User:UNiversal
Installation/FromUSBStick
These instructions have been adapted from the Ubuntu Community Documentation and credits for its creation are attributed Ubuntu Documentation Team as per their creative commons licence 3.0. This is a wip
Outline
The general procedure to install Ubuntu from a USB flash drive is:
1. Acquire the correct Ubuntu installation files ('the ISO')
1. Put Ubuntu onto your USB flash drive
1. Configure your computer to boot from USB flash drive and boot from it
1. Try Ubuntu or install it to your hard drive.
Introduction
XBMCbuntu or Ubuntu can be installed from a USB flash drive. This may be necessary for netbooks and other computers without CD drives and is handy for others because a USB flash drive is so convenient. Also, you can be configured on the USB flash drive to save changes you make, unlike a read-only CD-ROM drive.
Booting from a USB flash drive created with this utility 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.
Note: This article uses the term "USB flash drive" instead of: USB stick, USB drive, thumb drive and USB flash drive.
Prerequisites
To create a USB installation disk, you will need:
- A 2 GB USB flash drive. Files on this USB disk will be erased, so previously backup your documents. Make sure this USB disk is properly formatted and mounted.
- An XBMCbuntu ISO file see XBMC Download to download it.
- An Ubuntu image file see Supported Linux distributions to download it)
Creating a bootable Ubuntu USB flash drive
From Ubuntu
- Install and run usb-creator
You can find usb-creator-gtk in the Unity Dash 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 Synaptic Package Manager or Ubuntu Software Center
- Insert and mount the USB drive. Inserting the USB drive should auto-mount it.
- Start usb-creator. It looks like this:
- in the top pane of usb-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.
- Alternately, if you have a CD or DVD-ROM with the Ubuntu version you want to install on the USB flash drive, insert it in your CD-ROM drive and usb-creator can use that.
- It is not necessary to erase the USB flash drive, however it is advisable that you do so.
- . Select the first bootable partition on the USB device as the disk to use
- . The bootable partition should be formatted as either a FAT16 or FAT32 filesystem. This is the default for most USB flash drives.
Notes
- NEVER use one of your hard drive partitions in this process unless you really know what you are doing, as data will get erased.
- There may be a bug during the formatting which will cause two partitions to appear when booting from the USB flash drive. Try selecting each of them and one should work. If not, restart the computer and try booting from the USB flash drive again.
- If you get a DBus error with usb-creator, this bug report may be helpful: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/usb-creator/+bug/458334
From Mac OSX
See How to install Ubuntu on MacBook using USB flash drive
From Windows
Download and use [Live Usb Creator].
Once you have usb-creator.exe, run it and follow the same steps as described for Linux (point it at your .iso file or your Ubuntu CD-ROM, point it at your USB flash drive, make sure you have the right device selected, then "Make Startup Disk").
Notes
- Instead of usb-creator.exe you can use Unetbootin to create a bootable USB flash drive. http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/
- You won't be able to select the USB flash drive if it wasn't formatted in a way that Windows can see it. You may have to format it using Windows Explorer in order for it to show up in a creator tool.