Installing Ubuntu on a USB flash drive. Bootable Linux USB Flash Drive - Best Creation Options
Linux can be useful to you for many reasons. For example, your old computer can't be upgraded to new versions of Windows or macOS, or you need Linux-specific applications, or you're just curious to try something new. Or maybe you just bought a new computer without an operating system and want to save money by choosing free Linux.
Installing Linux is easy. Of course, there are distributions like Arch, which are quite difficult to install for a beginner. But most modern distributions are very easy to install. Perhaps even simpler and faster than Windows.
Before installing Linux on your main computer, make a copy of your important data. When working with partitions on your hard drive, you may accidentally erase something important. Of course, if you follow the instructions and carefully read what you are doing, then nothing unexpected will happen. But it’s a useful thing in any case.
You can install Linux on computers running Windows and macOS or on an empty hard drive. You can choose Linux as your main system or use it in parallel with your old system.
1. Download Linux distribution
First of all, you need to choose a Linux distribution. The DistroWatch.com rating will help you decide.
Then you need to download the selected distribution. This is easy to do: open the website of the desired distribution, find the downloads section and select the one that suits the bit capacity of your processor.
As a rule, Linux distributions on official websites are offered for download in two ways. The first method is a normal download. The second is via P2P using a torrent client. The second method is naturally faster. So choose it if you want to save time.
When the distribution kit in ISO format is downloaded, you need to burn it to a CD or a regular USB flash drive.
Burning to a CD can be done using standard system tools: “Burn a disk image” in Windows or “Disk Utility” in macOS. Just right-click on the downloaded image and select the appropriate item in the menu.
To burn ISO to a flash drive, you will need special utilities. For Windows it is better to choose Rufus, and for macOS - UNetbootin. These programs have a very simple interface, it is quite difficult to get confused in them.
3. Prepare the disk partition
This step should be followed if you want to keep the system installed on you and use Linux at the same time as it. If you decide to switch your computer completely to Linux or are installing the OS on an empty hard drive, skip this paragraph.
Windows
Open Windows Disk Management. Select the drive or partition from which you plan to carve out some space to install Linux. For most distributions, 10 GB is more than enough. But if you plan to install a lot of apps, get more. Right-click on the partition and select Shrink Volume. Enter the size and click OK.
The process can take quite a long time, so be patient.
When Disk Management finishes resizing the partitions, there will be empty unallocated space on the disk, marked in black. We will install Linux there.
Later, if you don’t need Linux, you can delete partitions with it and give the free space back to Windows using the same Disk Management Tool.
macOS
You can allocate space for installing Linux through macOS Disk Utility. Select your drive and click on the “+” icon to create a partition for Linux. Creating a new partition may take some time.
4. Prepare the bootloader
Windows
This point only applies to new computers running Windows 10, 8.1 or 8 pre-installed. These computers use a UEFI boot loader, which will not allow you to boot into anything other than Windows.
To fix this, go into your computer's BIOS settings and disable the Secure Boot option. Then reboot. Done, you can now download and install other systems next to your Windows.
macOS
Unlike most computers, a Mac requires a couple of additional steps to install Linux on dual boot with macOS.
First of all, disable SIP. Restart your Mac and press Cmd + R. The Recovery menu will appear. Select “Terminal” in it and enter csrutil disable .
Reboot your Mac again. SIP is disabled.
Manual
Suitable if you want to set the sizes for your partitions yourself or, for example, create a separate partition for your files. To do this, select “Other option” and click “Continue”.
Linux will display what partitions you have on your computer. You can delete them, format them, or, conversely, leave the sections with the information you want to save intact.
To install Linux instead of your system, select the partition with the installed system and delete it with the “–” button. Then create new partitions in the free space.
- Root partition for Linux system files. Select Ext4 file system and mount point /.
- A swap partition, or swap partition, is useful if you do not have enough RAM, but have a fast SSD drive. In the list of file systems, select "Swap Partition".
- Home partition where your files will be stored. Select the Ext4 file system and the /home mount point.
Click Continue and confirm the changes. The installer will erase the partitions you selected and create new ones in the free space.
How to install Linux next to your current system
There are two ways to install Linux next to your system.
Auto
Most Linux installers will immediately detect the systems you have installed. If you haven't created a separate disk space for Linux, you can try selecting the "Install next to Windows" option. The installer will automatically create the necessary partitions, and you will not have to do anything manually.
Manual
If you want to determine for yourself how much space to allocate to the system, and followed the instructions in step 3, click “Other option” and click “Continue”. You will see your disk partitions and empty space that we have prepared for Linux. Create a root partition there (mount point /) as described above. A home partition is not necessary in this case: you will be able to copy and modify files on your main system.
Click Continue. The installer will leave your files in place. It will simply create new partitions on the free space. You will be able to choose which system you want to boot at startup.
8. Complete the Linux installation
You will then be asked to introduce yourself. Enter your name and create a password. Don't forget your password, as you will constantly need it to perform tasks on behalf of everyone. If you wish, you can encrypt your home folder.
Then just wait. When the installation is complete, you will be prompted to remove the installation disc and reboot. Don't forget to disable booting from external drives in the BIOS if you enabled it.
What to do after installation
When you reboot and your Linux desktop appears in front of you, you can do everything you can do in Windows and macOS: surf the Internet, edit documents and listen to music. Don’t forget to update and look at the “App Store” (or its equivalent, depending on the distribution) to additionally install the applications you need.
Try Linux and you will see that in everyday life it is no more difficult than Windows or macOS.
First, you need to understand the very concept of what is a bootable Linux flash drive? This topic is very popular; almost everything can be found on the Internet.
Option #1. Creating a bootable USB flash drive in UNetbootin
UNetbootin is a program for installing Linux without CD/DVD.
This utility allows you to install it on your computer or, otherwise, create a bootable Flash disk with special Linux/BSD distributions previously downloaded from the Internet.
Installation can be done either through Windows or Linux.
The program is installed on most Linux distributions, namely: Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE, CentOS, Debian, Linux Mint, Arch Linux, Mandriva, Slackware, FreeDOS, FreeBSD, NetBSD and their varieties).
- Before you start working with this utility, you need to format (clean) the USB drive; it is best to select the FAT32 file system. How to do this is shown in the illustration below:
- After cleaning the Flash media, you need to run the UNetbootin program. As already mentioned, this program allows you to burn a Live CD/DVD from the Internet, showing only the distribution and its version:
- To write a disk image of the operating system (in the example, the downloaded distribution is Debian Wheezy, you can find any other) onto a USB drive, select the “Disk Image” item, then activate the “ISO Standard”, also do not forget to indicate the path to the distribution with the extension .ISO, and also indicate the type of device and the media itself (as shown in the figure).
The characteristics have been selected, now you need to click the “OK” button, the procedure for extracting and duplicating files occurs automatically. This process will take 5-10 minutes.
- After unpacking the necessary files, the program will automatically install the bootloader and notify you when the bootable USB flash drive is ready.
If you wish, you can immediately install the Linux OS; to do this, you need to restart the computer and select in the BIOS to boot the system via a USB drive.
If installation is not required, then there is no point in restarting the computer; you should click on the “Exit” button. All! As you can see, it's not difficult at all.
Your bootable Linux flash drive is ready to go.
Option #2. Creating a bootable USB flash drive in Universal USB Installer
Unlike the first one, this program formats removable media spontaneously.
Let's look at this program in more detail.
- You need to install and run the Universal USB Installer program.
- The first step shows a list of Linux operating systems. Select the Linux that you want to use on the flash drive; if the one you need is not there, then indicate “Try Unlisted Linux ISO”.
- The second step is to go to the pre-downloaded Linux distribution on your computer; if you did not select the folder yourself, then look for it in the Downloads folder.
- The third step is to indicate our flash drive, usually an H drive, followed by the name of your device.
We check everything again and click the “Create” button.
- Next, a warning will appear telling you to close all unnecessary windows, close everything and click next.
The program will automatically format the USB drive, create the MBR boot area, change the volume label to the UUI name and install the Linux operating system image. We only need to confirm the action by clicking on the “Yes” button.
- Afterwards, the procedure for installing data on removable media is observed, as shown in the figure; literally in 5 minutes everything will be ready.
- The program completes the installation process on its own, see the figure below.
That's it, another bootable Linux flash drive has been created!
Option #3. Creating a bootable USB flash drive using the Xboot utility
In this case, the option of creating it using the Xboot utility is considered.
This program does not require installation on a computer; it can be launched immediately by first downloading it from the Internet.
The interface of this utility is quite simple.
To add images, you need to transfer the iso files (Linux OS distributions) of each image to the main part of the program window, or click on File-open, as shown in the figure.
After the path to the image has been indicated, a window will open with the question: how to perceive this image?
Since we are making a bootable flash drive for Linux, we choose Utilitu - Ubuntu, but if you are making a flash drive for Windows!! select Add using Grub4dos ISO image Emulation.
Please note that the option to add Windows is selected by default.
A huge plus of this program is that, along with the system, you can install various antiviruses on a bootable USB flash drive, such as: Dr.Web, Live CD, Kaspersky Rescue Disc.
In the future, they will help protect your computer from Trojans, viruses and other nasty things.
Utilities that come with the program
As shown in the figure above, the program offers various utilities for both Linux OS and Windows.
Xboot is not installed on your computer, so all the utilities you select will be downloaded automatically from the Internet, you will only need to confirm all the steps, all steps are shown in the pictures.
To make it convenient for you to work with images, write a name for each. For example: Linux 1 WT, Linux 2 Mouse, Linux 3 Android.
Check all the steps again when everything is ready and if you are sure that you have not missed anything, then select the option to write to a USB drive (do not confuse making a bootable DVD), before use you need to clear the flash in FAT32.
If you don’t know English well, then find two buttons at the bottom of the window, when you click the Create ISO button you will make a bootable DVD, but we need to click – Create USB.
Gone are the days when, in order to install Linux on a computer, you first had to . I used to have, and still have, a large stack of disks with different versions of Linux. Now that every computer can boot from a flash drive, you don’t have to buy disks at all.
I downloaded a Linux image from the Internet, installed it on a flash drive, and then installed it on my computer from that flash drive. Grace! But not all young Linux users know yet how to install Linux from a flash drive and this short article is for them.
How to install Linux from a flash drive yourself?
To install Linux from a flash drive, you will naturally need a flash drive, at least 4 gigabytes for a medium-sized distribution and at least 8 gigabytes for the full version of Linux, which can usually reach 4 gigabytes.
After this, we need to download the Linux image that we will install. Which Linux to choose? Do I prefer the ones described in this article? However, you can choose any one you like. The downloaded file must have the extension .ISO Usually it is always like this, but some developers may upload images in other formats.
After this, we need to install Linux on a USB flash drive, as described in the article? The process is quite simple and after reading that article you can easily install any Linux on your removable media. After you have installed Linux ON a flash drive, you can install Linux FROM a flash drive.
The next step is booting from this flash drive, and this can cause some difficulties. The fact is that many computers are configured to boot from your hard drive, and if you insert a flash drive into the computer and reboot, nothing will happen. To install Linux from a flash drive, you need to change the BIOS settings.
Don’t be alarmed, there’s nothing scary here, just read the article and everything will become clear to you. Let's assume that you managed to boot from the flash drive, and you saw your new operating system running in live disk mode (in our case, in live flash drive mode :)
But that’s not all, of course, Linux is not installed yet, although you can already use it directly from the flash drive. But our task is precisely to INSTALL Linux from a flash drive.
Is the Linux installation described in this article? All installation steps are well described there, how to partition the disk, and so on. So there shouldn't be any difficulties.
But if there is something that is not clear to you, then write in the comments and I will try to help you with advice, since I have performed this operation more than once and personally it seems to me that everything is simple. But on the other hand, there may be situations that I have not encountered and I will be happy to complete the article.
In conclusion, I would like to feel sorry for people who use Windows; it still cannot boot from a flash drive and does not have a LIVE operating mode. Shame and shame!
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4 comments
Good day. I can't install Ubuntu in any way. I made a bootable USB flash drive and set everything in the BIOS, but it still doesn’t start.
p.s. formatted the flash drive to fat32, then using the unetbootin-windows-608 utility I recorded Ubuntu 14.04.2 desktop amd64, freed up space in the hard drive by biting off 50 gigabytes from drive D using standard programs and left the space unoccupied so that Ubuntu itself would create a partition from this space with its file system(couldn’t find how to create Ext3/4(((
Please help me, what am I doing wrong?
The Linux Ubuntu operating system can be installed either from a CD or from a flash drive. In the latter case, the installation is quite comfortable: all the information on the flash drive will remain safe and sound, and in addition, it will be installed on the computer faster than from a disk. So, below is the entire process of installing Linux Ubuntu on a computer using a flash drive.
First, you need to download the image of the desired version of the system to your computer via the official website. After which a bootable flash drive is created - copying the image to the flash drive will not be enough to install the system. Further steps for creating a bootable USB flash drive vary depending on the user's operating system. Below are the creation procedures via Windows and Linux. To create a bootable USB flash drive via Windows, just download the program. Having first connected the flash drive, launch it. The procedure is quite simple: at the top, indicate the desired distribution (in this case, Linux) - if you plan to download the system image using the program; or below in the Diskimage item - if the image has already been downloaded. Then you should select a flash drive as a container, and then start the process of creating a bootable flash drive. If necessary, you can specify additional. space for storing personal data (Spase used to preserve files across reboots). If you plan to create a bootable USB flash drive via Linux, you can use the built-in usb-creator-gtk program. This utility can be launched by pressing the ALT+F2 key combination, or by searching through the application menu and using the “Create a boot disk” request.
After restarting the computer, the Linux installation will start from the bootable USB flash drive. Further actions of the installer are determined by the user; before the installation process is fully completed, the flash drive must be connected to the computer.
Installing Ubuntu from a flash drive has several advantages over installing from a CD. Firstly, not all computers even have a CD drive (this is especially true if you need to install Ubuntu on a netbook). Secondly, installing Linux from a flash drive is much faster than from a CD (and this is especially important for “conveyor” installation on several computers). And thirdly, CDs in general have very unpleasant properties of being scratched and quickly failing.
So, how to create a bootable USB flash drive with Ubuntu Linux? To get started, you will need an Ubuntu disk image or the CD itself. If you don't have it yet, read where to get it.
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Creating a bootable Ubuntu USB flash drive
So, the first method of creating a bootable USB flash drive is intended for those who are running any version of Ubuntu or are able to boot from an Ubuntu LiveCD. For this purpose, Ubuntu has a special utility usb-creator-gtk. To launch it, press ALT+F2 and enter “usb-creator-gtk” or in the application menu look for “Creating a boot disk”.
This program is outrageously simple: select the drive device where the Ubuntu disk is located, or the Ubuntu ISO image file, and below select the flash drive device. If necessary, you can also allocate space on a flash drive to save personal files and settings (if you don’t do this, then when working from a flash drive they will be lost every time you reboot - but if you need a flash drive not for work, but only for installation, you won’t care shouldn't).
Creating a bootable Ubuntu USB flash drive on Windows
If you only have Windows OS at your disposal, and for some reason you cannot boot from the Ubuntu CD, then there is a special utility for creating a bootable Linux flash drive from Windows - UNetbootin. You can download this program.
Everything here is also quite simple: select the distribution in the top list (the program will download it itself), or an already downloaded disk image file (Diskimage). At the bottom of the window, select the flash drive. If necessary, we allocate additional space to store personal files (Spase used to preserve files across reboots).
