Why dd is not a reliable command to write bootable .iso files to USB thumb drive?

Posted by Samik on Ask Ubuntu See other posts from Ask Ubuntu or by Samik
Published on 2012-06-12T20:47:03Z Indexed on 2012/06/12 22:48 UTC
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boot

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usb-drive

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iso

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dd

As the answers here indicate Ubuntu .iso s are not expected to boot if copied with dd to a USB thumb drive.

Now my question is why is so that some Linux distributions have the option to directly write their bootable .iso file to a thumb drive with dd but some (read Ubuntu) have not(for Ubuntu I think it has to be converted to .img first). Is it for some architectural difference in .isos? Or is it due to any limitation of dd itself?

I don't know if it is off-topic here. I can move it to a more proper place if the community thinks so or suggests one. Some explanation would be appreciable.

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