I am trying to execute the x64 AppImage file on a Pi. Is this the correct file to launch Etcher? It gives me a can't launch binary file message. Format of command is
sudo install balenaEtcher-1.5.101-x64.AppImage balenaEtcher-electron
Does this look right? I get messages that it is unable to locate package.
Etcher isn't available for Raspberry Pi. It's binaries are for Windows, macOS, or linux provided that the linux is running on x86 (Intel or AMD) hardware. Raspberry Pi is based on ARM and is not compatible.
I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to do (i.e. Why did you want to install Etcher on a Raspberry Pi?) If trying to create a bootable OS image for the Raspberry Pi, that's normally done using another computer (e.g. Window, mac, or linux box).
You can use the 'dd' utility in Linux to create an SD card on the Pi (no need to use Etcher).
The command syntax is:
dd if=<input file or device> of=<output file or device> bs=<blocksize>
e.g.
dd if=2020-05-27-raspios-buster-full-armhf.img of=/dev/sdb bs=8m
This would copy the image file to the device /dev/sdb using a blocksize of 8 megabytes (the exact value of the blocksize can vary ... the default is 512 bytes. dd is not multi-threaded. It reads a block then writes a block and continues until done. Using a bigger block size just makes it a little more efficient.
Also, do not attempt to clone your Raspberry Pi's OS image while the Pi is running off that image (this would result in a corrupted target image.) You can use dd to clone a device (e.g. clone a microSD card to another microSD card provided they are the same size (or the target can be bigger)) but the source card can't be in use (it can't be running the Raspberry Pi at the time.)
dd doesn't give you any feedback ... you wont see a progress indicator. You just wait until the command prompt returns (which will take several minutes).
To determine the output device, plug in the target microSD card.
Use lsblk to see the devices. If your new microSD card had any existing filesystems on it, those will be on numbered partitions and mounted in the /media folder on your pi. You need to unmount them.
e.g.:
pi@tims-raspi-8gb:/boot $ lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sdb 8:16 1 29.8G 0 disk
├─sdb1 8:17 1 43.9M 0 part /media/pi/boot
└─sdb2 8:18 1 29.8G 0 part /media/pi/rootfs
mmcblk0 179:0 0 119.3G 0 disk
├─mmcblk0p1 179:1 0 256M 0 part /boot
└─mmcblk0p2 179:2 0 119G 0 part /
In the example above, the microSD card was /dev/sdb (it doesn't show the /dev prefix) but it has two partitions ... /dev/sdb1 and /dev/sdb2 and these are mounted in the /media... directory. I would need to unmount those.
umount /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdb2
Now that the device is not in use it can be used by dd. The target of the 'dd' command needs to be the device itself... not one of the partitions on the device. e.g. use /dev/sdb ... not /dev/sdb1 or /dev/sdb2. Also, the device might not necessarily be /dev/sdb ... which is why you need to use 'lsblk' to list the devices.
Make absolutely certain you have selected the correct target device ... because dd is going to overwrite whatever device you give it as an output file.
Balena Etcher is available for Raspberry pi. you have to download the arm version from git
Then follow the instruction procedure(This worked on 64 bit UBUNTU on RPi4). Alternatively you can use rpi-imager.
