Why I prefer to use optical media to USB thumbdrives for OS installations

Not only do I have recent, decent-performance, still-perfectly-usable PC hardware that can't boot off USB, or can but can't remember the setting* so that it has to be done every time you need it, but I also note that the BIOS in the current shipping versions of both VirtualBox and VMware cannot boot from USB devices.

It is not a rare or uncommon problem.

Yes, I have had dozens of techies say they've never seen it. Well, tough. It's not rare; it just means that they've had a lot less breadth of experience than I have.

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