My Scripts for ISOs

I’ve never really been into distro-hopping, but I do occasionally put different distros in VMs or actual hardware. I currently run Debian, Linux Mint, Linux Mint Debian Edition, MX Linux, and BunsenLabs on different machines. I keep current ISO files for these distributions as well as a few others that look interest me.

I haven’t always checked the ISO files I download against the checksum files. It seemed like a hassle to do it, but I always confirm that the files I download are genuine.

When I need to install a distro on a laptop or desktop, I generally need write the ISO to a USB stick. Some distros, like Mint, have a utility for that, but I’ve found that it’s not always reliable. I’ve copied ISO files to a USB drive with Ventoy installed, but my experience with Ventoy has been rather disappointing. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t.

The most consistent method I’ve found, particularly for Debian and Debian-based distributions, has been using dd to write the ISO to a USB drive. As everyone knows, dd is potentially dangerous.

To deal with these problems, I’ve written a couple of scripts to verify and reduce the risks. They aren’t fullproof, but they’ve worked well for me.

My check-iso script displays the ISO and checksum files in a directory and prompts me to enter the appropriate files. I can either type them in, but I usually highlight the file with my mouse and use the center-click to copy it to the prompt. I don’t know if that works in all terminals, but it works in Kitty and Terminator. The script then compares the two checksums and tells me whether they match.

When I download an ISO file from a distro’s website, I get the checksum and put it in a file whose name identifies the distro and the type of checksum, for example, distro-iso.sha256. If the site’s checksum file contains checksums for multiple versions, I’ll break that file down into individual files for each because my script reads the first field on the first line.

The write-iso script lists the available ISO files and a prompt. Then it checks to see if a USB drive is attached and mounted, and lists the available removal media with its capacity. The user enters the appropriate device at the prompt and is prompted to confirm the choice which must be explicity answered with yes or no.

When it comes to scripts, like a poem, they’re never finished. Most of the time, they’re abandoned when they’ve outlived their usefulness or I find something else that does the job better.