Feature request: Automatic handling of compressed images

[emk2203]

It would be nice to have Etcher-like functionality to detect and handle compressed images like img.xz.

This in addition to handling img files in general.

[jsamr]

@emk2203 The thing is, it would add a lot of new dependencies for what seems like an edge-case. What is your typical use case?

[emk2203]

The typical use case would be just that: Taking a downloaded system image in img.xz format and having bootiso handle it transparently. These are used a lot for Raspberry Pi and other single-board computers. When using dd, I would just pipe the file from the decompressor, but with bootiso, it's not so easy.

The process would be:

• feed file into bootiso when prompted
  • bootiso uses as-is if img or iso file
  • with .xz extension, file gets passed through xzfirst for on-the-fly decompression

If xz is not installed, which is unlikely, just an error could be given.

[davidebeatrici]

For reference:

xzcat file.img.xz | dd of=/dev/sdx

[jsamr]

For reference:

xzcat file.img.xz | dd of=/dev/sdx

We don't use dd 100% of the time. For instance, to handle windows images or when we manually install a bootloader.

[davidebeatrici]

Right. I believe supporting xz archives for Linux images would already be a great start though.