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how to make bootable usb on a linux mint pc?

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how to make bootable usb on a linux mint pc?

Post by jamesb7a » Wed Jun 28, 2017 5:57 am

I can easily make a bootable USB stick on a windows 10 machine, but on a linux mint xfce machine how do I do it?? I downloaded «etcher» and sucessufully made bootable USB’s with it on a linux mint MATE machine but in xfce it wont open etcher, any suggestions?? THANKS!

Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.

Moem Level 22
Posts: 15621 Joined: Tue Nov 17, 2015 9:14 am Location: The Netherlands Contact:

Re: how to make bootable usb on a linux mint pc?

Post by Moem » Wed Jun 28, 2017 6:04 am

You most likely have a program pre-installed that’s called something like ‘Startup Disk Creator’. That will do the trick. You should see it if you type ‘USB’ in the menu search box.

If your issue is solved, kindly indicate that by editing the first post in the topic, and adding [SOLVED] to the title. Thanks!

Re: how to make bootable usb on a linux mint pc?

Post by Bolle1961 » Wed Jun 28, 2017 7:02 am

sudo dd if=FileName of=/dev/sdX

FileName : name of your iso
/dev/sdX : your USB drive for example sdc
If you start the terminal from the folder where your iso is located you don’t need the complete path name

Re: how to make bootable usb on a linux mint pc?

Post by Hoser Rob » Wed Jun 28, 2017 7:07 am

Moem wrote: You most likely have a program pre-installed that’s called something like ‘Startup Disk Creator’. .

Isn’t Startup Disk Creator the official Ubuntu app for this? Because as I remember it’s actually only good if you’re actually installing Ubuntu but not ubuntu derivatives like Mint. So I wouldn’t use that.

I’ve always used unetbootin to install Mint. Was it installed by default? DOn’t remember but it’s in the repos.

Re: how to make bootable usb on a linux mint pc?

Post by JeremyB » Wed Jun 28, 2017 7:38 am

Wireless Script

Moem Level 22
Posts: 15621 Joined: Tue Nov 17, 2015 9:14 am Location: The Netherlands Contact:

Re: how to make bootable usb on a linux mint pc?

Post by Moem » Wed Jun 28, 2017 8:06 am

If your issue is solved, kindly indicate that by editing the first post in the topic, and adding [SOLVED] to the title. Thanks!

Re: how to make bootable usb on a linux mint pc?

Post by hcentaur13 » Wed Jun 28, 2017 8:20 am

USB Image creator will do the trick for plain old BIOS AND UEFI. In Mint it comes preinstalled.

I use it always to create a bootable stick from a bootable *.img,

mike acker Level 7
Posts: 1517 Joined: Wed Jul 31, 2013 6:29 pm Location: Kalamazoo, MI

Re: how to make bootable usb on a linux mint pc?

Post by mike acker » Thu Jun 29, 2017 8:36 am

just right click on your .iso file and take the «make bootable USB Stick option

remember: writing the .iso will wipe out any data that was already on the stick.

Re: how to make bootable usb on a linux mint pc?

Post by jamesb7a » Fri Jun 30, 2017 6:15 am

thanks guys for the input, sorry for getting back late. I recently moved back to MATE and things are working. but on the USB formatter I can format a usb that was previously made a bootable USB. how can I re use USB sticks that were prevoiusly made a bootable usb stick?? thanks

Re: how to make bootable usb on a linux mint pc?

Post by DAMIEN1307 » Fri Jun 30, 2017 8:42 am

just use the usb stick formatter that is also preinstalled with the usb writter. it will allow you to format in ntfs, fat32, or ext4. it will just simply erase/overwrite the bootable info that is on there. DAMIEN

phd21 Level 20
Posts: 10102 Joined: Thu Jan 09, 2014 9:42 pm Location: Florida

Re: how to make bootable usb on a linux mint pc?

Post by phd21 » Fri Jun 30, 2017 1:51 pm

Welcome to the wonderful world of Linux Mint and its excellent forum !

I just read your post and the good replies to it. Here are my thoughts on this as well.

It would help to know more about your system setup. If you run » inxi -Fxzd » from the console terminal prompt, highlight the results, copy and paste them back here, that should provide enough information.

— All Linux Mint editions come with a really nice USB Image Writer to create a bootable USB flash drive stick, and a USB Stick formatter.

— «Etcher » is a great bootable USB flash drive stick creator, but like all «AppImage» applications, you must first install «fuse» from the «Synaptic Package Manager (SPM)», or from the console terminal command prompt. Just download the Etcher zip archive file for Linux, right click it and extract the «AppImage» file, then just double click that to run it.

— «Unetbootin» works great on all Linux, MS Windows, & Mac.
https://unetbootin.github.io/
To install this using the PPA method, open a console terminal, type in, or copy & paste, each line below one by one:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gezakovacs/ppa

sudo apt-get install unetbootin

— «Startup Disk Creator» is another that is available in the Software Manager or Synaptic Package Manager (SPM).

— For those who don’t know, «MultiSystem» is a small, Open Source freeware to create a multiboot usb drives from Linux systems. Using this utility, we can create any number of bootable Linux distributions in a USB drive. All you need is an Internet connection(at the time of MultiSystem installation only), and a sufficient size of a USB drive depending upon the number of distributions you want to include in that USB drive.
http://www.unixmen.com/create-multiboot . ltisystem/

To install, open a console terminal, type in, or copy & paste, each line below one by one:

sudo apt-add-repository ‘deb http://liveusb.info/multisystem/depot all main’
wget -q -O — http://liveusb.info/multisystem/depot/multisystem.asc | sudo apt-key add —
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install multisystem

Tip1: You must format the USB stick with the «fat32» format, and give it a volume name, before using this program; not just the default «USB STICK» that the Mint USB Stick Formatter shows, that is not a volume name, so change it to something else.

Tip2: If you want «persistence» for a particular Operating System (OS) on this USB stick, then after putting an operating system on the stick, click the operating system you want «persistence» on to highlight it, then click the MultiSystem menu options, and select «persistence», and follow the simple instructions. Then you can add more OS’s, if you want, but only one OS can have «persistence».

Phd21 : Mint 20 Cinnamon & xKDE (Mint Xfce + Kubuntu KDE) & KDE Neon 64-bit (new based on Ubuntu 20.04) Awesome OS’s , Dell Inspiron I5 7000 (7573) 2 in 1 touch screen, Dell OptiPlex 780 Core2Duo E8400 3GHz,4gb Ram, Intel 4 Graphics.

Re: how to make bootable usb on a linux mint pc?

Post by jamesb7a » Sat Jul 01, 2017 7:28 am

System: Host: jamesmatesmallacer-Aspire-X1430 Kernel: 4.4.0-83-generic x86_64 (64 bit gcc: 5.4.0) Desktop: MATE 1.16.1 (Gtk 3.18.9-1ubuntu3.3) Distro: Linux Mint 18.1 Serena Machine: Mobo: Acer model: Aspire X1430 Bios: AMI v: P01-B2 date: 08/03/2011 CPU: Dual core AMD E-450 APU with Radeon HD Graphics (-MCP-) cache: 1024 KB flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4a ssse3 svm) bmips: 6586 clock speeds: max: 1650 MHz 1: 1320 MHz 2: 1320 MHz Graphics: Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Wrestler [Radeon HD 6320] bus-ID: 00:01.0 Display Server: X.Org 1.18.4 drivers: ati,radeon (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: 1920x1080@60.00hz GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on AMD PALM (DRM 2.43.0, LLVM 3.8.0) GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 11.2.0 Direct Rendering: Yes Audio: Card-1 Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Wrestler HDMI Audio driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:01.1 Card-2 Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA) driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:14.2 Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.4.0-83-generic Network: Card: Failed to Detect Network Card! Drives: HDD Total Size: 500.1GB (13.6% used) ID-1: /dev/sda model: ST3500413AS size: 500.1GB Optical: /dev/sr0 model: ATAPI DVD A DH16ABSH rev: YA12 dev-links: cdrom,cdrw,dvd,dvdrw Features: speed: 48x multisession: yes audio: yes dvd: yes rw: cd-r,cd-rw,dvd-r,dvd-ram state: running Partition: ID-1: / size: 451G used: 57G (14%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1 ID-2: swap-1 size: 8.05GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda5 RAID: No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 60.8C mobo: N/A gpu: 61.0 Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A Info: Processes: 174 Uptime: 1 day Memory: 1995.8/7475.4MB Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: 5.4.0 Client: Shell (bash 4.3.481) inxi: 2.2.35

Last edited by Moem on Sat Jul 01, 2017 7:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Added [code] tags for easier reading.

Spearmint2 Level 16
Posts: 6900 Joined: Sat May 04, 2013 1:41 pm Location: Maryland, USA

Re: how to make bootable usb on a linux mint pc?

Post by Spearmint2 » Sat Jul 01, 2017 5:49 pm

Saw this tutorial on another site. It also adds the «persistence» if wanted.

1) If using windows, then use pendrivelinux.com’s Univeral USB Installer

2) If using Linux, such as from LIVE DVD, then use it’s included Startup Disk Creator

3) Decide if you want to use a 32 bit Linux distro or a 64 bit one.

4) Download the ISO file, check it’s sha or md5 sum to verify you got a valid download.

5) Since you have older computer, this will be done with 3 partitions instead of 2, because older BIOS sometimes won’t boot if it detects an ISO9660 aka cdrom format in the first partition, so the cdfs part of LIVE installation needs to be in the second partition.

6) Use GParted or some other partition manager to create a 16 MB FAT16 partition, of msdos type.

7) next create a second FAT32 partition that will contain the LIVE version of chosen distro PLUS an extra GB of room. Reason is because some installer programs which load the LIVE distro on the flashdrive will not allow creation of persistence unless it can make one at least 1 GB in size, such is the linux’s Startup Disk Creator.

8 ) Finally create a third partition in rest of space as ext2 file system. Label it casper-rw.

9) Run the installer program you chose, pendrivelinux or Startup Disk Creator

10) Using the install program, point the OS to be installed to the second partition, and the boot loader to the device itself. For instance when using Linux, if the flashdrive is /dev/sdc, then the boot would be installed to that device, but the LIVE system would be installed to /dev/sdc2.

11) You will then have chance to add «persistence» file to the install. Here you may have a choice in the windows based install of something ridiculously small like 10 MB, but the Linux Startup Creator will ONLY accept such for 1GB or larger, so set it at 1GB.

12) Once that’s finished, you can boot from the flashdrive with the LIVE system and persistence on it. At that time delete the casper-rw file, because doing that then allows the casper-rw partition to become the persistence area and you will have lots more than 4GB of persistence available.

13) Now you can add programs to the LIVE USB install you did, such as k3b, Chromium browser or Pale Moon. You can also create an encrypted second user on the device, so you have security of all files stored under that second user. Except for being faster than a full install on flashdrive, it will seem to run exactly the same. The reason it runs faster than full install to a flashdrive is because it’s a compressed OS and the decompression done in CPU of 2GB system (if using Mint) is faster than most read speeds of an 8GB fully installed Linux.

If you have any problems doing this with a 64 bit Linux ISO, then use one of the 32 bit ones, since they can boot on older BIOS just fine and on UEFI when those computers are set to Legacy/CSM mode.

. the ext2 is best file system on flashdrive to lower the number of «writes» to the drive, since ext4 is a journaling file system. The journaling can also slow things down on flashdrives.

All things go better with Mint. Mint julep, mint jelly, mint gum, candy mints, pillow mints, peppermint, chocolate mints, spearmint.

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