this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2023
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Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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I've been messing with my flash drives trying to follow some random documentation with dd and now both of my flash drives are reporting 0 bytes of free space. I was trying to clear out everything and start from scratch as if they were new. I wonder if there are any program out there that can just sudo reset-everything /dev/sdX

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Block devices are simply devices that hold data. That's all. For a block device to be "formatted," you typically want a partition table, a partition, and a filesystem in that partition.

For flash storage, the most common off-the-shelf solution is a DOS partition type with a single partition that occupies the entire storage, and a FAT32 filesystem.

On larger or more modern devices, you'll typically see a GPT partition table with a single partition with exFAT. This setup allows you to store files larger than 4 GB.

You can simply use fdisk to create or modify a partition table and create a partition. You'll want to use a mkfs tool to create the filesystem.