How to Create a Bootable Linux USB Flash Drive?
But how do you transfer a downloaded disk image to a USB flash drive? In this article, we provide three solutions to help you create a bootable Linux USB flash drive on Linux, Windows, macOS, and even Android.
Create a Bootable Linux USB with Etcher (Linux, Windows, macOS)
Written in Electron, Etcher is a cross-platform open source utility for flashing disk images to USB drives and memory cards. It runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux and provides an approachable graphical user interface that reduces the process of creating a bootable Linux USB to just three simple steps.
Unlike other similar software tools, Etcher prevents users from accidentally wiping their entire hard drives, which is something you’ll definitely appreciate if you’ve never created a bootable USB before and understandably feel anxious about the process.
To create a bootable Linux USB with Etcher:
1. Download Etcher from its official website.
- Etcher offers precompiled binaries for Linux, Windows, and macOS).
3. Select the ISO file you want to flash to your USB drive.
4. Specify the target USB drive if the correct drive is not selected already.
5. Click the Flash! button and wait for the process to finish.
- You may be asked to enter the admin password.
Create a Bootable Linux USB with dd (Linux, macOS)
dd is a command-line utility for Unix-like operating systems whose primary purpose is to read/write data from/to device files, such as USB flash drives. Because dd is bundled in GNU coreutils, you can find it on virtually all Linux distributions, as well as on macOS.
To create a bootable Linux USB with dd:
- Open your favorite terminal emulator.
- Issue the following command (replace /dev/sdx with your drive and path/to/ubuntu.iso with the actual path to the ISO file you want to flash):
The version of dd included in GNU coreutils doesn’t provide any progress indication. If you’d like some reassurance that the transfer is progressing as it should, you can use the following command (replace dd-pid with the process-id of dd, which you can find using htop):
dd for windows
There’s actually a version of dd for Windows that provides all the functionality you need to transfer an ISO file to a USB flash drive. To install it:
- Download the latest version from its official website.
- Extract the downloaded archive to a new folder on your hard drive.
- Open Command Prompt and navigate to the folder with dd for Windows.
- Use dd for Windows just like you would the version included in GNU coreutils.
Unfortunately, dd for Windows was last updated in 2010, and many users have reported issues when using the utility in Windows 10. Considering that dd for Windows doesn’t even support data conversion, such as byte order swapping and conversion to and from the ASCII and EBCDIC text encodings, you’re probably better off using either Etcher or Rufus, which we describe in the next chapter.
Create a Bootable Linux USB with Rufus (Windows)
Before the release of Etcher in 2016, Rufus was the best way to create a bootable Linux USB in Windows. This bootable USB flash drive creator is much faster than all of its Windows competitors, and it can create live USB drives for systems with both BIOS and UEFI. Rufus has been translated into several dozen languages, and it’s compatible with Windows 7 and newer, both 32- and 64-bit.
To create a bootable Linux USB with Rufus:
- Download Rufus from its official website.
- You can choose between an installer and a portable version.
- Install it if you’ve downloaded the installer. Otherwise, you can just launch it.
- Select the target USB device.
- Click the SELECT button next to the boot selection dropdown menu and specify the ISO file you want to flash.
- Choose the correct partition scheme for your system.
- Click the START button.
- Wait for Rufus to finish.
In addition to creating live Linux USB flash drives, Rufus can also flash Windows disk images.
Create a Bootable Linux USB with EtchDroid (Android)
The last utility we want to describe is called EtchDroid, and its purpose is to write OS images to USB drives on Android smartphones and tablets.
Why would you want to use your Android device to create a bootable Linux USB? Well, imagine you find yourself in the middle of nowhere, and your laptop stops working after a botched system update. Without another computer to use, your only option on how to create a bootable Linux USB to fix the issue is your Android device, and that’s where EtchDroid comes in.
To create a bootable Linux USB with EtchDroid:
- Download EtchDroid from Google Play or F-Droid.
- Connect a USB flash drive to your Android device using a USB OTG adapter.
- Launch EtchDroid and select the Write raw image or ISO option.
- Select your ISO image.
- Select the USB flash drive.
- Tap Write to write the image to the USB flash drive.
EtchDroid has been tested with Ubuntu and its derivatives, Debian, Fedora, Arch Linux, and Raspberry PI SD card images. It doesn’t work with Windows, macOS, and old GNU/Linux distros. Support for Windows installation ISO files is on the developer’s to-do list.
About the author
David Morelo
David Morelo is a professional content writer in the technology niche, covering everything from consumer products to emerging technologies and their cross-industry application
Make a bootable flash drive from an ISO image
We all know that installing an operating system from a USB drive is much faster than installing from DVD. In this article we will look at several ways to create a bootable USB drive.
Before describing how to create a bootable USB drive read the article How to correctly format the USB stick in Linux Mint. In some cases described below, it is desirable to have already formatted the USB flash drive in FAT32 format.
1. LinuxLive USB Creator (only for Windows users)
If you are a user of the Windows operating system and want to make a bootable USB flash drive with a Linux distribution – this program is for you.
It is very simple, select the USB flash drive, please specify the iso image will be copied, turn on the option to format the USB stick and click on the lightning.
You can download the program on the official developer’s website http://www.linuxliveusb.com/en/download.
Rufus is a utility that helps format and create bootable Flash/Pen/Key drives, memory cards, etc.
Rufus will be especially useful in cases where:
-you need to create a bootable USB disk from a bootable ISO image (Windows, Linux, UEFI, and others)
-need to work on systems that have no OS installed
-you need to flash a BIOS or other firmware from DOS
-you need to run a low-level utility
-Despite its small size, Rufus knows how to do everything!
3. UNetbootin (for Linux, Windows, Mac users)
A very common program. The principle of operation is the same as the previous program. Select the image, select the flash drive, and click OK. For details, see the screenshots below.
Installation latest version into Linux Mint 14/15/16/17/17.1:
4. LiveUSB MultiSystem (for Linux users) -To create a bootable USB flash drive with multiple operating systems (windows or linux) read article Create your LiveUSB MultiBoot very simple in Linux Mint.
5. Either – program to burn the iso image with the distro on a USB flash drive or micro SD card (Windows, MacOS and Linux) read article Either – program to record the iso image on a USB flash drive
6. YUMI – Multiboot USB Creator (for Linux, Windows users)
YUMI (Your Universal Multiboot Integrator), is the successor to our MultibootISOs. It can be used to create a Multiboot USB Flash Drive containing multiple operating systems, antivirus utilities, disc cloning, diagnostic tools, and more. Contrary to MultiBootISOs which used grub to boot ISO files directly from USB, YUMI uses syslinux to boot extracted distributions stored on the USB device, and reverts to using grub toBoot Multiple ISO files from USB, if necessary.
Important Note : YUMI was intended to be used to try to run various “LIVE Linux” Operating Systems from USB. Installing Linux from the YUMI created USB Drive to a Hard Drive is not officially supported. If the installer portion of any Live Linux distro does work, consider it a bonus.
Installation latest version into Linux Mint 14/15/16/17/17.1:
Download DEB package “YUMI for Ubuntu Linux” from website
7. USB image writer (for Linux users)
Linux Mint have default utility USB image writer. One time I used this program, but personally I have not always made a bootable USB flash drive.
Locate menu, the program will run. Select the image, select the USB drive and click Write.
Multiboot USB flash drive designed for loading and installing operating systems Windows/Linux and restoration-resuscitation tools directly from the USB drive.
9. WinUSB – Create Windows Usb stick
is a simple tool that allows you to create your own Windows installation on USB stick from an ISO image or DVD disk in Linux Mint.
10. Using the terminal (in my opinion the best 100% of the way)
As is known, the terminal is installed in any Linux distribution by default, so install additional software is not required.
The terminal command to write the iso image, the distribution is as follows:
Where instead of /home/USER/linuxmint.iso you need to specify the path to the iso file. sdb in the end, it’s a stick on which is written the way.
To determine your flash drive, run in terminal:
And if you stick decided differently, change in the command.
To be entered correctly in the command path to the file, open the folder with the file, open next to the terminal and drag the file into the terminal:
Now we are ready to start. I got the command:
The cursor of the terminal is blinking and it seems that nothing happens, but actually being recorded. Wait for the image capture and at the end you should see in the terminal like this:
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