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The only means of creating a USB bootable drive to tryout Ubuntu is with Rufus. Once Rufus formats my USB drive it stops and doesn't display options.

William
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    It's simply not true that Rufus is the only way to flash an ISO and make it bootable. You haven't given us any details here to explain what steps you've taken, so we can't tell you what you might have done wrong. Are you following a guide? Did you verify the integrity of your download before flashing? May I suggest using balenaEtcher instead to flash the ISO? It's more user friendly and does not have a lot of advanced options that are unnecessary for most people who just want to create bootable installation media – Nmath Nov 09 '21 at 21:35
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    There are official tutorials for verifying your download. There are many steps. Another alternative is to use the "alternative downloads" and download Ubuntu using the BitTorrent protocol, since BitTorrent automatically verifies download integrity. There are also tutorials for creating bootable media on every major operating system. If Rufus is too confusing or crashes, you can use etcher – Nmath Nov 09 '21 at 21:39
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    https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/tutorial-create-a-usb-stick-on-ubuntu#1-overview https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/tutorial-create-a-usb-stick-on-macos#1-overview https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/tutorial-create-a-usb-stick-on-windows#1-overview & to verify the ISO https://tutorials.ubuntu.com/tutorial/tutorial-how-to-verify-ubuntu#0 Note: if you don't use a direct clone your software needs to be capable of writing the Ubuntu ISO you want to write for it to work (ie. is your software fully upgraded for the release of Ubuntu you want to use if not clone writing) – guiverc Nov 09 '21 at 23:31
  • There are many ways to flash images (Etcher is the best... and it is cross-platform). – gorgo Nov 10 '21 at 00:00
  • Rufus has some advantages over Etcher, It has an option to create a persistent USB, where data is saved between sessions, and the USB file system can be edited allowing modification of GRUB. Use the latest version of Rufus with the latest version of Ubuntu. Etcher is fine if you just want to install Ubuntu to internal drive and do not need to spend time testing Live Ubuntu. – C.S.Cameron Nov 10 '21 at 00:54
  • Does this answer your question? What is the proper way of creating installation media from Ubuntu iso? – karel Dec 09 '21 at 13:11

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Considering that OP is not providing a lot of details about the nature of their error, I'm going to assume that they were expecting that, once Rufus was done creating the media, Ubuntu would automatically boot.

Well, that's not how it's designed to operate, because Windows and Ubuntu cannot coexist (outside of using a Virtual Machine or WSL, but if you're creating a bootable media those are irrelevant), so you can either run one or the other at a specific time.

This means that, to be able to run Ubuntu from a USB bootable drive, such as the one created by Rufus, you must shut down/reboot Windows completely and then use that USB drive to boot into Ubuntu.

Therefore, if Rufus were to boot straight into Ubuntu when it's done creating the drive, it would have to shut down Windows and reboot the computer, which, if it was done automatically (and forcefully) would be very detrimental. Plus, in a lot of cases, the computer on which a user wants to run Ubuntu is not the same as the one they run Windows on.

So, instead, Rufus expects that, once the media has been created, it's the user who will decide when they want to reboot their computer to boot into Ubuntu.

And that's why, once Rufus is done creating the USB, it considers that its job is done and just stops.

Also, since OP appears to be a new user of Ubuntu, be very mindful that if you choose to install Ubuntu on the same computer you are running Windows on, you are most likely going to erase Windows altogether while doing so.

Now, it is possible to dual boot Ubuntu and Windows, and it is of course possible to try Ubuntu without installing anything. But I would advise caution if you are a new user and want to preserve your Windows installation by reminding you that, if you are booting Ubuntu on the same machine where you run Windows, you should not run the installation process unless you have backed up your data and are ready to remove Windows altogether.

Akeo
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