# Balena Etcher won't detect my Balena Fin, on a different computer it does **URL:** \ **Category:** balenaFin\ **Tags:** support\ **Created:** [September 8, 2021, 11:01am UTC](https://forums.balena.io/t/balena-etcher-wont-detect-my-balena-fin-on-a-different-computer-it-does/348017 "2021-09-08T11:01:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![doronbehar](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/balena/user_avatar/forums.balena.io/doronbehar/32/4426_2.png) [@doronbehar](https://forums.balena.io/u/doronbehar)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2021, 11:01am UTC](https://forums.balena.io/t/balena-etcher-wont-detect-my-balena-fin-on-a-different-computer-it-does/348017/1 "2021-09-08T11:01:15Z")
I’m using [NixOS](https://nixos.org/) and I’d like to flash an image to my BalenaFin. I tested Balena Etcher on a Mac computer and it detected the target and I successfully flashed BalenaOS to it. The way NixOS runs appimages is somewhat unique, and I suspect this is a distro specific issue which I don’t expect the community here to help me solve (NixOS runs such appimages in an chroot environment). The issue is that I do see the compute module when I run `lsusb`: ```auto $ lsusb | grep BCM Bus 001 Device 047: ID 0a5c:2764 Broadcom Corp. BCM2710 Boot ``` But in contrast I don’t see any new device when I run: ```auto $ df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on devtmpfs 792M 0 792M 0% /dev tmpfs 7.8G 80M 7.7G 2% /dev/shm tmpfs 3.9G 12M 3.9G 1% /run tmpfs 7.8G 552K 7.8G 1% /run/wrappers /dev/nvme0n1p3 938G 483G 452G 52% / tmpfs 7.8G 104K 7.8G 1% /tmp /dev/nvme0n1p1 511M 160M 352M 32% /boot tmpfs 1.6G 304K 1.6G 1% /run/user/1000 ``` I also tried launching Balena etcher with sudo and it didn’t detect it either. Can I conclude that there’s something wrong with my Linux PC’s hardware not detecting the device? Or is everything OK? Ideally there was some support for a non gui app to flash images to the devices. I noticed there was in the past an [etcher cli](https://github.com/balena-io/etcher-cli), but it’s deprecated now. Can I still use it with the latest Balena Fin hardware? If it’s considered that BalenaFin is detected properly I’ll try to get help at NixOS’ forums. ---
**Author:** ![doronbehar](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/balena/user_avatar/forums.balena.io/doronbehar/32/4426_2.png) [@doronbehar](https://forums.balena.io/u/doronbehar)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2021, 11:42am UTC](https://forums.balena.io/t/balena-etcher-wont-detect-my-balena-fin-on-a-different-computer-it-does/348017/2 "2021-09-08T11:42:05Z")
I managed to install `etcher-cli` outside a chroot environment (unlike the not deprecated Balena Etcher) and I encountered the following error: ```auto x No available drives were detected, plug one in! ``` So I think that’s there _is_ something wrong if I don’t see a new device in `df -h`… ---
**Author:** ![doronbehar](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/balena/user_avatar/forums.balena.io/doronbehar/32/4426_2.png) [@doronbehar](https://forums.balena.io/u/doronbehar)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2021, 11:44am UTC](https://forums.balena.io/t/balena-etcher-wont-detect-my-balena-fin-on-a-different-computer-it-does/348017/5 "2021-09-21T11:44:14Z")
The issue was sort of solved, though there’s an issue open at Etcher’s bug tracker: > > > \- \*\*Etcher version:\*\* 1.5.121 > \- \*\*Operating system and architecture:\*\* NixOS > \-… \*\*Image flashed:\*\* balena-cloud-fincm3-2.80.3+rev1-dev-v12.7.0.img.zip > \- \*\*Do you see any meaningful error information in the DevTools?\*\* Irrelevant > > So I bought a BalenaFin a few months ago, and only now I got the time to use it. I asked a question on the forums but I got no reply: > > https://forums.balena.io/t/balena-etcher-wont-detect-my-balena-fin-on-a-different-computer-it-does/348017 > > Somehow I've found out that I need to run \`rpiboot\` in order for my Balena Etcher to detect the compute module. This issue is a complaint about documentation - is this documented somewhere? Could it be that Etcher should run \`rpiboot\` on it's own and it doesn't do it for me? ---
**Author:** ![ntzovanis](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/balena/user_avatar/forums.balena.io/ntzovanis/32/1150_2.png) [@ntzovanis](https://forums.balena.io/u/ntzovanis)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2021, 9:55am UTC](https://forums.balena.io/t/balena-etcher-wont-detect-my-balena-fin-on-a-different-computer-it-does/348017/6 "2021-09-22T09:55:11Z")
Hi @doronbehar , Thanks for raising the issue! One of our colleagues tried a similar setup and this is what he found: > I ran a live system via a USB stick with NixOS 21.05 (Okapi) on a machine that normally works with the Fin under Linux. I could get the appimage to run by installing `appimage-run` and running `sudo appimage-run ./balenaEtcher-1.5.122-x64.AppImage` . The Fin was detected and started to initialise, but then the USB subsystem stopped responding (this happened both times I tried it). > I tried the same exercise from a live Ubuntu 20.04 system and the USB system also locked-up. > So it seems that you can’t initialise a Fin on a system running from USB storage Etcher runs rpiboot so it can flash the balenaFin, but it seems it can’t do so in that specific setup. The etcher team is now looking at this. Cheers, Nico.