Doing a Disc Image on Raspberry-Pi with Linux

Before I try, is it possible or practical to flash a disc image to an SD card using the linux dd command on the Raspberry-Pi? I would like to flash a card with ro519-rc8-1876M/img and am wondering whether the Raspberry-Pi using a linux card would be up to the job. I fear it might go on for hours without me being able to interrupt the process.
If the answer is yes, is it best to have the image file stored on the SD card in the Raspberry-Pi, i.e., the one it boots from, or on a USB stick (where it is at the moment).
When I tried this on an EeePC running linux, the dd command failed with “permission denied”. I hope I don’t run into that again.

An alternative method is to use CloneDisc by Ben Avison. This allows you to write the SD card on a RISC OS machine fitted with a card reader. You simply use CloneDisc to write the downloaded disc image to the card. I find it works well using either an Iyonix or ARMini. My RaspberryPi is running a card with rc8 written in this way, using the BB. It didn’t take an inordinate amount of time, probably 15 mins or so.

CloneDisc also allows you to make backup cards so you can keep a card known to be good when experimenting with leading edge releases of the OS.

I have try (m)any way to write a image to find the best way for me.
DD works with the Pandora and with a Ubuntu netbook, but you need root rights or must be a sudoer with root rights.
On the Pandora I have the Image on the left card and wrote this to the right one. On the netbook the Image was on a Stick and I wrote this to a external cardreader. I’m not try it with RPi-Linux.
Wrote the RPi Image with the NutPi CloneDisc works not in my test (no boot possible), writing via SDCreate under RISC OS works with a fresh SDCard, with a old one it makes often problems. If I use SDFormat under WIN before, no problems.
Win32Imager and USBit under WIN works also.
The writing times are comparable. If I use the Pandora, it take the same time with DD under Linux or with SDCreate under RISC OS.

Thanks Chris for Information. I found Clone Disc on the Piccolo systems website and was about to buy it when I thought of looking to see whether it was on my NutPi card. Sure enough it was. Copied it to the Iyonix. When I tried to run it, a window appeared asking for my username and product key. It said I should have received these in an “email within a fewe days of your purchase”. Eh? I purchased NutPi back in November and can’t find any such email.
I have managed to get a serial number for NutPi by running !NutPiSerial (There were problems with this as it wouldn’t run it from a card reader stuck in the Raspberry-Pi, declaring disc empty despite the fact that its directory window was open! I had to take out the RISCOSPi card and stick the NutPi card in there!). Anyway, that serial number doesn’t seem to have the same format as the “Product key” which has 7 fields each taking up to 5 characters.

NutPi is only for the RPi… If you will use it on a other machine you must buy a new licence. Thats the reason, I mean.

I suspect the version on the NutPi card will only work on the RaspberryPi itself.

Yes, I thought so just before the last 2 posts. I was just ready to submit the post and Netsurf crashed out (could be the fault of textile as it doesn’t seem to like certain editing). :-(

I did manage to get CloneDisc to open its initial window. The problem I had was in getting !NutPiSerial to run. I got a message saying that “disc drive was empty” despite the fact that its directory window was open. How could I attempt to run !NutPiSerial otherwise? :-( I had to remove the RISCOSPi card from the Raspberry-Pi (seems like taking your harddrive out of your Iyonix) and inserting NutPi in there to run !NutPiSerial.
Presumably, the version of CloneDisc on the Piccolo website will work on the Iyonix, Beagleboard and Pandboard as well as Raspberry-Pi?

Interestingly I haven’t managed to get my full version of CloneDisc to work doing this job.

I have used CloneDisc (full copy) on both the Iyonix and ARMini (BB) without problem. Since both machines have only one card reader (or suitable slot) cloning a card is done in two steps by copying the card as an image to the hard drive, and then writing the image back to a new card.

In the case of the latest Raspberry-Pi disc image, I downloaded the image to hard drive and simply wrote that to a new card with CloneDisc.

I have not tried CloneDisc on the Raspberry-Pi. Maybe I will give it a go.

Success! I didn’t reckon there would be room on the SD card, RISC OS Pi, to store the image as there was only 1627Mbytes free space and the image is 1876Mbytes. I had the image on a USB stick and wanted to stick it on an SD card. I used a ‘single slot’ card reader (rather than another 4 slot one) as I thought 5 extra ‘discs’ would confuse Raspberry-Pi. I have just booted up with the new RISC OS RC8 and it works!
Well done Ben Avison!
I’ll look in my piggy bank to see whether I have enough for the full version, otherwise I will have to save up. :-)

So I can say goodbye to diskimager running on the devil’s own OS and need not worry about not having ‘permission’ with dd on linux.

All you need to do on Linux is precede the ‘dd’ command by ‘sudo’, or by ‘su -c’ — depending on what version of Linux you have installed. You will need to supply either your own password (for sudo) or the root password (for su).

Just be aware that dd takes some time to run and (unlike Win32DiskImager) doesn’t give you a progress report.