57

Strangely, but true, you cannot install from the the original site, or run it. So how to install and run UNetBootin?

owl
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    Can you please check the executable permission? As far as I can remember the downloaded file executes directly. No need to execute apt-get install. Be sure to execute from ext file system. BTW in linux you can use Ububtu start up disk creator. I never needed unetbootin in ubuntu. – Web-E Nov 16 '12 at 12:10
  • I have tried that, it doesn't work. So, I have created a solution, below. – owl Nov 16 '12 at 13:01
  • If downloaded from the project's site, I believe it will not prompt you for sudo creds when you run it, so try running it from a terminal with sudo. Personally, I second the other options of simply installing from the repositories (sudo apt-get install unetbootin), using the Ubuntu Startup Disk creator, or simply using dd (sudo dd if=/path/to/something.iso of=/dev/sdx bs=8M; sync) – Jayson Rowe Nov 16 '12 at 13:14
  • it's suprising that there's not a snap or flatpak... – Nicholas Saunders Dec 08 '22 at 23:17

5 Answers5

75

Install UNetbootin in Ubuntu

Using these few commands, downloading and running it will work.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gezakovacs/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install unetbootin

Adding repository is necessary for updates and support for older versions of Ubuntu.

owl
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    Why do you want to add ppa? unetbootin is available in repositories . Just use sudo apt-get install unetbootin – devav2 Nov 16 '12 at 10:52
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    For some older versions, they do not support the command you have just stated, they have to add a repository first. – owl Nov 16 '12 at 11:03
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    @devav2 Older versions of Ubuntu does not have the same repository as the newer versions of Ubuntu. It is better to add the repository to get the latest updates. – owl Feb 04 '14 at 12:58
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    To clarify owl's comment, I was on an older version of Ubuntu and unetbootin wouldn't show me the latest versions, since I installed it through that older Ubuntu. Adding this PPA did the trick: I could see all recent versions and was then able to USB install a newer one (much faster than do-release-upgrade). – Chan-Ho Suh Sep 24 '14 at 03:12
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    @devav2: UNetbootin is unavailable from the standard Ubuntu >= 18.04 repositories, due to requiring now-deprecated dependencies (e.g., gksu, kdesudo). The standard UNetbootin PPA, which explicitly supports Ubuntu >= 18.04, should be leveraged instead. – Cecil Curry Oct 12 '18 at 05:12
  • what about ubuntu 19.04 ? – Zombie Apr 13 '19 at 15:10
  • This doesn't work for me. Returns: E: Unable to locate package unetbootin ` – Colin R. Turner Mar 29 '20 at 19:45
  • As @CecilCurry wrote in comments, you could just do sudo apt-get install unetbootin with older Ubuntu versions but as unetbootin is not up to the latest standards, it has been dropped from the official repositories. You have to use PPA instead for Ubuntu 18.04 or newer. – Mikko Rantalainen May 11 '21 at 10:32
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    Does not work on Ubuntu 22.04 E: The repository 'https://ppa.launchpadcontent.net/gezakovacs/ppa/ubuntu jammy Release' does not have a Release file. – Yogev Neumann Nov 07 '22 at 05:24
13

Installing UNetbootin via PPA

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gezakovacs/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install unetbootin

Note:
In Ubuntu <18.04, we can directly install UNetbootin with single command

sudo apt-get install unetbootin

But UNetbootin is unavailable from the standard Ubuntu >= 18.04 repositories, due to requiring now-deprecated dependencies (e.g., gksu, kdesudo). The standard UNetbootin PPA, which explicitly supports Ubuntu >= 18.04, should be leveraged instead.

shalih.ai
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5

As commented in your question by Web-E , you should just add the executable permission to the file downloaded from SourceForge, then you are able to run it (no installation needed, btw). I had the same problem and that comment gave me the solution, without the need to add the ppa.

If you don't want to use terminal, you can right-click the file unetbootin-linux-585, select "properties", go to "permissions" and then tick "allow execution of the file as a program" (or something like that, i don't have an english-language o.s.).

EDIT:

As suggested in the comment below, here's a little how-to about making a file executable:

To make the file executable via terminal (and we are here supposing you downloaded that file using a browser like Firefox or Opera), you only have to go to the folder where the file resides, right-click on the folder and select "Open terminal here". When you have the terminal shell, don't forget to run

ls -l

to make sure the file is really here, and to check permissions. You should see something like

-rw-r--r-- 1 name name 4478124 lug 11 15:28 unetbootin-linux-585

which means you have to add execution permissions on it. How you do it? Simply typing:

chmod +x unetbootin-linux-585

(don't forget to use Tab to autocomplete the long unetbootin name :P). Now, checking again the file with ls -l should give the following result:

-rwxr-xr-x 1 name name 4478124 lug 11 15:28 unetbootin-linux-585

This means that the program became executable, so just type:

./unetbootin-linux-585

to run the application.

Hope everything is clear.

Erenor Paz
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  • you might add infos on how to make the file executable via the terminal (chmod/chown). It would make your answer really helpful. – jobrfr Jul 11 '13 at 14:16
2

Installing UNetBootin appears to be pretty simple, you can either install it via the source from sourceforge.net or using PPA, easy one will be PPA

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:n-muench/programs-ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install unetbootin

And to use UNetbootin, there is basically two different option, one is to install downloading the distribution as mentioned by the UNetbootin itself and next is to select Disk Image and choose ISO files.

See full tutorial on How to install and use UNetbootin in Ubuntu 14.04?

Eric Carvalho
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Luzan Baral
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2

Use this command in the terminal to install using ppa

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:n-muench/programs-ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install unetbootin
Chuck R
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