How to create a Windows bootable USB drive in Ubuntu

For the impatient

Use the DD command as root:

sudo dd bs=4M if=<Windows ISO file> of=<USB target device> status=progress oflag=sync

Example:

sudo dd bs=4M if=/home/user/Win11_22H2_EnglishInternational_x64v1.iso of=/dev/sda status=progress oflag=sync

Output:

5544869888 bytes (5,5 GB, 5,2 GiB) copied, 180 s, 30,8 MB/s
1322+1 records in
1322+1 records out
5548056576 bytes (5,5 GB, 5,2 GiB) copied, 180,268 s, 30,8 MB/s

Reboot and use.

Explained

Recently, I needed to create a bootable USB to install Windows 11 from my Ubuntu installation, but the first hits on Google were either based on custom GUI-based applications or long videos.

As an old UNIX guru I remembered that we used to use the dd command to do this, and I had to dig a bit to remember, but found the solution, and I share it here with you so you also can do this in a few seconds with no additional software.

The DD command copies a source to a destination byte by byte, disregarding what the source and the destination file type is. An ISO image contains a sequential file system of a given size determined by the file size. The USB device under the /dev file system and that has a physical size limit of a given number of bytes. Given that the USB drive capacity is larger than the ISO file, you can just do the raw copy as shown above.

Measuring your blood pressure on Samsung Galaxy Active 2 watch

How to calibrate and re-calibrate blood pressure app on your Samsung Galaxy Active 2 watch

I recently bought my first smart watch, a Samsung Active 2, mainly after I read the news about it being able to measure my blood pressure -soon.

At the time of writing, the Samsung Galaxy Active 2 watch offered blood pressure readings only in Korea, but thanks to the smart people over at XDA-developers, I was able to install the app successfully.

The first time you set up the app and every 28 days onwards you’ll need to calibrate the watch with a proper blood pressure monitor. I didn’t have one when I installed the app, so I just plotted in some random values within the normal range for a guy my age.

After some research I bought a Marqant Electronic Blood Pressure Monitor (880138) and decided to re-calibrate my watch. That feature was well hidden in the phone app, hence this howto! 😉 Btw, there is no way to force a recalibration from the watch.

Here’s what I had to do: Open app -> Press «View full chart» -> Select menu at the top right -> Select «Recalibrate» -> follow on screen instructions.

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Jeg landet en jobb!

1. oktober stod jeg i et åpent landskap med alle muligheter foran meg i søken etter drømmejobben. Etter kort tid kom jeg i kontakt med Nikolai Fasting, seriegründer og medeier av en innovasjonsklynge under holdingselskapet Hydra Media Technologies AS. Midt i klyngen ligger Syncano, som er navnet på både selskapet og produktet selskapet leverer. Den 1. november startet jeg som «VP Client Solutions» i Syncano. Så hvorfor tok jeg denne jobben?

Read the English version of this blog post on linkedin.

Såh, hva nå Gustavo?!

Det gikk kun tre uker fra jeg ga muntlig beskjed til jeg hadde min siste arbeidsdag i Computas, uten en ny jobb å gå til. I dag står jeg med et lukket kapittel bak meg og et hav av muligheter foran meg.

Så hvor går ferden nå?

Read the English version on Linkedin.

Bash in Windows and PowerShell in Linux, what a treat!

I have been an avid user, sysadmin and developer of Linux and UNIX systems since the mid-nineties. I have spent endless hours in religion-like discussions on whether closed source software is for better or worse. I never thought that Microsoft would embrace Free Open Source Software (FOSS).

Early this month, Microsoft released the Anniversary update on Windows 10, which enables me to run bash in Windows.

Equally, Microsoft’s PowerShell (PS) now also runs on Linux: https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell

Great news! The systems now can gain value from each other!

The value of PowerShell in Linux

I truly believe that PS brings value to Linux, given that it can handle structured data, not just strings through STDIN, STDOUT and STDERR. I have written many scripts in UNIX, automating system administrative tasks, and I have always missed the possibility to handle structured data. The way around that has been to use Perl, Python or any other scripting language with more power than shell scripting.

The value of bash in Windows

Although you don’t get access to all Windows system resources (kernel) through bash for Windows, it is still a step in the right direction to bring the automation power of the UNIX shell into Windows. This power has enabled system administrators of UNIX systems to be highly efficient for decades, and it was the lack of it in Windows systems that put many UNIX administrators off managing Windows systems, where everything has to be done through the click of a Graphical User Interface (GUI) element such as a window, button or drop-down list.

Bash for windows, brings all the headless binaries (programs running without a GUI) from the UNIX world into Windows along with Python, Perl and all other scripting languages. I just installed ffmpeg, a powerful commandline audio/video editor, into bash in windows, which enables me to automate the creation and conversion of multimedia into the format I wish. Pretty amazing!

Some tips to get more out of bash for windows

1. Always run ‘bash for windows’ as Administrator. This way to will get access to parts of the running kernel though /proc, and the ability to access system resources such as the networking interface needed to run commands such as ‘ping’.

Run Windows 8.1 with dual boot and through a virtual machine

Although I’ve been a Linux/Unix-fanatic for almost two decades, the reality is that from time to time, I need to use MS Office, MS Outlook og MS Project at my day job.

I’ve had Windows 8.1 side by side with Linux for a while now, but I am seriously getting tired of having to boot between the two operating systems. So I had this idea:

Surely, it must be possible to boot the already installed Windows 8.1 through a virtual machine from my Linux desktop.

Indeed, it does! And here’s how to do it!

Thunderbird as client for Microsoft Exchange 2010 server on Ubuntu 15.04

A while back I posted a howto on running Thunderbird on Ubuntu 11.04 (64bit) as a fully functional client for the Microsoft Exchange 2010 server. There has been a few improvements since then, so this is a complete HOWTO for Ubuntu 15.04.

Back in 2011, I was able to connect my company’s Microsoft Exchange 2010 server from my beloved Mozilla Thunderbird client thanks to a link posted by tanstaalf to a French project named DavMail. The solution lies in installing an Exchange gateway called DavMail.

About reading books

I’m reading a lot more books now than before, and a random thought hit me: When you read a book, and the policeman is closing in on the murderer at an early stage in the book, you always know that the murderer is either the wrong guy or he’s not going to get caught simply because there’s so much left of the book. It would be much more exciting if one didn’t know how big the book is. How could we make that happen? Perhaps difficult with an actual book, but surely possible with a digital book!

Styr unna forhåndsbestillingen til Asker og Bærum taxi!

Idag hadde vi litt av en avgang.

Vi forhåndsbestilte taxi igår via Asker og Bærums flotte app. Siden dette med apps er nytt, ringte jeg igjen 45 minutter før vi skulle bli hentet og sjekket at bestillingen var ok, sentralen bekreftet.

3 minutter før bilen skulle ha plukket oss opp ringer sentralen opp igjen og sier at de ikke får tak i noe bil. Etter en runde med kjeft, bestemte jeg for å ta min egen bil til stasjonen og få en nabo til å hente den senere.

Det er helt utrolig at et stort taxiselskap som Asker og Bærum taxi kan ha en så dårlig  tjeneste på noe som er så kritisk for brukerne som bestiller tjenesten. Det er tydelig at selskapet ikke har prioritert tjenesten.

Jeg råder andre som skal belage seg på forhåndsbestilling av taxi å heller gjøre en direkte avtale med en taxisjåfør.

Mine elleve bud for oppdragelsen av min datter

Bilde lånt av http://lunabellehadley.deviantart.com/art/Father-and-Daughter-s-hands-166135332

Jeg mener at selvtillit og selvfølelse er to av de viktigste grunnstenene i personligheten til et menneske. Dette er mine elleve bud på hvordan jeg mener at jeg gir det til min datter.

1. Fortell henne at hun er vakker. Si det om og om igjen. Omverdenen vil gjøre sitt for å overbevise henne om det motsatte.