linux-wiki/dd/Linux dd_tails

Install Tails using dd
Make sure that the USB stick on which you want to install Tails is unplugged.

Execute the following command:

ls -1 /dev/sd?

It returns a list of the storage devices on the system. For example:
/dev/sda

Plug in the USB stick on which you want to install Tails.

All the data on this USB stick will be lost.

Execute again the same command:

ls -1 /dev/sd?

Your USB stick appears as a new device in the list.
/dev/sda
/dev/sdb

Take note of the device name of your USB stick.

In this example, the device name of the USB stick is /dev/sdb. Yours might be different.

If you are unsure about the device name, you should stop proceeding or you risk overwriting any hard disk on the system.

Execute the following commands to copy the USB image that you downloaded earlier to the USB stick.

Replace:

tails.img with the path to the USB image

device with the device name found in step 5

dd if=tails.img of=device bs=16M oflag=direct status=progress

You should get something like this:
dd if=/home/dani/tails.img of=/dev/sdb bs=16M oflag=direct status=progress

If no error message is returned, Tails is being copied on the USB stick. The copy takes some time, generally a few minutes.

If you get a Permission denied error, try adding sudo at the beginning of the command:

sudo dd if=tails.img of=device bs=16M oflag=direct status=progress

The installation is complete after the command prompt reappears.