hasn't hacked into your account?

I've always argued that NOOBS is better than the raw images (both for the newbie - since there is a lot less than can go wrong - and for me, just because it is so much easier) and that the SDcardformentingassociatingtool thing was unnecessary and as likely to mess things up as to help (if you don't know what you are doing).

But (and here's the thing that confuses me) I always thought you were part of the pro-raw-image (*), pro-SDcardformentingassociatingtool crowd (along with most of the rest of the advice-givers on this forum).

Color me pleasantly surprised!

(*) And thus, by implication, pro-Win32DiskImagingToolPrograming thingie.

[DougieLawson]

The absolute newbie should ALWAYS use NOOBS because for 999999/1000000 times it's going to work. There's even a case for using NOOBS lite as long as their network isn't too slow.

Using raw *.IMG files is for the novice user NOT the newbie, because it needs that Win32DiskImager piece of stuff (or Apple Pie Baker) to get it written to an SDCard. I use dd on a Raspberry to write my raw images.

I won't use NOOBS because it's just an annoyance that gets in my way. There is one of my RPis that is running NOOBS because that's a project I'm working on not something I chose.

[Joe Schmoe]

Thanks for the clarification of your position.

It seems for the most part we are on the same page.

I think part of the problem for some of the other advice-givers is that they fail to realize that sometimes "Do as I say, not as I do" is a Good Thing. I.e., they associate that position with being hypocritical, and thus work to avoid being seen as taking that stance. The result is that they fail to distinguish between what is best for the newbie vs. what they themselves do.

Of course, I personally, still think that NOOBS Lite should always be the preferred route and other routes (such as the various middleweight or heavy versions of NOOBS and/or the "raw images") should only be used in specialized, specific, sorts of situations.

But that's just me...

P.S. As far as I can tell, since you mentioned network speeds, it is faster (and quite a bit faster) to use NOOBS Lite than it is to do it via any of the "heavy" versions. This is because with the NOOBS Lite install, you end up downloading and installing in parallel, which saves time vs. the "standard NOOBS" method - where you spend a lot of time downloading a big hairy thing, then have to spend X amount of time installing it onto the Pi. I.e., these operations end up being done serially, rather than in parallel.

[nupiuser]

Many thanks to all replies by everyone. I did read each one.

I thought it was an indication from the message that I use Windows to do things at the moment because I was asking abt the Windows util, win32diskimager. My bad! This was the utility recommended in the RASPBERRY magazine where I was doing research on the board, software, and other items needed. Matter of fact, this utility was sorta recommended over NOOBS.

[Joe Schmoe]

Many thanks to all replies by everyone. I did read each one.

I thought it was an indication from the message that I use Windows to do things at the moment because I was asking abt the Windows util, win32diskimager. My bad! This was the utility recommended in the RASPBERRY magazine where I was doing research on the board, software, and other items needed. Matter of fact, this utility was sorta recommended over NOOBS.

I think you were a victim of old information and/or inertia on the part of advice-givers (and magazine writers) who are used to the old fashioned ("raw image") way of installing and just haven't cottoned to the NOOBS way.

[Heater]

Admittedly I have never tried a NOOBS installation but could someone please explain how it can make installation of Raspbian easier than using the Raspbian image directly?

Put image on card, by whatever means, put card in Pi, boot up, answer some questions, job done. How could anything be easier, unless you buy an SD card with OS already loaded and ready to go?

If I understand if offers a selection of operating systems to install. That just seems like an extra complication to me. Another thing to understand and decision to make at a time when you don't know anything about anything.

[ThomasS]

NOOBS allows you to install operating systems for the Pi without the need for any as much new software on your Windows computer. You just need the formatting tool from SD Formatter. There's a guide at https://www.raspberrypi.org/help/noobs-setup/. It basically simplifies the installation process because the NOOBS software handles most of the install. It also allows (normally) you to install a new operating system if your SD card get corrupted - i.e. usually because you unplug the Pi without shutting down.

[DougieLawson]

Many thanks to all replies by everyone. I did read each one.

I thought it was an indication from the message that I use Windows to do things at the moment because I was asking abt the Windows util, win32diskimager. My bad! This was the utility recommended in the RASPBERRY magazine where I was doing research on the board, software, and other items needed. Matter of fact, this utility was sorta recommended over NOOBS.

NOOBS wins hands down because you only need stock standard Win7, Win8, Win8.1 or Win10 on a laptop with an SDHC card reader to create a bootable SDCard for the RPi. There is NO extra software needed.

Go and read the MagPi Magazine issue #36. It has up to date "unboxing" instructions.
https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/the-ma ... -in-print/

I still think you should stick with the well known route to getting your new RPi running.

[Joe Schmoe]

You don't need the SDfomentingassociatingtool. Full stop.

Actually, nobody would ever argue that you need it unless you mess up your card and need to start over (the perennial "But Windows says I only have 50 meg free on the card" problem). Even then, you don't really need it, in any realistic sense. There are other, better, ways of getting the card back into NOOBS-ready shape.

The only thing you might need to install on your WIndows machine in order to get Raspbian going with NOOBS is UNZIP.EXE, but even then:

1. You probably already have it. If you don't, you should.
2. You don't even really need it, because you could use the built-in unzipping capabilities of current versions of Windows. But if you do choose that route, you'll probably make mistakes copying the unzipped files from your hard disk to the card.

[Heater]

Ah, Ok. I think I get the idea. NOOBS is a work around for the limitations of Windows operating systems. Fair enough. The instructions for installing NOOBS are more complex than just copying a Raspian image directly to an SD card and require a download from a third party. And I guess they don't work for us Linux users anyway, unless we skip the part about the SD card association formatter.

[DougieLawson]

Ah, Ok. I think I get the idea. NOOBS is a work around for the limitations of Windows operating systems. Fair enough. The instructions for installing NOOBS are more complex than just copying a Raspian image directly to an SD card and require a download from a third party. And I guess they don't work for us Linux users anyway, unless we skip the part about the SD card association formatter.

NOOBS doesn't need ANY extra software everything is built-in to ALL supported versions of Windows.
Copying an image to the raw device needs special software. It needs Win32DiskImager to do that.

[Heater]

Dougie,

That may well be true. However it's not what the guide for installing NOOBS says.

As you say, Windows is lacking, out of the box, a basic disk image copying tool.

Then there is that extra step of selecting an OS on boot up. Trivial I guess, but probably a mystery if you have no idea about the various options.

[DougieLawson]

Then there is that extra step of selecting an OS on boot up. Trivial I guess, but probably a mystery if you have no idea about the various options.

You've clearly never booted a NOOBS card.

[Joe Schmoe]

A bunch of nonsense...

FTFY.

The only salient point here is that it is no big deal for old hands like us, who understand about things like images and the related topics, and who know what the ultimate goal is (because we're used to it from long ago - don't forget that in the very early days of Linux [before many of the posters here were born], you had to use a DOS program called RAWRITE.EXE to make a Linux boot floppy), to write an image to an SD card (which is really just the modern day version of a boot floppy).

But for newbies, to whom all those concepts are foreign and might as well be science fiction, there's a world of difference.

As I said earlier, sometimes "Do as I say, not as I do" is a justifiable stance.

[Heater]

Dougie,

No I have not. But for once I did RTFM:

Your Raspberry Pi will boot, and a window will appear with a list of different operating systems that you can install. We recommend...

Is TFM wrong in this case?

[kusti8]

Dougie,

No I have not. But for once I did RTFM:

Your Raspberry Pi will boot, and a window will appear with a list of different operating systems that you can install. We recommend...

Is TFM wrong in this case?

No idea what TFM is (some manual?) but that happens on first boot up. Not the best option for headless installs, but most newbies using NOOBS are going have a screen. If only one OS is installed, then you don't choose an OS to boot at all.

For newbies, I think it's a good thing, but you can actually learn a lot from writing an image instead (if you're a newbie).

[Joe Schmoe]

No idea what TFM is...

The, cough, fine manual. As in, read the fine manual (RTFM).

[Heater]

Joe Schmoe,

Heater wrote:
A bunch of nonsense...

So polite, thank you.

It's not clear to me that having to select from a bunch of operating systems that one has never heard of is any clearer to a new comer than than just having the recommended system out of the box. Why do that?

No, the whole idea of NOOBS is just a work around for the lack of a dd or rawrite type utility in Windows.

Harking back to the "good old days" of rawrite is not really appropriate: Linux was just a wild idea, an experiment for serious nerds, back then. Besides one soon got a RedHat CD that just booted to what you want.

[Joe Schmoe]

Harking back to the "good old days" of rawrite is not really appropriate: Linux was just a wild idea, an experiment for serious nerds, back then. Besides one soon got a RedHat CD that just booted to what you want.

Wow! You had bootable CDs??? You must be just a kid.

I had been using Linux for several years before there really were big companies involved in making distros. I actually remember when I did start using Red Hat on a CD and noting how much easier it was than in the old days.

[Joe Schmoe]

No, the whole idea of NOOBS is just a work around for the lack of a dd or rawrite type utility in Windows.

Actually, I do sorta agree with that. Although, I need to point out that:

1. That's a BIG what-if. I.e., the whole idea of Windows - the whole culture driving it is antithetical to the concept of having a "dd" or "rawrite" type utility. It's not just a casual oversight on their part.
2. There are actually quite a few other advantages to NOOBS, but, yeah, not having to teach yourself the "wah" of the idea of what a "dd" or "rawrite" utility would do, is the primary one.

[Heater]

Joe,

Are we scoring "old fart" points here

As it happens I did not discover Linux until 1996 or so. Shortly after I finished working with VMS. I do recall the rawrite period. RedHat came later. Soon after that I got the company I was working for at the time to switch their embedded systems from VxWorks to Linux.

Where are we going with these tails...

It was up hill both ways when I were a lad...