[01:54] <lotuspsychje> good morning
[04:02] <marcoagpinto> Morning!
[10:02] <tomreyn> regarding creating a windows installer on ubuntu / linux - this may get funny with windows 11, where i assume the windows installer will want to boot with secure boot enabled, and then probably with 'the right' mok.
[10:03] <tomreyn> all of the woeusb, woeusb-ng and ventoy as well as the manual approaches i've seen discussed on the web seem to rely on grub as a boot loader.
[10:07] <TJ-> the whole 'lets put ourselves inbetween firmware and installer' is so fragile
[10:07] <TJ-> I thought Windows ISOs nowadays 'just worked' to boot and install?
[10:07] <tomreyn> which layer of firmware do you mean? ;)
[10:08] <tomreyn> i haven't tried whether you can just dd / cp the iso to a usb
[10:08] <TJ-> the motherboard's
[10:09] <tomreyn> thanks, and sorry, i should have tried harder to point out that this was not a seriuos question.
[10:09] <TJ-> https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10iso
[10:10] <TJ-> "You can use this page to download a disc image (ISO file) that can be used to install or reinstall Windows 10. The image can also be used to create installation media using a USB flash drive or DVD."
[10:10] <tomreyn> i sadly did need to install windows lately, and ended up creating the installer using a windows vm, and their installer making software their
[10:11] <tomreyn> yes, yes, you can do so, if you know how to properly write the iso to the usb stick, and if the windows installer will be happy to boot that way
[10:12] <TJ-> well, assuming based on ren0v0 asking in #ubuntu, then 'dd' or 'cp' :)
[10:12] <lotuspsychje_> i used to make my win iso's with winusb/woeusb but i hear good things on that new ventoy tool
[10:14] <TJ-> but what does it do, or need to do, that makes it a choice if the ISO is a standard hybrid bootable image?
[10:16] <TJ-> I've just read the woeusb-ng and it doesn't tell me it does anything additional since it says "woeusb: A command-line utility that enables you to create your own bootable Windows installation USB storage device from an existing Windows Installation disc or disk image" - "from an existing installation disc or disk image"
[10:16] <TJ-> so what does it add?
[10:16] <lotuspsychje_> not sure myself, but tested other tools to burn win iso's they failed a lot
[10:17] <TJ-> I'd be interested to know in what way they fail
[10:18] <lotuspsychje_> dont know the exact errors they gave me, but they didnt boot like the usb's winusb made
[10:19] <lotuspsychje_> i got some usb's laying around if you wanna see their content
[10:19] <tomreyn> all i know is that both woeusb and woeusb-ng failed for me when i was trying to create a windows 10 installer usb yesterday. woeusb-ng failed to install on my 18.04 lts due to a non-resolvable python dependency (IIRC), and woeusb failed to properly copy the files to the usb (i suspect it created a fat32, not ntfs file system, which would not fit all data).
[10:20] <lotuspsychje_> tomreyn: did you try the snap woe-usb or manual download?
[10:21] <tomreyn> manual installation
[10:21] <tomreyn> or actually non-installation, it's just a bash script
[10:21] <TJ-> I suspect it is because they insert themselves between the firmware and Windows at boot-time, or do you mean they fail to even write the image correctly?
[10:22] <tomreyn> fail to write the image correctly
[10:22] <lotuspsychje_> tomreyn: this is what i passed to a user last week trying to get woe-usb properly work; https://www.linuxuprising.com/2020/10/how-to-make-bootable-windows-10-usb-on.html
[10:22] <TJ-> a lot of those tools seem to be instigated by a lack of knowledge of how the boot process works
[10:23] <lotuspsychje_> from what i understand, that woe-usb gui doesnt work and only cli way working
[10:23] <tomreyn> thanks lotuspsychje_ - i did indeed not specify --target-fileesystem ntfs
[10:23] <tomreyn> i had not tested the gui
[10:24] <lotuspsychje_> there was a working woeusb snap before, then it vanished, now the new one gives issues
[10:24] <tomreyn> which?
[10:25] <lotuspsychje_> woe-usb  v3.3.0   ernytech   -      WoeUSB is a tool to create Windows USB stick
[10:26] <tomreyn> 3.3.0? this seems to be old.
[10:27] <lotuspsychje_> thats the only thing we still have for ubuntu :p
[10:28] <tomreyn> i'll see whether just cp works
[10:28] <lotuspsychje_> allright good luck tomreyn 
[10:29] <tomreyn> thanks. i solved it yesterday for my needs, though
[10:48] <tomreyn> just "cp" won't work
[10:49] <tomreyn> the iso is either not bootable at all then or it boots but then the installer fails to find relevant drivers, so the installation cannot continue
[10:49] <tomreyn> those different results were on different hp laptop models
[11:26] <daftykins> puzzled, you surely know that you don't need a utility at all... just format FAT32 and then extract the Windows ISO contents onto it - when EFI boot is planned
[11:27] <tomreyn> you know this works?
[11:27] <daftykins> of course
[11:28] <daftykins> you typically can't dd Windows ISOs
[11:29] <tomreyn> fat32 should be too small though, isn't it?
[11:30] <daftykins> my English UK images are 1 GB leaner than the US ones, the largest file is under 4 GB so works out fine
[11:40] <tomreyn> the us english i have contains a 3.6 GB file /sources/install.esd but that's the largest, too
[11:41] <tomreyn> this one is mbr partitioned (only), created by 'media creation tool'
[21:14] <TJ-> in case it is of any use, I've just written a new tool 'df-unmounted' to report file-system usage identically to 'df' - anyone find it may be useful tell me what file-systems you'd need to support
[21:16] <sarnold> ooh, what's it do? does it mount and then unmount again? or does it use libmount to do the 'mounting' outside of the main kernel?
[21:18] <TJ-> no, it doesn't mount
[21:21] <tomreyn> what does it do, though? if it does the same as df, then what's the purpose of the tool?
[21:21] <tomreyn> or does it report unallocated space on unmounted file systems without mounting those file systems?
[21:21] <tomreyn> (just guessing, based on the name)
[21:23] <sarnold> TJ-: oh my. does that mean you've implemented enough filesystem driver in userspace to figure this out?? :)
[21:29] <TJ-> no, it doesn't mount
[21:30] <tomreyn> for ext*, i guess you could use dump2fs to determine this, but i guess you did it differently, and not just for one file system?
[21:37] <TJ-> it does it for /unmounted/ file-systems without needing to mount, just simple, but identical output to df
[21:37] <TJ-> sorry, long way from AP right now and keep losing connection
[21:41] <tomreyn> that sounds like it should go into debian for sure
[21:45] <tomreyn> personally, in this utility, i'd like to see ext 2-4, exfat, less so fat32, xfs, maybe ntfs, btrfs and zfs support
[22:41] <TJ-> I'll take a look at those others; I only use ext4 and btrfs currently
[22:42] <TJ-> and don't use anything not in mainline kernel
[22:52] <tomreyn> redhat is meaning to make xfs into a properly licensed zfs from what i read.
[23:06] <VMGuy23> tomreyn: i got fix-your-connectioned can you let me back into the other channels please
[23:06] <tomreyn> VMGuy23: please join #ubuntu-ops and discuss which channels those are