Rufus is one of the best and easiest programs for creating a bootable usb. It can create a windows 7/8 or even xp or ubuntu bootable usb drive very fast and very. Feb 18, 2015. Note: This guide will show you how to install Ubuntu 14.xx alongside Windows 10, this guide also works if you are using Windows 8 and want to Dual Boot with Ubuntu Linux. Easy 8 Steps Installing: 1. Backup Windows Partitions. Shrink the Windows partition. Create a Ubuntu Linux Bootable USB.

Contents • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Outline The general procedure to install Ubuntu (or Ubuntu flavour, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntu.) from a USB flash drive is: • Acquire the correct Ubuntu installation files ('the ISO') • Put Ubuntu onto your USB flash drive • Configure your computer to boot from USB flash drive and boot from it • • Install Ubuntu to your internal drive (hard disk drive or solid state drive). Introduction Ubuntu can be installed from a USB flash drive. This may be necessary for netbooks and other computers without CD drives and is handy for others because a USB flash drive is so convenient.

Also, you can configure Ubuntu on the USB flash drive to save changes you make, unlike a read-only CD-ROM drive. Booting from a USB flash drive created with usb-creator alias Startup Disk Creator and mkusb will behave just as if you had booted from the install CD.

It will show the language selection and then the install menu, from which you can install Ubuntu onto the computer's hard drive or launch the LiveCD environment. Other utilities, e.g. Unetbootin, may create slightly different boot drives or if on UEFI might not work at all with Debian iso files Note: This article uses the term 'USB flash drive' alongside USB stick, USB drive, USB device, USB pendrive and thumb drive. Prerequisites To create a USB installation device, you will need: • a 2 GB USB flash device/drive/stick. If the iso file is smaller than 1 GB, it is possible to use a 1 GB USB device, at least with some of the methods. Files on this USB device will be erased, so backup the files you want to keep before making the device bootable. Make sure this USB device is properly formatted and mounted.

• an Ubuntu flavour ISO file (see to download it) Notes about speed The most common USB ports and USB flash drives work according to the USB 2 standard. Booting from USB 2 from a live drive is faster than from a corresponding CD/DVD disk. Standard USB 2 flash drives have rather slow flash hardware, with read and write speed much slower than the transfer speed of USB 2, so it is worth checking if the speed is specified.

USB 1.1 is also possible to use, but it is very slow, slower than a corresponding CD/DVD disk. Hardware according to the USB 3 standard is much faster than USB 2. So if you have a USB 3 port and a USB 3 flash drive, booting and running will be as fast as from an internal drive (SATA or IDE) or an external eSATA drive. And a USB 3 SSD flash drive has much faster flash hardware, and there are USB 3 pendrives with specified high read/write performance. The market changes quickly, so it is worth checking on the internet, which brand and model to select to get the best buy 'today'.

USB 3 flash drives are much faster than USB 2 flash drives also in USB 2 ports, because the flash hardware is not limiting the transfer speed. For the same reason a USB connected HDD is also much faster than a USB 2 flash drive. USB 2 flash drives are particularly slow when there are many small files to read and write. This makes then very slow when running persistent live systems and 'installed systems' (installed in the normal way, but to a USB drive). Also the lifetime (number of write operations on a memory cell) is much higher with the high quality hardware in USB 3 flash drives. But still, you should use noatime in fstab and use swap only for extreme situations to avoid excessive wear.

A LED (light emitting diode) helps you avoid unplugging the USB flash drive too early (while it is saving data from the buffers in RAM), and decreases the risk of corrupting the file system. Flash drive tests are described by C.S.Cameron in. See also the following links Conclusion Standard USB 2 flash drives are good for normal live systems. Typically the speed is between 4 and 20 MB/s. USB 2 flash drives work, but USB 3 drives with specified high read/write performance (or even USB 2 HDDs) are recommended for persistent live systems and 'installed systems'.

In the beginning of 2017, it seems that there are no really fast pendrives below 16 GB. Notes about size 1 GB is enough for a live USB flash drive made from a 'CD size' iso file.

But unless you already have a 1 GB drive, you are recommended to get one with at least 2 GB, hence the general recommendation above. 2 GB is enough for 'CD size' iso files as well as many but not all 'DVD size' iso files.

If you want a persistent live system with a decent size casper-rw storage, you need at least 4 GB (2 GB is possible, but might soon run out of space). If you want an installed system you need at least 8 GB (4 GB is possible with Lubuntu, but might soon run out of space).

In the beginning of 2017, it seems that there are no really fast pendrives below 16 GB. If you want a fast system, install it into a pendrive that performs well in a test, even if it is 'bigger than necessary'. Notes about bootability Most but not all USB pendrives are reliable for booting, even many of the slower ones, and they are much cheaper, and should be OK particularly for regular read-only live drives (without persistence). Some computer hardware and some operating systems have issues with certain ports.

And some USB pendrives just have issues also. Some of them cannot be used for booting. They are made to be mass storage devices, and have not exactly the same electronics and firmware. Some USB pendrives and computers 'do not like each other'.

The pendrive might boot another computer, and the computer might boot from another pendrive (everything else being the same).. This test was made a few years ago. The cheap and slow Sandisk Cruzer Blade, 4GB, can be added to the list of reliable pendrives for booting.

I have used it extensively for years and it has failed only once (chainloading from Plop in a very old computer).. Some pendrives that did not work are shown in. This user is not the only one who likes. The flash hardware describes how a flash drive works, and how it can fail, first getting read-only, then totally 'bricked'. The following link describes different hardware problems and what can be done to repair a USB stick/pendrive/flash drive. Look for the tips and warnings! Postrequisites - restore the USB stick 'Postrequisites' - after installation: how to restore the USB stick to a standard storage drive.

The standard is an MSDOS partition table (MBR) and a partition with the FAT32 file system. Gparted In order to re-use the stick after installing Ubuntu, just format it completely (including MBR) using gparted in Ubuntu or Disk Management in Windows. This works in most cases. Otherwise, see details in this link: gparted comes with the iso file but is available only in the live system. You install it into an installed system with sudo apt-get install gparted mkusb mkusb with a GUI and mkusb-nox in text mode have built-in features to wipe the first megabyte, create a new partition table and file system. See the following links If you run standard Ubuntu, you need an extra instruction to get the repository Universe.

(Kubuntu, Lubuntu. Xubuntu have the repository Universe activated automatically.) sudo add-apt-repository universe # only for standard Ubuntu sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mkusb/ppa # and press Enter sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install mkusb and if you want also the command line version without graphics sudo apt-get install mkusb-nox It is very easy to restore the USB stick to a standard storage drive with mkusb-dus mkusb version 12, mkusb-dus, has a dedicated menu to restore a USB stick to a standard storage device.

It is very easy to restore the USB stick to a standard storage drive with mkusb-nox sudo mkusb­-nox restore Creating a bootable Ubuntu USB flash drive from Ubuntu Install and run Startup Disk Creator alias usb-creator You can find usb-creator-gtk in the Unity Dash by typing 'Startup Disk Creator' (Ubuntu Desktop) or usb-creator-kde in K-Menu-->Applications-->System-->Startup Disk Creator (Kubuntu). If it is not there, then you can install it using the or • Insert and mount the USB drive. Inserting the USB drive should auto-mount it. • Start usb-creator. It looks like this in 13.10: • in the top pane of usb-creator, pick the.iso file that you downloaded. • if the.iso file isn't listed, click 'Other' to locate and select the.iso file that you downloaded.

• Alternately, if you have a CD or DVD-ROM with the Ubuntu version you want to install on the USB flash drive, insert it in your CD-ROM drive and usb-creator can use that. • It is not necessary to erase the USB flash drive, however it is advisable that you do so. • Select the first bootable partition on the USB device as the disk to use • The bootable partition should be formatted as either a FAT16 or FAT32 filesystem. This is the default for most USB flash drives. Notes • NEVER use one of your hard drive partitions in this process unless you really know what you are doing, as data will get erased. • There may be a bug during the formatting which will cause two partitions to appear when booting from the USB flash drive.

Try selecting each of them and one should work. If not, restart the computer and try booting from the USB flash drive again.

• Creating an Ubuntu 14.10 bootable USB stick currently requires that it be made from 14.10. See bug: • If you get a DBus error with usb-creator, this bug report may be helpful: • There are bugs that affect the Ubuntu Startup Creator, when you run it in Ubuntu versions 12.04 LTS, 14.04 LTS, 15.10 in BIOS mode and try to create USB boot drives with other versions. Some of the bugs are caused by conflicts between different versions of syslinux. These bugs do not affect installing in UEFI mode, where grub2 is used. And with the Ubuntu Startup Creator version 0.3.2 in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, these bugs are no longer a problem, so you can install any version of the Ubuntu flavours from 16.04 LTS.

[This is the situation now with the new current Ubuntu versions] mkusb is particularly good for pre-release testing and new releases, when the standard tools might not be ready (if the configuration of the booting has been changed since the previous release). Quick start manual and mkusb PPA The fastest way to start making USB boot drives is to install the mkusb PPA, install and update the mkusb package like all the other program packages. See this link If you run standard Ubuntu, you need an extra instruction to get the repository Universe. (Kubuntu, Lubuntu.

Xubuntu have the repository Universe activated automatically.) sudo add-apt-repository universe # only for standard Ubuntu Otherwise the following three command lines are enough to install mkusb. Sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mkusb/ppa # and press Enter sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install mkusb View or download the quick start manual mkusb - wiki page mkusb is described with more details at the following wiki page mkusb - persistent live drives Booting USB drives with grub2 and iso files 'grub-n-iso' There is a good wiki page about. The method uses grub2 to boot from an iso file, so once you have such a USB pendrive, you can boot most Intel and AMD computers that can run a 32-bit system (except very old non-PAE systems, systems with too low RAM, and systems with non-compatible hardware). The 'grub-n-iso' method can be used to create multi-boot USB pendrives by selecting iso file to boot from in the grub menu. There is space in 'grub-n-iso-n-swap' for a second iso file. You can also start from this and modify the USB drive to suit what you need: size, number of iso files.

The refers to, because it is a method to boot the new pae kernel also with Celeron M and Pentium M CPUs without the PAE flag, but with PAE capability. However, the 'grub-n-iso' and 'grub-n-iso-swap' USB boot drives use the standard Lubuntu desktop iso file without any fake-PAE installed, and it can boot almost all computers, that can run 32-bit systems, but it cannot be used for UEFI systems. 'grub-n-iso' for all PCs 64-bit versions work only in 64-bit computers. 32-bit versions work in 32-bit and 64-bit computer with BIOS, and now also with UEFI.

It is possible to create 'grub-n-iso' pendrives that boot most PCs with Intel and AMD processors according to the following links, But old style 'grub-n-iso' does not work in UEFI mode. If you want to boot in UEFI mode and install your Ubuntu flavour alongside Windows, you can use for example the ubuntu-16.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso directly.

There is a good wiki page about Booting USB drives with grub2 and installing tar files 'One Button Installer' The Ubuntu Forums Tutorial page and Ubuntu wiki page describe a new method to install an Ubuntu flavour or Ubuntu based operating system. Zacchaeus Puppet Template Syntax on this page. The One Button Installer consists of a compressed image of the installer with its operating system and tarballs containing the systems to be installed. It makes it very easy to install a simple (single boot) system, dual boot or multiple boot systems in BIOS mode. The One Button Installer is made particularly for old computers.

Creating a bootable Ubuntu USB flash drive from Mac OSX See and Creating a bootable Ubuntu USB flash drive from Windows If you are a beginnier, you find good information at Prepare the USB stick You won't be able to select the USB stick if it wasn't formatted in a way that Windows can see it. You may have to format it using Windows Explorer in order for it to show up in a creator tool. Ubuntu's official recommendation Ubuntu recommends Rufus 2016-08-06 at Linux Live Usb Creator Download and use. Once you have usb-creator.exe, run it and follow the same steps as described for Linux (point it at your.iso file or your Ubuntu CD-ROM, point it at your USB flash drive, make sure you have the right device selected, then 'Make Startup Disk').

Unetbootin If you're using UEFI, do not currently use Unetbootin with Debian iso files. Download and use. Run the file, select an ISO file or a distribution to download, select a target drive (USB drive or Hard Disk), select persistence if you wish, then reboot once done. If your USB drive doesn't show up, reformat it as FAT32.

Rufus Rufus is a tool with a good reputation. It is described at this link: Win32 Disk Imager You can copy/flash/clone the ISO file (like it is done with mkusb and dd) using. Current issues when installing from one version to another version • There are problems with the Startup Disk Creator alias usb-creator, if you try to create a 16.04.x boot drive from previous versions.

Unetbootin works from Ubuntu 12.04.5 and 14.04.2 (can make a working USB boot drive for Ubuntu 15.04), but the bug is still there in Startup Disk Creator (tested in October 22 for 15.10)). Until these problems are solved other tools work, for example mkusb and Win32DiskImager described in the following links, and • The new version 0.3 of the Startup Disk Creator alias usb-creator clones the iso file and creates a read-only file system. This method is very robust, but if you want to re-use the USB stick as a storage drive, you must restore it.

Two methods are described in the following link:. [The following information about known issues is a few years old, and may or may not be valid today (September 2016).] • Ubuntu 11.04 is having issues with USB flash drives from Sandisk that have U3 Launchpad.

Dell Latitude E6100 Drivers. You can either use another brand or use either u3-tool from Ubuntu Repositories or Sandisk's to remove U3. Otherwise Sandisk pendrives work well as USB boot devices (updated June 2013). • Some BIOS's (eg., the Eee PC netbook') have trouble recognizing that the USB is bootable. You may have to trick it into booting using the following method: At boot, enter the BIOS by pressing F2. Then, right as you exit the BIOS, hit the Esc key. For some systems, this will bring up the boot menu. • You may run into issues booting Ubuntu from a USB on a mac due to the EFI firmware (the predecessor to UEFI) that Apple uses.

Macs can also boot a disk in BIOS mode, which works around the issue. With a modern mac, and a modern version of Ubuntu, EFI/UEFI booting should no longer be an issue, even with an Ubuntu USB drive created from Linux (July 2014). See also • for beginners starting from Windows •: custom, manual, older versions, and technical instructions and troubleshooting. There are also network installation options available. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •.