SOLVED: making a bootable usb stick

as is, it seems, always the way, i went back to the right-click menu on the mounted usb stick and found deep inside a box i could uncheck which when unchecked undoes automount. whereupon a simple command line trick: sudo dd bs=4M if=q4os-2.4-i686pae.r2.iso of=/dev/sde solved the problem. so off we go into the exciting world of Q4OS. pray for me. -- dep The shortest distance between you and playing great acoustic guitar: the great new instructional DVDs from Marjorie Thompson, available at www.MarjorieThompson.com