xzsize() { xz --robot --list "$1" | awk '/^file/ { print $5 }'; } XZ=img.xz; xzcat "$XZ" | pv -s $(xzsize "$XZ") | dd bs=1M conv=fsync of=/dev/sdcard I've used this to test a recent Raspberry Pi image. -- Martin Vidner, YaST Team https://twitter.com/mvidner/status/1007193514441142273