How To Try Linux Without Making Any Changes To Your PC
Linux succeeds at many things, including offering its users nearly limitless choice. But choice can be overwhelming. When it comes to choosing a distribution or «flavor» of Linux, there’s a lot to consider. Do you want the look and behavior of a desktop environment you’re familiar with? Do you need a lightweight, no-fuss operating system that can breathe new life into your aging PC, or something that compliments your modern hardware and caters to your creativity? Speaking of hardware, are you questioning if your computer can even run Linux?
Test drive ALL THE PENGUINS
There’s an easy way to experiment and answer those questions: taking a Linux operating system for a test drive without making any harmful changes to your PC.
If you’re thinking of switching to Linux or merely want to take it for a spin to see what the fuss is about, you’ve probably started doing your homework. Researching the popular distributions you’ve stumbled across Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Manjaro, Fedora. You’ve realized that most of them have multiple variants with different appearances and features. Unfortunately, reading reviews and first impressions articles like this one can only take you so far. Sometimes you need to get your hands dirty.
Enter the concept of a bootable Live USB drive. This is a terrific feature of Linux operating systems that allows you to try them out running directly from a USB stick, without making any harmful changes to your computer. In this guide I’ll show you how to create a Live USB on either your Mac or Windows PC so that you can get a first-hand taste of what various Linux distributions look like, how they behave, and discover if your hardware is supported (it most likely is).
Running from a Live USB doesn’t require any changes to your hard drives. You can browse the web, look around at the interface, and dig under the hood a bit without any worry of losing data from your existing operating system. So let’s do this!
Step 1: Grab A USB Stick
This one’s easy. Any USB stick with at least 4GB will do the trick. The software you’ll download next will erase it though, so make sure you copy any important files off of it first. Then insert it into any of your USB ports (if it has a blue tip indicating USB 3.0, make sure to insert it into a corresponding blue port to increase transfer speed).
Step 1a (macOS users): Format Your USB Stick
Optional: Use Disk Utility on macOS to format your USB stick.
Once you’ve backed up any files on it, you may prefer to format your USB stick to ensure compatibility. This is super simple. Just launch Spotlight and type Disk Utility. Then select your USB stick on the right (it should be under your main macOS drive) and choose «Erase.» Give it a name if you’d like, choose MS-DOS (FAT) as the format, and «GUID Partition Map» for the scheme. Now click Erase.
WARNING : I’ve had no trouble installing Ubuntu and Linux Mint on an older MacBook Air, but modern MacBook Pros (2016, 2017, 2018 models) are presenting some challenges to the Linux community. Audio drivers, WiFi drivers, and the built-in keyboard and touchpad are problematic. If you try on newer MacBook hardware, do not expect everything to «just work,» unfortunately.
Step 2: Download UNetBootin
This is a simple and efficient tool. We’re choosing this because it’s small, easy to use and works across Windows, macOS and Linux.
Download the Windows version here. Download the macOS version here.
Just choose a download location you’ll remember. If the download starts automatically, chances are you’ll find it in your Downloads folder. Now just launch UNetBootin from its download location; no installation is necessary.
Step 3: Choose Your Linux Distribution
UNetBootin lets you create a Live USB in one of two ways. You can directly navigate to a distribution’s website, for example this download page for Linux Mint — and use the resulting ISO file (that’s a disc image) to flash onto the USB stick.
It’s as easy as choosing your distribution and selecting the proper USB disk
The easier way? Just choose the Download option and select your desired operating system from the Distribution dropdown menu. This may give you pause. There are a lot of options here. To get your feet wet, I suggest trying one of the following first:
- Ubuntu 18.04: The most popular Linux desktop. It’s very clean, intuitive and has a unique interface. Ubuntu just gets out of your way and lets you enjoy your computing experience.
- Linux Mint: If you’re comfortable with the window behavior and menu styles of Windows 7, 8 or 10, consider Linux Mint for your first choice.
When you select either Ubuntu or Linux Mint, you’ll notice that the dropdown box on the right side contains multiple versions of each OS, but it should by default select the newest 64-bit version. If you’re unsure, select «Ubuntu 18.04 Live x64» or «Linux Mint 17.2 Live x64.» These are the latest 64-bit, Live USB versions.
Sidebar : Do you have a 64-bit CPU to run a 64-bit operating system? Chances are very high that if you bought or built your PC in the last 8 years it came with a 64-bit processor. If you don’t want to leave it to chance, view this short Microsoft Support guide to figure it out on Windows. If you’re using a Mac, click here for Apple’s guide.
On the bottom of UNetBootin you’ll see the destination drive it’s going to download and install to. It should automatically detect your USB stick and select it, but if you have multiple USB sticks inserted, double check! Go to «My Computer» on or click the folder icon on the bottom taskbar in Windows, or use Finder on macOS and make sure it’s the right one.
Persistence storage option for Ubuntu
Tip : If you’re going to test drive Ubuntu, you can select any additional space on your USB stick for «persistent storage.» This means that software you add and changes you make will remain there, and you can even run it on another computer (don’t worry, Linux will load that computer’s drivers at startup)!
Now just click OK and your chosen distro will download and the disk image will be transferred to your USB drive.
Step 4: Configure Your PC To Boot From USB
Windows and macOS systems typically boot from either a CD/DVD drive or hard drive first, so we need to tell the system to check for a USB stick before that by accessing the BIOS. This step can be tricky because the instructions vary depending on your motherboard. Let’s tackle Windows system first.
You’ll need to press a certain key on your keyboard right after you power on your PC. Watch for a message that may be displayed telling you which key to press to enter «BIOS» or «Setup.» For the majority of systems, you’ll probably want to hit the «DEL» key.. Sometimes it may be F12, F11, F10 or F2. If in doubt, consult an online manual for your motherboard or look online.
BIOS Screen for an ASUS motherboard
Some systems may also prompt you to simply hit a certain key to access your boot menu. If so, do that and select your USB drive.
Every BIOS screen is different, but I’m using an MSI motherboard so I’m showing that example above. Ordinarily you’ll need to find a category called «Boot» where you’ll see the order your PC looks for devices to boot from. Click on the top or first option and change it to USB, or drag the USB icon(s) to the top.
Made it this far? Awesome! Now hit «F10» and select «Save settings and reboot.» (Again the wording may be slightly different on your PC).
On a Mac, hold down the OPTION key and power on your machine to access the bootable USB stick
The nice thing about macOS is that the instructions are pretty uniform regardless of your hardware, and simpler to boot (pun intended). From a power off state, power on your Mac and immediately hold the Option key until the Startup Manager appears. After a few seconds you should see your USB stick. Select it and you’re good to go!
Step 5: Time For The Test Drive
The first screen you’ll see when booting into your Ubuntu Live USB
You have your PC primed to boot from your Live USB, so just power up or restart your PC. If you chose Ubuntu you’ll be asked if you want to Try or Install Ubuntu (click try). If you’re booting up Linux Mint, you’ll see a text menu. Just click «Start Linux Mint» and that’s it!
The attractive Linux Mint desktop
From here you can browse the web, dig into the system and configuration menus, check out the software centers (there’s a large variety of free open source apps here) and get a feel for the operating system as a whole in its default, fresh-install state.
If you’re using Ubuntu and chose the file preservation option when you created your bootable Live USB, you can really have some fun and install additional software (space allowing). Any tweaks or changes you make to the operating system here will be preserved, and you can even run it on an entirely different PC without losing your changes!
Rinse and repeat if you want! Feel free to experiment with various Linux distributions until you find one that’s perfect for you. Stay tuned for more guides, and if you have any questions reach out to me on Twitter.
MORE ABOUT LINUX ON FORBES:
How To Boot Into Linux Command Line
There may be times where you need or want to boot up a Linux system without using a GUI, that is with no X, but rather opt for the command line. Whatever the reason, fortunately, booting straight into the Linux command-line is very simple. It requires a simple change to the boot parameter after the other kernel options. This change specifies the runlevel to boot the system into.
Why Do This?
If your system does not run Xorg because the configuration is invalid, or if the display manager is broken, or whatever may prevent the GUI from starting properly, booting into the command-line will allow you to troubleshoot by logging into a terminal (assuming you know what you’re doing to start with) and do whatever you need to do. Booting into the command-line is also a great way to become more familiar with the terminal, otherwise, you can do it just for fun.
Accessing GRUB Menu
On startup, you will need access to the GRUB boot menu. You may need to hold the SHIFT key down before the system boots if the menu isn’t set to display every time the computer is started. In the menu, the Linux distribution entry must be selected. Once highlighted, press ‘e’ to edit the boot parameters.
Older GRUB versions follow a similar mechanism. The boot manager should provide instructions on how to edit the boot parameters.
Specify the Runlevel
An editor will appear and you will see the options that GRUB parses to the kernel. Navigate to the line that starts with ‘linux’ (older GRUB versions may be ‘kernel’; select that and follow the instructions). This specifies parameters to parse into the kernel. At the end of that line (may appear to span multiple lines, depending on resolution), you simply specify the runlevel to boot into, which is 3 (multi-user mode, text-only).
Pressing Ctrl-X or F10 will boot the system using those parameters. Boot-up will continue as normal. The only thing that has changed is the runlevel to boot into.
This is what was started up:
Runlevels
You can specify different runlevels to boot into with runlevel 5 being the default one. 1 boots into “single-user” mode, which boots into a root shell. 3 provides a multi-user, command-line only system.
Switch From Command-Line
At some point, you may want to run the display manager again to use a GUI, and the quickest way to do that is running this: $ sudo init 5 And it is as simple as that. Personally, I find the command-line much more exciting and hands-on than using GUI tools; however, that’s just my preference.