# NEW !!! balena-io/etcher for FreeBSD



## Naitikaonyx (Jun 28, 2021)

> balena-io/etcher build-instructions





> # Building etcher on Windows, Linux, and Mac
> 
> > How do you build etcher? On Windows, Linux, Mac
> It’s the same on all systems:
> ...


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## hardworkingnewbie (Jun 28, 2021)

For me the question is: what can this app do, which other programs on FreeBSD cannot do (yet)?

The command line way would be to use dd. And if you want something with a GUI, then there's unetbootin being available which fits that spot quite nicely.

There's IMHO nothing Balena can do which the latter cannot. So there's no strong need to have Balena being available at all on FreeBSD.

More importantly still Electron as its underlying framework is a resource and memory hog directly from hell, because it is basically Chromium running all over the time in the background. Maintaining Electron to be always up to date is challenging.


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## Samuel Venable (Jul 2, 2021)

Etcher can autodetect whether a device has enough storage space to fit the dd img or iso. Other than that dd isn't much different, although it wouldnt surprise me if dd has that feature as well I just havent come across it out of not checking.


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## hardworkingnewbie (Jul 2, 2021)

Unetbootin is able to do that as well. So really not a feature unique to Balena etcher.


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## FrostKiwi (Jul 2, 2021)

hardworkingnewbie said:


> For me the question is: what can this app do, which other programs on FreeBSD cannot do (yet)?
> 
> The command line way would be to use dd. And if you want something with a GUI, then there's unetbootin being available which fits that spot quite nicely.
> 
> ...


100% agree, Electron is a vialation of the Geneva convention. The god aweful load times and the 3 digit RAM usage for a glorified copy-paste operation is painful.

However, I did have times in the past, where for whatever reason SD images would not read properly, when just written directly with dd. Writing it with Etcher solved it. There is some more logic underneath I believe.
Etcher is a go-to "just works" application, highly user-friendly. That design goal it fullfulls masterfully. It has a place and I'm happy it got ported.


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## shkhln (Jul 2, 2021)

These build instructions honestly look like a mistake.


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## grahamperrin@ (Jul 10, 2021)

> … what can this app do, which other programs on FreeBSD cannot do (yet)? …



Post-write verification, with a GUI. From <https://www.balena.io/etcher/>:








> These build instructions honestly look like a mistake.



I haven't viewed them recently, but I did try, a few months ago, to build on FreeBSD.



FrostKiwi said:


> … I'm happy it got ported.



For clarity: it's not in the FreeBSD ports collection.


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## grahamperrin@ (Jul 10, 2021)

Building on FreeBSD · Issue #3552 · balena-io/etcher
					

% pwd /usr/home/grahamperrin/dev/etcher-1.5.120 % make make: "/usr/home/grahamperrin/dev/etcher-1.5.120/Makefile" line 27: Invalid line type make: "/usr/home/grahamperrin/dev/etcher-...




					github.com


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## Sergio Arana (Sep 24, 2022)

hardworkingnewbie said:


> For me the question is: what can this app do, which other programs on FreeBSD cannot do (yet)?
> 
> The command line way would be to use dd. And if you want something with a GUI, then there's unetbootin being available which fits that spot quite nicely.
> 
> ...


I totally agree, the command dd is the easiest and not only that, it is already in your system, you don't have to download any additional software.


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