HOWTO: Linux From USB The Easy Way With UNetbootin

If there’s one thing we love nearly as much as our games here at TTB, it’s Linux. Another thing that I personally am pretty big on is installation from a USB thumb drive, for which I’ve written some guides (the latest one being here). Pretty handy if you have a netbook without an optical drive, or if you just want to save on CD-Rs.

Just lately, though, I discovered this little app called UNetbootin, a free download which fully automates the process of creating bootable Linux USB sticks under Windows or Linux. For most distributions it also supports the creation of LiveUSB versions, which allow the user to try the distro out prior to installation, much like their well-known LiveCD counterparts.

I’d write out a guide here, but this really is so painfully easy to use that it’s not really needed. I’ll outline the steps required here though, just for clarity:

• Format your USB stick (optional but I like to just in case)
• Run UNetbootin and select desired distro and version
• Click OK
• Sit back and wait a few minutes while the stick is prepared
• Reboot, and set BIOS to boot from USB…

…That’s it!

It also allows custom kernel parameters and the use of custom initrd files for strange hardware setups, but you probably won’t ever need to touch this. The app will even create a bootable USB from an ISO file if your desired distro isn’t listed, but I found that function to be a bit hit-and-miss.

All that’s required for UNetbootin is a USB stick (1GB and above is best) and a reasonably fast internet connection, as it needs to download all of the installation files for your chosen distribution as part of the automated process. That said, it’s actually more economical with bandwidth than downloading a whole ISO in most cases.

So, if you’ve ever wanted to try out lots of Linux distributions in a short amount of time with the minimum of hassle, or just install Ubuntu on your EeePC without messing around, UNetbootin is definitely the app for you. It’s not just for Linux either - it even allows you to try out the popular BSD-based systems FreeBSD and NetBSD too!

Download UNetbootin here.