Using a flash drive to boot up ubuntu

Question

I would like to know if it is possible to put ubuntu on a flashdrive and bootup from that instead of burning a disc? Thanks

Answer 1

(Use at your own risk!)

Yes, it is possible to write the Ubuntu Live DVD image onto a flash drive, and it is easy as long as you don't want to boot it in UEFI mode but in standard BIOS mode.

Using UNetbootin

A user-friendly solution is UNetbootin, which works on Windows, Linux and MacOS and provides a graphical user interface which even downloads the Ubuntu image for you and writes it directly onto your flash drive:

Using command line dd

If you're running Linux or OS X, you can dd the Ubuntu image onto your flash drive:

$ sudo dd if=/path/to/ubuntu-iso-image of=/dev/sdx

where /dev/sdx is the your flash drive. On Linux, you can use sudo blkid to find out the device path, if you have only one hard drive connected, this could be /dev/sdb, but please be careful, as dd is going to delete all data on the device specified after of=.

A port of dd is also available for Windows.