Installing distros on USB sticks with Unetbootin
Little Boots
© Andrew Horwitz, 123RF
Unetbootin lets users set up almost any distribution on a bootable USB stick.
Vampire hunter Van Helsing always has some holy water along for emergencies; Daywalker Blade relies on silver stakes. Experienced Linux users are more likely to resort to Linux on a USB stick to exorcise viruses from infected Windows computers. Thanks to Unetbootin, setting up an electronic emergency tool on a stick does not take much time. The installer lets you install various Linux distributions quickly and securely on an empty USB stick. Then you can use the stick to boot other computers.
Unetbootin will roll out live versions as well as installation and netboot variants. If you are not happy with the default selection of distributions supported by Unetbootin, you can feed the tool an ISO file for your favorite distro. Time-consuming workarounds necessitated by alternative tools such as Pendrivelinux [1] are thus a thing of the past.
To install Unetbootin, copy unetbootin-linux-323 (from the DVD that came with this issue or from the website [2]) to your home directory and make it executable:
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Ubuntu 25.04 Coming Soon
Ubuntu 25.04 (Plucky Puffin) has been given an April release date with many notable updates.
-
Gnome Developers Consider Dropping RPM Support
In a move that might shock a lot of users, the Gnome development team has proposed the idea of going straight up Flatpak.
-
openSUSE Tumbleweed Ditches AppArmor for SELinux
If you're an openSUSE Tumbleweed user, you can expect a major change to the distribution.
-
Plasma 6.3 Now Available
Plasma desktop v6.3 has a couple of pretty nifty tricks up its sleeve.
-
LibreOffice 25.2 Has Arrived
If you've been hoping for a release that offers more UI customizations, you're in for a treat.
-
TuxCare Has a Big AlmaLinux 9 Announcement in Store
TuxCare announced it has successfully completed a Security Technical Implementation Guide for AlmaLinux OS 9.
-
First Release Candidate for Linux Kernel 6.14 Now Available
Linus Torvalds has officially released the first release candidate for kernel 6.14 and it includes over 500,000 lines of modified code, making for a small release.
-
System76 Refreshes Meerkat Mini PC
If you're looking for a small form factor PC powered by Linux, System76 has exactly what you need in the Meerkat mini PC.
-
Gnome 48 Alpha Ready for Testing
The latest Gnome desktop alpha is now available with plenty of new features and improvements.
-
Wine 10 Includes Plenty to Excite Users
With its latest release, Wine has the usual crop of bug fixes and improvements, along with some exciting new features.