How to Install any Linux on a USB
There are so many reasons why having a Linux distribution on a USB drive can come in handy. From having a “rescue” OS on your keyring to being able to install a new distribution on your EeePC, a “thumb drive” Linux has many uses. But getting Linux onto a USB drive can’t be simple. Right? Wrong. There is a tool, UNetbootin, that makes installing Linux
on a USB drive simple.
UNetbootin can be used on either Linux or Windows. In this article, we’ll be illustrating it for Both.
Note: Not all USB installations will work on all machines. This can be an issue with your BIOS or your USB drive. If you install an OS that doesn’t work, try another. But after all that work, you might wind up with a machine that simply won’t boot from a USB drive. You have been warned.
Using UNetbootin with Linux
- The first thing to do is download a copy of UNetbootin. For our purposes we’ll download the Linux universal install binary (named unetbootin-linux-299). Once that has finished you will need to issue the Following command in order to make the file executable.
chmod u+x unetbootin-linux29 - Once the file is executable issue the following command (from the same directory unetbootin-linx-299 is stored) to see the application running.
su ./unetbootin-linux-299 - But you’re not ready just yet. Depending upon your distribution, you might come across an error involving p7zip-full. This might be in your distribution’s repositories. If you use Mandriva you can install p7zip but you will not have the full package. If you use Ubuntu you can get p7zip-full with the following command
apt-get install p7zip-full - Before you run the application you will need to insert and mount your usb drive. Stick in your usb drive and then issue the following command to find out where your usb drive is located.
dmesg - Mount that and then issue the following command. When you issue the command you will see the UNetbootin window.
su ./unetbootin-linux-299
- Once this window is up and running you are almost there. If you have very specific needs for your distribution you will most likely have an image file downloaded to use. If you do not you can select your distribution from the drop down list. First you select the distribution and then you select the version (or release). Note: Unless you have a very large USB drive you will most likely want to use a netinstall version of your distribution. If you do happen to have a large USB drive you can go ahead with a full distribution. If this usb drive is for rescue purposes, or just to have a version of Linux with you at all times, a distribution like PCLinuxOS Minime is a greate choice.
- Once the process is done you will have two buttons to click, Reboot and Exit. Don’t bother with the Reboot button. Click the Exit button and UNetbootin will close. You can now unmount your drive and reboot your machine to see if the installation works.Note: When your machine boots you will need to make sure it first boots from the USB device.
Using UNebootin with Windows
- Download UNetBootin for Windows.
- Download your favorite Linux ISO (Don’t ask me from where just Google it).
- Now Start the Unetbootin.
- Click the Disk Image radio box and browse to select Linux ISO.
- Now set your target USB drive and click OK to start the creation UNetbootin Live USB Creation from an ISO.
- Once the UNetbootin installer has completed, click Reboot. Now UNetbootin installation is finished.
- Set your system BIOS or boot menu to boot from the USB device and enjoy your favorite Live Linux on USB.
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I have used Unetbootin for years and have long ago abandoned burning ISOs to CD. However, not all distros will boot from Unetbootin on my computer. For some reason, a few just hang or give the error that they cannot mount /root or find the kernel. Mandriva and openSuSE (for me) still need to be burned to CD. Most of the rest work fine. My HP computer has some funky things going on in the BIOS that causes a kernel panic in some distros unless things are just right. This has been a long standing issue with this computer. I hope that others have better success.
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Nice article. I’ll try installing RHEL 5 on my Pendrive!
<quote>
su ./unetbootin-linux-299
</quote>
su? Perhaps you meant sudo?
As another commenter pointed out, UNetbootin doesn’t work on several major distros and shouldn’t be touted as a universal solution. Fedora 12 actually has a bug logged against this problem with the UNetbootin developers:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F12_bugs#Live_USB_sticks_created_with_unetbootin_do_not_work
[...] How to Install some UNIX on a USB | Hacking Truths [...]
I’ve had issues with UNetbootin, as well. Bootable USB driver seem to have approximately 50% success rate when made with it, in my experience. And sometimes a given image will not work, but will after repeatedly writing it to the drive. I remember it taking 5 tries, rewriting it twice, to get a Xubuntu USB drive to boot in my laptop.
I had to rename extlinux.cfg to extlinux.conf for my USB stick to boot.
The free widget “LiLi” does a good friendly job from Windows, I prefer it to UNetbootin. See :
http://www.linuxliveusb.com/
Been there, done that. I always end up going back to using Puppy Linux. It’s the best distro for reliable operation from a USB. SLAX is 2nd best.
with mandriva not working, but you hava a tool, mandrivaseed ti’s the name of tool, to put mandriva on usb-live
Are there any USB drives (thumb-drive, key-drive, geek-stick) that do not work in this context because of the way that they are built?
Are the combinations of BIOS and stick hardware that work where others will not … because of requirements that the BIOS places on a boot-able stick?
If one has trouble getting things to work, how would one know if it is a distro or configuration issue versus some trouble with the geek-stick itself?
~~~ 0;-Dan
[...] «How to Install any Linux on a USB» Автор: Ashik Дата публикации: 23 January 2010 Перевод: [...]
Keep posting stuff like this i really like it
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