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How to create a bootable Linux USB drive
Before you can enjoy the user-friendly, flexible, secure, and reliable Linux operating system, there's still one thing you need to handle first: installing the OS.
Keep in mind that modern Linux installers are very easy. With a few quick clicks, you're on your way to installing Linux and being ready. If you can install a piece of software, you can install Linux.
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The gateway to that open-source world is a bootable USB drive that allows you to install the OS on your computer.
Don't worry, even that step is simple. Let me show you how.
How to create your bootable USB drive
What you'll need: To create a bootable USB drive, you'll need the following:
- An ISO image of the distribution you want to use.
- A machine with a USB port.
- A USB flash drive with at least 16GB of space.
- A piece of software to create the bootable drive.
There are a lot of tools to help you create a bootable USB drive, such as Ventoy, Rufus, Etcher, dd, Fedora Media Writer, Popsicle, and more. I'll walk you through the steps using software available on all three major computing platforms: Linux, MacOS, and Windows. That software is UNetbootin. You can easily install UNetbootin by downloading the executable file to your desktop and running it. (It installs like most applications on both MacOS and Windows.)
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As far as an ISO image, here are the download links for five of my favorite distributions:
Download one of the above distributions and you're ready to create a bootable drive.
1. Insert your USB drive
The first thing to do is insert your USB drive into the computer you installed UNetbootin on. Ensure the system recognizes the drive and note its name.
2. Start UNetbootin
From your computer's desktop menu, click to launch the UNetbootin application.
3. Select your distribution
You have two options. You can use the ISO image of the distribution you downloaded or select from a pre-configured list of distributions from the UNetbootin window.
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If you choose from one of the pre-configured distributions, make sure you then select the most recent version of that distribution from the Select Version dropdown in the upper right corner.
Creating a bootable USB drive with UNetbootin is very easy.
4. Select your USB drive
Make sure USB Drive is selected in the Type dropdown and then choose the name of your USB drive from the Drive dropdown. Select the right drive because UNetbootin will erase everything on the drive you choose. I would suggest removing all external drives except the one that will serve as your bootable drive.
5. Burn the image
Click OK and the process will start. First UNetbootin will download the necessary ISO (if you selected one of the pre-configured images), then it will extract and copy the files, install the bootloader, and complete the process.
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Depending on if you have to download a distribution and the speed of your network and machine, the process shouldn't take more than five to 15 minutes. You might find that UNetbootin seems to stall out halfway through the extracting and copying files phase. Be patient and it will finish.
UNetbootin should be able to create your USB drive in under 15 minutes.
When the process completes, click Exit, safely eject the USB drive, and you're ready. You can now insert the USB drive into the machine that will serve as your new Linux desktop, boot the machine, and start installing the operating system.