Guide in creating a bootable Linux-Ubuntu USB flash drive

Introduction: This manual will provide a step-by-step guide in creating a bootable Linux-Ubuntu USB flash drive. Requirements: 1. An empty USB flash drive (at least 2GB of available space). 2. A Linux distribution as an *.ISO file extension. For this guide, ubuntu-10.04.2-desktopi386.iso is used. You can download the ISO file from the following links: http://ubuntu.mmu.edu.my/ubuntu-releases/ (select Ubuntu 10.04 LTS) http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download (select Ubuntu 10.04.2 LTS) Note: An ISO image is an archive file (also known as a disk image) of an optical disc in a format defined by the International Organization for Standardization (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_image) 3. A software application (Universal USB Installer) to create a bootable Linux-Ubuntu USB flash drive. Universal USB Installer is a Live Linux USB Creator that allows you to choose from a selection of Linux Distributions to put on your USB Flash Drive. You can download the software from the following link: http://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal-usb-installer-easy-as-1-2-3/ Important Notes: If you want to install Ubuntu 10.04 LTS version from the USB flash drive, your PC must come with a BIOS that can boot from USB as your first bootable sequence in BIOS setting.

Compiled by HC Ling Faculty of Engineering, Multimedia University 6th June 2011

Instructions: 1. Boot into Windows XP/Vista. 2. Launch Universal USB Installer. 3. Follow the steps in Figure 1 below to create a bootable Ubuntu 10.04 USB flash drive.

Select Ubuntu 10.04.X

Step 1

Click Browse to locate the .ISO file that you have downloaded. Select USB flash drive letter

Step 2

Step 3

Check Format if your USB flash drive is not empty. Caution: Make sure you do not have any important data that is still in your USB flash drive. Click Create to start creating the bootable USB flash drive.

Step 4 (optional)

Step 5

Figure 1: Universal USB Installer application 4. If you run Universal USB Installer from the same directory containing an installable ISO, the script should Auto Detect the ISO and bypass step 2 in Figure 1 above as shown in Figure 2.

Compiled by HC Ling Faculty of Engineering, Multimedia University 6th June 2011

Bypassing step 2 (Browse button is dimmed) if your ISO file is in the same directory as the program.

Figure 2: Running Universal USB Installer from the same directory containing an installable ISO

5. After the process is completed, you are now ready to install Ubuntu 10.04 LTS from your USB flash drive. Please refer to the following manuals: Guide to install Linux-Ubuntu when Windows Vista is already installed Guide to install Linux-Ubuntu when Windows XP is already installed

Compiled by HC Ling Faculty of Engineering, Multimedia University 6th June 2011