# Previously I have used Balena Etcher to flash raspberry pi images, but have found that etcher is rather bloated
# and unecessary when compared with the command line tools that are available on nearly all Linux machines.

# Step 1 is very simple, just download the img from the website, once the img is downloaded, you may need to use xz to extract it.

xz --decompress my_rpi_image.xz

# Once you have the image ready, plug in your sd card and use the command lsblk:

lsblk

# Usually the device will appear as something like /dev/sda or /dev/sdb, if there are numbers following sda/sdb, those are partitions.
# It means there is something already written to the sd card, be sure you're ok with deleting and repartitioning the drive.

# To repartition the drive, use the fdisk cli:

sudo fdisk /dev/sda

# Type o to clear out any partitions on the drive.
# Type p to list the partitions, there shouldn't be any left.
# Write the partition table and exit by typing w.

# Create the ext4 filesystem:

mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda

# Copy rpi image to sd card using dd:

sudo dd if=/path/to/rpi_image.img of=/dev/sda

# Depending on the size of the image, this might take a while, there won't be any progress bar or anything , but remain patient,
# it will write the img eventually and then you're all set.