mkusb fails to make persistent USB

Question

As per the advice in this question, I have attempted to use mkusb to make a persistent USB drive. However, it fails to do so (or any other function it has when pointed at that USB)

If it is relevant, I am running mkusb on Lubuntu an IBM T-42 Thinkpad with 1GB ram and an intel Centrio mobile processor (I had to force PAE on install). I am attempting to boot the liveUSB on a Dell Insperion all-in-one with Windows 8.

Console output of mkusb:

 mkusb-dus - Do USB Stuff 
mkusb-dus needs superuser permissions (sudo) for some tasks, in order to prepare and write to the target, a block device.
 dus 12.0.7 
live system or temporary superuser permissions
Drive that contains source file: /dev/sda
Live drive, that is booted from: /dev/sda
cands=2

  4K

  4K
built-in device
sdb
SanDisk_Ultra
28.7G
usb
USB or memory card
p_target: target=/dev/28.7G
No device or bad device
p_clean:
live system or temporary superuser permissions
clean if necessary and return
 Press Enter to finish mkusb-dus

I will test in my IBM T-42 Thinkpad with a similar USB drive (a 32 GB Sandisk Extreme). Which version of Lubuntu is installed in your Thinkpad? I intend to install the same version in my Thinkpad. — sudodus, Apr 02 '17 at 05:41
Ubuntu 16.10 according to the OS section in system information. (I definatly have Lubuntu, not sure why it says Ubuntu) — J.Smith, Apr 02 '17 at 05:46
OK, I will install it and try. (It will take some time, because the computer is old and slow...) — sudodus, Apr 02 '17 at 05:48
I can confirm that you have found a bug. I think it depends on some 'junk output' that confuses the listing of available drives, when there is a floppy drive. I'm testing a bugfix now. — sudodus, Apr 02 '17 at 08:00

sudodus · Accepted Answer · 2017-04-03T18:06:55.360

After a debugging dialogue, the bug was found and squashed. The problem was some confusing data due to a floppy drive (a bug that only affects very old computers) in the function p_list_drives in the program dus:

grep -v zram --> grep -v -e zram -e ^fd

A new version can be installed via the following commands

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mkusb/unstable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

The current update (2017-04-02) installs mkusb version 12.0.9

Edit: After further testing (2017-04-03) this version is uploaded to the stable PPA, ppa:mkusb/ppa and can be installed via the following 'standard' commands

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mkusb/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

mkusb fails to make persistent USB

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