How to Install and Use balenaEtcher on Debian 11 (Bullseye)

Introduction

Before we begin talking about how to install and use balenaEtcher on Debian 11 (Bullseye), let's briefly understand – What is balenaEtcher?

balenaEtcher is a user-friendly tool used for flashing operating system images onto SD cards and USB drives. Whether you're a developer or hobbyist, balenaEtcher simplifies the process of creating bootable drives for devices like Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone.

With its intuitive interface, flashing images becomes quick and effortless. balenaEtcher ensures data integrity, making it a reliable choice for creating bootable media. Upgrade your device's operating system hassle-free with balenaEtcher.

In this tutorial, you will install and use balenaEtcher on Debian 11 (Bullseye). We will also address a few FAQs on how to install and use balenaEtcher on Debian 11 (Bullseye).

Advantages of balenaEtcher

1. Easy to Use: balenaEtcher's intuitive interface makes flashing images onto SD cards and USB drives a breeze.
2. Data Integrity: With balenaEtcher, you can be confident in the reliability and integrity of your bootable media.
3. Versatility: Works with a wide range of devices, including Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone.
4. Time-Saving: Save time with balenaEtcher's quick and efficient flashing process.
5. Hassle-Free Upgrades: Upgrade your device's operating system effortlessly using balenaEtcher.

How to Install and Use balenaEtcher on Debian 11 (Bullseye)

Step 1: Prerequisites

• The Debian 11 System ought to be operational.
• To execute privileged commands, you should have root or sudo access.
• Your system should be equipped with the utilities apt, wget, curl, and unzip.

Step 2: Update Your System

Using the sudo apt update command, as indicated below, you must first synchronize your local System cache with all available package information from all enabled repositories. You must also use the sudo apt upgrade command if any of the packages need to be upgraded.

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

Step 3: Install balenaEtcher

a) Using AppImage

You can use any file transfer program, such as wget, as demonstrated below, to download the Linux-based AppImage file from the official website.

wget https://github.com/balena-io/etcher/releases/download/v1.7.9/balena-etcher-electron-1.7.9-linux-x64.zip

After downloading, use the following command to list the zip file:

ls -lrt balena-etcher-electron-1.7.9-linux-x64.zip

Then unzip the file using the command below:

unzip balena-etcher-electron-1.7.9-linux-x64.zip

Checking the file's execute permission is the next step. You can open Properties by performing a right-click on the file.

For the Execute permission, select the Permissions tab under Properties. If the option to "Allow executing file as program" is not checked, please check it as indicated below.

Once the file has been granted execute permission, double-clicking it will launch the installer as seen below.

b) Using Package Repo

Once the file has been granted execute permission, double-clicking it will launch the installer as seen below.

curl -1sLf 'https://dl.cloudsmith.io/public/balena/etcher/setup.deb.sh' | sudo -E bash

You must use the sudo apt update command after adding the repository in order to update the System cache with all the package data from the recently added repository.

sudo apt-get update

Using the following command, as demonstrated below, you can now install the balenaEtcher package. This will cause the package and all of its dependencies to download and install.

sudo apt-get install balena-etcher-electron

Step 4: Use balenaEtcher to Create USB Image

As indicated below, launch the BalenaEtcher application. First, choose the source from the list of options below: Flash from file, Flash from URL or Clone drive. We will choose Flash from file, since we will be using a Debian ISO Image that is kept in the local driver.

After choosing the ISO image from the Downloads folder, we'll click Open.

As you can see, ISO Image is currently selected. The next step is to click on Select target, as indicated below, to choose a target.

Here, as indicated below, a USB device will be our goal. This drive must be chosen, and then we must click Select.

When chosen, it ought to appear as follows. Having selected the source and target, we can now click on Flash! to flash the drive.

As soon as the flashing begins, you ought to be able to monitor the development as indicated below.

After some time, the screen below with the message "Flash Complete!" should appear.

Step 5: Uninstall balenaEtcher

When you're done with Etcher, you can use the following command to remove it from your system, as demonstrated below.

sudo apt-get remove balena-etcher-electron y

Then, execute the following commands to remove all directories and files connected to balenaEtcher.

rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/balena-etcher.list

sudo apt-get clean

rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

Lastly, use the apt-get update command to update the system cache, as demonstrated below.

sudo apt-get update

FAQs to Install and Use balenaEtcher on Debian 11 (Bullseye)

Conclusion

We hope this tutorial helped you understand how to install and use balenaEtcher on Debian 11 (Bullseye).

If you have any queries, please leave a comment below, and we’ll be happy to respond to them for sure.