Ubuntu Documentation

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Automatic process

UNetbootin is an installer that can do the following automatically. It is available for download at http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/.

Instlux is an installer that does all of the following for you, however it only supports older versions of Ubuntu. You can download it from http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/instlux.

Wubi is an installer that uses a process similar to what described in this page, but the installation takes place within a file inside Windows, and hence, differently from the other approaches, it does not require to modify the partitions. In any case, if you later want install it to a dedicated partition, you can do it. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WubiGuide.

Manual process

The netboot approach

This page will guide you through obtaining the files necessary to boot the Ubuntu installation from a FAT or NTFS partition, thus allowing you to install Ubuntu without any sort of removeable media. This guide assumes that you are running either some NT-based Windows(NT, 2000, XP) or Windows 9x (95, 98, ME).

Create a directory called boot in the root directory of the first primary partition of your hard drive (usually drive c:\, which it will be referred to as from now on).

The following steps depend on which version of Windows you are using:

Windows 95/98/ME (using Loadlin)

Download loadlin.exe.gz from https://passechambre.appspot.com/show/indexothers.html and unpack it to boot (If your default compression/archive program doesn’t like *.tar.gz files, try 7-Zip from http://www.7-zip.org)

Choose Reboot in MS-DOS mode in the shutdown menu orpress F8 (Ctrl for Win98/ME) during boot and choose command prompt only in order to start Windows in DOS mode

Get into the boot directory and run loadlin:

Now you should have a network installation going

Note: On some computers the installer has problems with the video card and you may get a «melting screen». I replaced vga=normal with vga=771 and it worked on my laptop Stjepan Stamenkovic

Windows NT/2000/XP (using Grub)

Extract grldr from the archive to c:\.

Create a new folder in c:\boot\ called grub.

Extract menu.lst (Should be in the /boot/grub folder of the archive) to c:\boot\grub The rest of the files in the archive are unnecessary. (If your default compression/archive program doesn’t like *.tar.gz files, try 7-Zip from http://www.7-zip.org or TUGzip from http://www.tugzip.com.)

Append c:\grldr="Install Ubuntu" to c:\boot.ini.

Note: Eventhough c:\boot.ini is not shown by the explorer, this file exists and can be also opened in the notepad. Just write the path c:\Boot.ini at the open dialog.

Open menu.lst in a text editor and paste the following text in the file:

Save menu.lst, reboot, and select «Install Ubuntu» in the windows OS chooser then in GRUB. You now have a network installation of Ubuntu going.

This procedure should be possible using a disk image, but it may be necessary to use a different kernel and pass some special argument in menu.lst to tell it to boot from the CD image (Has been achieved using Knoppix).

It would be nice if someone could automate this process. InstallationUbuntuFromWindows outlines how such an installation system might work.

The CD approach

This approach is documented in the Installation notes, however it seemed appropiate to put a reference to it here.

Note: This method only works with the Alternate Ubuntu install CD.

If you can’t boot from the CD-ROM directly it is possible to use the above approach to boot the kernel from the HDD and have the installation follow through on the CD-ROM.

Create a directory called ubuntu in the root directory of the first primary partition of your hard drive (usually drive c:\, which it will be referred to as from now on).

Download the ALTERNATE ubuntu-installer CD from http://www.ubuntulinux.org/download/ and burn the CD, then copy the contents of the CD to ubuntu.

Note: If you can’t/don’t want to burn a cd you can also mount the iso with a program like Daemon Tools or Alcohol 120% or simply open the iso file using 7-Zip

Extract grldr from the archive to c:\grldr. The rest of the files in the archive are unnecessary. (If your default compression/archive program doesn’t like *.tar.gz files, try 7-Zip from http://www.7-zip.org.)

Append c:\grldr="Install Ubuntu" to c:\boot.ini.

Note: Eventhough c:\boot.ini is not shown by the explorer, this file exists and can be also opened in the notepad. Just write the path c:\Boot.ini at the open dialog.

Create a new text file called menu.lst and save it to the first primary partition of your hard drive.

Open menu.lst in a text editor and paste the following text in the file:

Save menu.lst, reboot with the Ubuntu installer CD in the drive, and select «Install Ubuntu» twice. You now have a CD installation of Ubuntu going.

The CD image approach

Note: This method only works with the Alternate Ubuntu install CD.

If for some reason you can not (do not want to) write the CD it is possible to use the ISO image to do the installation from hard disk.

Create a directory called ubuntu in the root directory of the first primary partition of your hard drive (usually drive c:\, which it will be referred to as from now on).

Download the ALTERNATE ubuntu-installer CD from http://www.ubuntulinux.org/download/ and save the .iso file in the root directory of first partition of your hard drive .

Extract grldr from the archive to c:\grldr. The rest of the files in the archive are unnecessary.

Append c:\grldr="Install Ubuntu" to c:\boot.ini.

Note: Eventhough C:\boot.ini is not shown (by default) by Windows Explorer, this file exists and can be also opened in the notepad. Just write the path C:\boot.ini at the open dialog.

Create a new text file called menu.lst and save it to the first primary partition of your hard drive.

Open menu.lst in a text editor and paste the following text in the file:

Save menu.lst, reboot, select «Install Ubuntu» twice. You now have a CD image installation of Ubuntu going.

If you are installing onto the disk that is hosting the installer, and during partitioning the installer says that the kernel cannot read the new partition table, and that you should reboot your system, don’t. The partitioner has already flagged the new Linux partition as the boot partition, so the system will be unbootable. If you’re dealing with a system with no floppy or CD drive, you will be stuck. Instead, use Alt-F2, Enter to open a console and use cfdisk to set the boot partition back to the partition which hosts the installer, then go back to the installer using Alt-F1, as many times as needed to get to the menu, then select «Abort Installation» to reboot.

Installation/FromWindows (последним исправлял пользователь yousef-el-sayed 2014-07-03 06:57:04)

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Ubuntu Documentation

Outline

The general procedure to install Ubuntu (or Ubuntu flavour, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntu, . ) from a USB flash drive is:

Get the correct Ubuntu installation file, ‘the iso file’, via this link or Ubuntu flavour via this link. Download the iso file into your running computer (for example into the directory Downloads in the internal drive, not into the USB flash drive that you want to make into a USB boot drive).

Check with md5sum (or another checksum tool) that the download was good.

Put Ubuntu onto your USB flash drive alias ‘stick’ alias ‘pendrive’ alias ‘thumb’. Tools for this purpose are described in this help page.

Configure your computer to boot from USB flash drive and boot from it.

Try Ubuntu (Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntu, . ) before installing it.

Install Ubuntu to your internal drive (hard disk drive or solid state drive or external drive).

See also: Installation/FromUSBStickQuick for beginners starting from Windows.

Introduction

Ubuntu can be installed from a USB flash drive. This may be necessary for most new portable computers without DVD drives and is handy for others because a USB flash drive is so convenient. Also, you can configure Ubuntu on the USB flash drive to save changes you make, unlike a read-only CD/DVD disk.

Booting from a USB flash drive created with usb-creator alias Startup Disk Creator and mkusb will behave just as if you had booted from the install CD. It will show the language selection and then the install menu, from which you can install Ubuntu onto the computer’s hard drive or launch the LiveCD environment. Other utilities, e.g. UNetbootin, may create slightly different boot drives or if on UEFI might not work at all with Debian iso files due to a bug

Note: This article uses the term «USB flash drive» alongside USB stick, USB drive, USB device, USB pendrive and thumb drive.

Prerequisites

To create a USB installation device, you will need:

a 4 GB USB flash device/drive/stick. If the iso file is smaller than 2 GB, it is possible to use a 2 GB USB device, at least with some of the methods. Files on this USB device will be erased, so backup the files you want to keep before making the device bootable. Some of the tools require that this USB device is properly formatted and mounted while other tools will overwrite whatever is on the target device. Please follow the instructions for each tool.

an Ubuntu flavour ISO file downloaded from an official web page, ubuntu.com/download or http://releases.ubuntu.com, stored in your running computer (for example in the directory Downloads in the internal drive, not in the USB flash drive that you want to make into a USB boot drive).

Check with md5sum (or another checksum tool) that the download was good. In Linux there is the tool ‘md5sum’. In Windows you can do it with Rufus: click on the circle with a tick mark (more about Rufus here.)

Dummy headlines

After a major remake of this help page the following headlines are kept here because they may be linked to from other web sites. Several other headlines further down in the page are also kept for this reason.

Notes about speed

Notes about size

Notes about bootability

The flash hardware

There is a detailed description at the sub-page /pre

Creating a bootable Ubuntu USB flash drive from Windows

There are various methods available for Windows to create a bootable Ubuntu USB flash drive.

NEVER try to use one of your hard disk drives or partitions in this process unless you really know what you are doing, as data will get erased.

Rufus

Rufus is the tool in Windows that is recommended officially by Ubuntu. A tutorial is available from here.

balenaEtcher

Pendrivelinux’s Universal USB Installer

UNetbootin

Win32 Disk Imager

There is a detailed description at /fromWindows including Rufus, balena Etcher, Universal USB Installer, Unetbootin and Win32 Disk Imager.

Creating a bootable Ubuntu USB flash drive from Ubuntu

Install and run Startup Disk Creator alias usb-creator

The Ubuntu Startup Disk Creator is dedicated to creating USB boot drives for Ubuntu and Ubuntu family flavours (Kubuntu, Lubuntu . Xubuntu).

Use another tool (e.g. ‘UNetbootin’ or ‘mkusb’), if you want to create a USB boot drive with another Linux distro (alias Linux operating system).

You can find usb-creator-gtk by typing «Startup Disk Creator» (Ubuntu Desktop) or usb-creator-kde in K-Menu—>Applications—>System—>Startup Disk Creator (Kubuntu). If it is not there, then you can install it using the Ubuntu Software Center.

• Insert and mount the USB drive. Inserting the USB drive should auto-mount it.
• Start the Startup Disk Creator
• In the top pane of the Startup Disk Creator, pick the .iso file that you downloaded.
• If the .iso file isn’t listed, click «Other» to locate and select the .iso file that you downloaded.
• In the bottom pane of the Startup Disk Creator, pick the target device, the USB flash drive. If more than one choice, please check carefully, until you are sure that you will be writing to the correct device.
• After checking that you are pointing to the correct target device, the USB flash drive, you can start the action.

You must enter a password because this is a risky operation. Use the password of the current user ID (the same as for login and running tasks with 'sudo'. Password is not required when installing from a ‘live’ system (booted from a DVD disk or another USB flash drive).

The Startup Disk Creator clones the iso file, which means that you need neither erase nor format the target drive. It will be completely overwritten anyway by the cloning process. The Startup Disk Creator looks like this in Ubuntu 18.04 LTS:

Notes

NEVER try to use one of your hard disk drives or SSDs or partitions in this process unless you really know what you are doing, as data will get erased.

There are bugs that affect the Ubuntu Startup Disk Creator, when you run it in old Ubuntu versions in BIOS mode and try to create USB boot drives with other versions. In the Ubuntu Startup Disk Creator version 0.3.2 in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, these bugs are no longer a problem, so you can install any version of the Ubuntu flavours from 16.04 LTS and newer versions.

UNetbootin

Download UNetbootin

UNetbootin works in and with most Linux distros.

It is an extracting tool (not a cloning tool).

It can make a persistence file up to 4GB in size to save data and defaults.

mkusb — dd image of iso file to USB device safely

If you want to clone from a general image file to a drive, you can use mkusb. It lets you clone to any drive that is not busy, also an internal drive, and there are very obvious warnings to prevent mistakes.

mkusb can also

• run in Debian and many linux distros that are similar to Ubuntu and Debian,
• clone from iso files of most Linux distros to create USB boot drives,
• create persistent live drives of the Ubuntu family and Debian, using all available drive space for persistence and/or data storage,
• restore a USB boot drive to a standard storage device.

There is a detailed description at /fromUbuntu including the Startup Disk Creator, UNetbootin and mkusb.

Creating a bootable Ubuntu USB flash drive from Mac OSX

There is a good wiki page about booting with UEFI, and a good tutorial thread, UEFI Installing — Tips.

Test if running in UEFI mode

You may want to test if your Ubuntu flavour is running in [U]EFI mode. An installed system and a live system too is using the directory /sys/firmware/efi, so you can run the following command line,

The following command line is more robust and also easier to understand, so you may prefer it (if you copy & paste and are not bothered by typing a long command line),