Creating bootable linux usb drive

Create a bootable USB stick on Ubuntu

Creating a bootable Ubuntu USB stick is very simple, especially from Ubuntu itself, and we’re going to cover the process in the next few steps.

Alternatively, we also have tutorials to help you create a bootable USB stick from both Microsoft Windows and Apple macOS.

2. Requirements

• A 4GB or larger USB stick/flash drive
• Ubuntu Desktop 14.04 or later installed
• An Ubuntu ISO file. See Get Ubuntu for download links

3. Launch Startup Disk Creator

We’re going to use an application called ‘Startup Disk Creator’ to write the ISO image to your USB stick. This is installed by default on Ubuntu, and can be launched as follows:

1. Insert your USB stick (select ‘Do nothing’ if prompted by Ubuntu)
2. On Ubuntu 18.04 and later, use the bottom left icon to open ‘Show Applications’
3. In older versions of Ubuntu, use the top left icon to open the dash
4. Use the search field to look for Startup Disk Creator
5. Select Startup Disk Creator from the results to launch the application

4. ISO and USB selection

When launched, Startup Disk Creator will look for the ISO files in your Downloads folder, as well as any attached USB storage it can write to.

It’s likely that both your Ubuntu ISO and the correct USB device will have been detected and set as ‘Source disc image’ and ‘Disk to use’ in the application window. If not, use the ‘Other’ button to locate your ISO file and select the exact USB device you want to use from the list of devices.

Click Make Startup Disk to start the process.

5. Confirm USB device

Before making any permanent changes, you will be asked to confirm the USB device you’ve chosen is correct. This is important because any data currently stored on this device will be destroyed.

After confirming, the write process will start and a progress bar appears.

6. Installation complete

That’s it! You now have Ubuntu on a USB stick, bootable and ready to go.

If you want to install Ubuntu, take a look at our install Ubuntu desktop tutorial.

Finding help

If you get stuck, help is always at hand:

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Create a bootable USB stick with Rufus on Windows

This tutorial will show you how to create a bootable USB stick on Microsoft Windows using Rufus.

For most users we recommend balenaEtcher instead of Rufus which is simpler to use and also available on MacOS and Ubuntu. Instructions are now included in the primary Install Ubuntu Desktop tutorial.

Creating a bootable Ubuntu USB stick from Microsoft Windows is very simple and we’re going to cover the process in the next few steps.

Alternatively, we also have tutorials to help you create a bootable USB stick from both Ubuntu and Apple macOS.

2. Requirements

• A 4GB or larger USB stick/flash drive
• Microsoft Windows XP or later
• Rufus, a free and open source USB stick writing tool
• An Ubuntu ISO file. See Get Ubuntu for download links

Take note of where your browser saves downloads: this is normally a directory called ‘Downloads’ on your Windows PC. Don’t download the ISO image directly to the USB stick! If using Windows XP or Vista, download version 2.18 of Rufus.

3. USB selection

Perform the following to configure your USB device in Rufus:

1. Launch Rufus
2. Insert your USB stick
3. Rufus will update to set the device within the Device field
4. If the Device selected is incorrect (perhaps you have multiple USB storage devices), select the correct one from the device field’s drop-down menu

You can avoid the hassle of selecting from a list of USB devices by ensuring no other devices are connected.

4. Select the Ubuntu ISO file

To select the Ubuntu ISO file you downloaded previously, click the SELECT to the right of “Boot selection”. If this is the only ISO file present in the Downloads folder you will only see one file listed.

Select the appropriate ISO file and click on Open.

5. Write the ISO

The Volume label will be updated to reflect the ISO selected.

Leave all other parameters with their default values and click START to initiate the write process.

6. Additional downloads

You may be alerted that Rufus requires additional files to complete writing the ISO. If this dialog box appears, select Yes to continue.

7. Write warnings

You will then be alerted that Rufus has detected that the Ubuntu ISO is an ISOHybrid image. This means the same image file can be used as the source for both a DVD and a USB stick without requiring conversion.

Keep Write in ISO Image mode selected and click on OK to continue.

Rufus will also warn you that all data on your selected USB device is about to be destroyed. This is a good moment to double check you’ve selected the correct device before clicking OK when you’re confident you have.

If your USB stick contains multiple partitions Rufus will warn you in a separate pane that these will also be destroyed.

8. Writing the ISO

The ISO will now be written to your USB stick, and the progress bar in Rufus will give you some indication of where you are in the process. With a reasonably modern machine, this should take around 10 minutes. Total elapsed time is shown in the lower right corner of the Rufus window.

9. Installation complete

When Rufus has finished writing the USB device, the Status bar will be filled green and the word READY will appear in the center. Select CLOSE to complete the write process.

Congratulations! You now have Ubuntu on a USB stick, bootable and ready to go.

To use it you need to insert the stick into your target PC or laptop and reboot the device. It should recognise the installation media automatically during startup but you may need to hold down a specific key (usually F12) to bring up the boot menu and choose to boot from USB.

For a full walkthrough of installing Ubuntu, take a look at our install Ubuntu desktop tutorial.

Finding help

If you get stuck, help is always at hand:

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How to Create a Bootable Linux USB Flash Drive?

One great thing about Linux is that you can try it out without installing it on your hard drive. Most Linux distributions provide disk images (ISO files) that contain everything you need to boot into a live environment and, optionally, begin installation.

But how do you transfer a downloaded disk image to a USB flash drive? In this article, we provide three solutions to help you create a bootable Linux USB flash drive on Linux, Windows, macOS, and even Android.

Create a Bootable Linux USB with Etcher (Linux, Windows, macOS)

Written in Electron, Etcher is a cross-platform open source utility for flashing disk images to USB drives and memory cards. It runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux and provides an approachable graphical user interface that reduces the process of creating a bootable Linux USB to just three simple steps.

Unlike other similar software tools, Etcher prevents users from accidentally wiping their entire hard drives, which is something you’ll definitely appreciate if you’ve never created a bootable USB before and understandably feel anxious about the process.

To create a bootable Linux USB with Etcher:

1. Download Etcher from its official website.

3. Select the ISO file you want to flash to your USB drive.

4. Specify the target USB drive if the correct drive is not selected already.

5. Click the Flash! button and wait for the process to finish.

Create a Bootable Linux USB with dd (Linux, macOS)

dd is a command-line utility for Unix-like operating systems whose primary purpose is to read/write data from/to device files, such as USB flash drives. Because dd is bundled in GNU coreutils, you can find it on virtually all Linux distributions, as well as on macOS.

To create a bootable Linux USB with dd:

1. Open your favorite terminal emulator.
2. Issue the following command (replace /dev/sdx with your drive and path/to/ubuntu.iso with the actual path to the ISO file you want to flash):

The version of dd included in GNU coreutils doesn’t provide any progress indication. If you’d like some reassurance that the transfer is progressing as it should, you can use the following command (replace dd-pid with the process-id of dd, which you can find using htop):

dd for windows

There’s actually a version of dd for Windows that provides all the functionality you need to transfer an ISO file to a USB flash drive. To install it:

1. Download the latest version from its official website.
2. Extract the downloaded archive to a new folder on your hard drive.
3. Open Command Prompt and navigate to the folder with dd for Windows.
4. Use dd for Windows just like you would the version included in GNU coreutils.

Unfortunately, dd for Windows was last updated in 2010, and many users have reported issues when using the utility in Windows 10. Considering that dd for Windows doesn’t even support data conversion, such as byte order swapping and conversion to and from the ASCII and EBCDIC text encodings, you’re probably better off using either Etcher or Rufus, which we describe in the next chapter.

Create a Bootable Linux USB with Rufus (Windows)

Before the release of Etcher in 2016, Rufus was the best way to create a bootable Linux USB in Windows. This bootable USB flash drive creator is much faster than all of its Windows competitors, and it can create live USB drives for systems with both BIOS and UEFI. Rufus has been translated into several dozen languages, and it’s compatible with Windows 7 and newer, both 32- and 64-bit.

To create a bootable Linux USB with Rufus:

1. Download Rufus from its official website.
   • You can choose between an installer and a portable version.
2. Install it if you’ve downloaded the installer. Otherwise, you can just launch it.
3. Select the target USB device.
4. Click the SELECT button next to the boot selection dropdown menu and specify the ISO file you want to flash.
5. Choose the correct partition scheme for your system.
6. Click the START button.
7. Wait for Rufus to finish.

In addition to creating live Linux USB flash drives, Rufus can also flash Windows disk images.

Create a Bootable Linux USB with EtchDroid (Android)

The last utility we want to describe is called EtchDroid, and its purpose is to write OS images to USB drives on Android smartphones and tablets.

Why would you want to use your Android device to create a bootable Linux USB? Well, imagine you find yourself in the middle of nowhere, and your laptop stops working after a botched system update. Without another computer to use, your only option on how to create a bootable Linux USB to fix the issue is your Android device, and that’s where EtchDroid comes in.

To create a bootable Linux USB with EtchDroid:

1. Download EtchDroid from Google Play or F-Droid.
2. Connect a USB flash drive to your Android device using a USB OTG adapter.
3. Launch EtchDroid and select the Write raw image or ISO option.
4. Select your ISO image.
5. Select the USB flash drive.
6. Tap Write to write the image to the USB flash drive.

EtchDroid has been tested with Ubuntu and its derivatives, Debian, Fedora, Arch Linux, and Raspberry PI SD card images. It doesn’t work with Windows, macOS, and old GNU/Linux distros. Support for Windows installation ISO files is on the developer’s to-do list.

About the author

David Morelo

David Morelo is a professional content writer in the technology niche, covering everything from consumer products to emerging technologies and their cross-industry application

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