Linux booting from usb

Quick Guide: Installing Ubuntu from a USB memory stick

This guide will help you install Ubuntu on your computer by using a USB memory stick. USB memory sticks are sometimes known as flash drives, memory pens or USB Mass Storage devices.

Installing from a memory stick is useful if you have a computer without a CD drive (such as a netbook), or prefer the convenience of a memory stick. Alternative methods are available.

It should take around 30 minutes to complete this process, plus the time it takes to download the 700MB installer file. Downloading from a torrent is by far the fastest way of getting it.

This guide will assume that you are running Windows

This guide will assume that you are running Windows. More comprehensive documentation which covers other operating systems is available at Installation/FromUSBStick.

What do I need to get started?

• A memory stick with a capacity of at least 2GB. It will be formatted (erased) during this process, so copy any files that you want to keep to another location. They will all be permanently deleted from the memory stick.
• A computer that can boot (start-up) from a USB memory stick. Many older computers can’t boot from USB – check the boot options in your BIOS (see Start the Ubuntu installer) to see if yours can.
• A computer with
  • at least 384MB of system memory (RAM) for Lubuntu Alternate 32-bit. Other flavours of Ubuntu need at least 1 GB RAM, standard Ubuntu and Kubuntu need 2 GB RAM to work well.
  • 6GB of available hard disk space and
  • a 700MHz or faster x86 processor for Lubuntu. Other flavours of Ubuntu need a more powerful processor, at least a Pentium 4 or similar processor (made around 2004 or later). Most Intel and AMD processors are x86 processors. 32-bit and 64-bit processors are supported.

  Get a copy of the Ubuntu installer

  1. Go to www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download.
  2. The version 16.04.1 LTS of standard Ubuntu or one of the community flavours (Kubuntu, Lubuntu . Xubuntu) is a good choice.
  3. Choose your country (or one nearby) from the Download location drop-down list.
  4. Click Begin download to download the .iso image file needed to install Ubuntu. This will be about 700MB in size.

  You can choose other options, like a 64-bit CD image or a BitTorrent download, by clicking Alternative download options.

  Put the installer on a memory stick

  • Extract the iso file
    • Plug-in your USB memory stick.
    • Go to https://rufus.akeo.ie/ and download the Rufus USB installer. Put it on your Desktop or somewhere convenient.
    • See the detailed instructions at the Rufus website or at https://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/create-a-usb-stick-on-windows

    Start the Ubuntu installer

    To start your computer from a memory stick, you might need to change the order of boot devices:

    1. Plug-in the memory stick and restart your computer.
       • BIOS mode: You should see a purple Ubuntu boot screen with white icons at the bottom (Figure 1).
       • UEFI mode: You should see a black screen with a GNU GRUB menu.
       • If your computer boots back into Windows, it is not yet set-up to boot from USB, so continue following these steps. Otherwise your computer has successfully booted from the memory stick. Skip to the Install Ubuntu section.
    2. If your computer boots back into Windows, restart the computer again. As soon as the first text appears on the screen, press the button to enter your BIOS/system setup. There should be a message telling you how to do this. You normally need to press one of the following keys: F1, F2, Del, Esc, F10, F11, or F12.
    3. A BIOS screen should appear. Find the option to change the Boot Order and change the first item in the boot order list to be USB Disk, or similar.
       • The USB Disk option may have a different name on your computer, for example: Removable Drive; USB-HDD; USB Mass Storage; or USB.
       • If there is no option to boot from USB Disk, your computer may not be able to boot from USB. See the http://www.pendrivelinux.com/testing-your-system-for-usb-boot-compatibility/ for a tool to test if your computer can boot from USB.
    4. After you have changed the boot order, save your changes and restart the computer. It should now start from the memory stick.

    Install Ubuntu

    1. In BIOS mode: Wait a few seconds and Ubuntu will start loading. Otherwise, you can press a key and a boot menu with more options will appear.
       • Press the F5 key to access universal access options like the screen reader and magnifier.
    2. After a few second or a minute or two (depending on your hardware), an Install window will appear. Select your language from the list to the left of the screen and select
       • Try Ubuntu or
       • Install Ubuntu
    • If you want to keep Windows installed and choose whether to start Windows or Ubuntu each time you start the computer, choose Install Ubuntu alongside Windows. This is called a dual-boot setup. Use the slider in the next window to choose how to share disk space between Windows and Ubuntu (Ubuntu should have at least 8 GB of space. It works better with 16 GB or more, which should be possible in a not too old computer).
    • If you want to remove Windows and replace it with Ubuntu, choose Erase disk and install Ubuntu. All of the files on the disk will be deleted before Ubuntu is put on it, so make sure you have backup copies of anything you wanted to keep.
    • For more complicated disk layouts, choose Something Else. You can manually add, modify and delete disk partitions using this option.

    What next?

    • Click the Applications menu at the top of the screen to start a program.
    • Click the Network Manager icon (near to the speaker icon) at the top right of the screen to connect to the Internet.
    • Use the System menu to change settings.
    • You can find help by clicking System -> Help and Support.

    What if things go wrong?

    I can’t boot from USB even though I have USB Disk (or similar) as the first option in my boot list

    Sometimes the memory stick will not be recognized when you boot. Leave it plugged in for 30 seconds or so, then restart with it left plugged-in. Or, unplug the memory stick, restart the computer and then plug it in as soon as anything appears on the screen (i.e. as early in the boot process as possible).

    Also, some BIOS options could interfere with USB booting. Go into the BIOS and try enabling or disabling options like Fast Boot, USB keyboard support and USB 2.0 support. Finally, make sure you haven’t selected a USB-FDD or USB-ZIP boot option. These will not work.

    Is it safer to resize my partition in Windows?

    Some people experience problems when booting into Windows, after they have resized the Windows partition using the Ubuntu installer. See HowtoResizeWindowsPartitions for a guide on an alternative method of resizing a Windows partition which is less likely to cause problems.

    References and further help

    Installation/FromUSBStickQuick (последним исправлял пользователь h196n2 2017-02-04 14:16:21)

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    You can contribute to this wiki, see Wiki Guide for details

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    Booting the Computer from USB

    Remove all unneeded USB items, but keep the network cable attached.

    Boot menu

    Instead of editing BIOS settings, you can choose a boot device from the boot menu. Press the function key to enter the boot menu when your computer is booting. Typically, the boot screen displays which key you need to press. It maybe one of F12, F10, F9.

    Hotkey

    Insert the bootable USB flash drive that you just created in your target computer and restart it. Most newer computers can boot from a USB flash drive. If your computer does not automatically do so, you might need to edit the BIOS settings.

    • It will usually be one of F1, F2, F9, F10, DEL, Enter or ESC.
    • The hotkey should be described in the user manual provided by the manufacturer of the computer (a printed or electronic document).
    • You can also search your hardware on boot-keys.org.

    Press this hotkey continuously or tap repeatedly (different between computers) while your computer is booting to edit your BIOS settings. (On HP Mini Netbooks, the correct key is usually F9.)

    Edit the BIOS settings

    Select ‘hard disk/USB-HDD0’

    Note: with some motherboards you have to select ‘hard disk/USB-HDD0’ to choose the USB flash disk. It may work like this because the system sees the USB drive ‘a mass storage device’ as a hard disk drive, and it should be at the top of the boot order list.

    So you need to edit the Boot Order. Depending on your computer, and how your USB key was formatted, you should see an entry for «removable drive» or «USB media». Move this to the top of the list to make the computer attempt to boot from the USB device before booting from the hard disk.

    Normally you would enter into the BIOS/UEFI menus directly at boot as described above, but if you are running Windows, you can also get there according to this link.

    Chainloading

    The 40_custom method

    In the particular case, that you have linux and grub installed there is also the 40_custom method. Some pendrives boot from grub even if they won’t boot from the computer’s own BIOS USB boot menu entry. See the following link for a background about grub Scripts: /etc/grub.d/

    sudo nano /etc/grub.d/40_custom

    Add the following text to the file 40_custom (notice that it is important to keep the first lines, that come with the file)

    menuentry "External drive (on hd1) if no eSATA drive connected. edit if necessary" insmod part_msdos insmod part_gpt insmod fat set root='(hd1)' drivemap -s (hd0) $ chainloader +1 >

    Then you will get a grub menu option to boot from a second drive (hd1), which could be a USB pendrive. If another drive is hd1, you can edit the line to (hd2) etc.

    If there is no grub menu, press the left shift key during boot, and it should appear.

    This chainloading method does not work in UEFI mode.

    The Chainloader

    This method is developed into a method to boot the computer with one USB drive that is a good booter, and chainload to another USB drive, where the operating system resides. See this link Howto help USB boot drives

    PLoP Boot Manager

    • For old computers that cannot boot from USB. Some computers can see the USB flash drive and may have the option to boot from USB but cannot actually do so. All hope is not lost.

    Requirements

    • Windows running on the computer
    • USB flash drive, ready to boot (shown below)
    • PLoP Boot Manager — Your alternative USB boot method, https://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager/index.html

    Just follow the instructions on the PLop website.

    A detailed guide to make Plop Boot Manager work from GRUB by installing it on hard drive is available here — http://mgw.dumatics.com/how-to-boot-from-usb-when-bios-does-not-have-the-option/

    Flow chart for trouble-shooting

    There is a flow chart for trouble-shooting and corresponding lists of possible causes of problems to boot from USB at the following link,

    Installation/FromUSBStick/bootUSB (последним исправлял пользователь nio-wiklund 2020-07-29 13:21:38)

    The material on this wiki is available under a free license, see Copyright / License for details
    You can contribute to this wiki, see Wiki Guide for details

    Источник

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