Why I prefer to use optical media to USB thumbdrives for OS installations

[liam_on_linux]

Not only do I have recent, decent-performance, still-perfectly-usable PC hardware that can't boot off USB, or can but can't remember the setting* so that it has to be done every time you need it, but I also note that the BIOS in the current shipping versions of both VirtualBox and VMware cannot boot from USB devices.

It is not a rare or uncommon

Comments

[steer]

There's also the extra time taken and the exciting sense of uncertainty as to whether it has burned correctly or whether you'll get a "bad read" two hours in.

[liam_on_linux]

[Laughs]

True.

Well, mostly. Two *hours* in? Really? What are you installing on, a 386?

[steer]

*Heh* Was thinking of windows... two hours in you're probably only on your fourth or fifth reboot.

[liam_on_linux]

:¬D

All right, although to be fair, Win7/Win8 are significantly better in that regard.

But after the first reboot or 2, did even the old versions still need the CD?

[dougs]

USB is better:
- A lot of the servers I've installed recently don't have optical drives.

CDs are better:
- The Debian/Ubuntu installer has a terrible habit of putting the grub boot sector onto the USB stick you just installed from instead of the HDD, which means your newly-installed server boots just fine until you remove the USB stick, and you discover that (a) there's no boot sector on the HDD and (b) the USB stick won't boot properly next time you use it because it's got the wrong boot sector on it. This doesn't happen with non-writeable boot media.

There's a debate to be had.

[liam_on_linux]

Expected advocacy on both sides. Didn't see that coming. :¬)

Both points are good ones, I'd say. I've not seen the behaviour you report under Ubuntu, but I have seen its like on other OSes.