dd command: BSD analog of conv=fsync?

[Thomas Mueller]

> In the last episode (Nov 18), Thomas Mueller said:
> > What is the (Free)BSD counterpart of conv=fsync in dd command?

> > Command in question is

> > dd if=GNOME-3.6.0.iso of=/dev/DRIVE bs=8M conv=fsync

> > This is for writing to a USB stick, and of course DRIVE is replaced by the
> > actual device node; also I believe bs=8M, good for Linux, would be bs=8m
> > in FreeBSD.

> > I don't really know if "conv=fsync" is necessary, but that's what was
> > advised in the GNOME test-drive download page.

> It isn't.  Writing to raw devices in FreeBSD immediately writes to the
> physical media.  No flushing is needed.

> --
>         Dan Nelson
>         dnelson at allantgroup.com

I was able to dd GNOME-3.6.0.iso to that USB stick, a discontinued Kingston
Data Traveler model that was inaccessible to NetBSD until they fixed that
USB bug recently.  I got CAM SCSI error messages in FreeBSD, couldn't access
the USB stick in the normal way, but apparently dd worked.  These particular
Kingston Data Travelers worked normally with previous builds of FreeBSD.

That USB stick proved bootable, so I got a test drive of GNOME 3.6.0.

I had a difficult time finding my way around the graphical interface,.  When
I got to a command prompt, I found first there was no nslookup, and then found 
there was no man command.  I thought these were a standard part of (quasi-)Unix
OSes.  I didn't really get a good impression.  Also, the print/text was very
small, a recipe for eyestrain.

Tom