Installing Ubuntu 9.10 from a USB Stick
Linux distributions tend to come as ISO images – files which are images of CDs/DVDs. I’ve always burned the images to a disk to install, but I’ve been meaning to try setting up a bootable USB stick instead.
Better for the environment, right? More importantly, I never seem to have a blank CD knocking about when I decide to do an install.
I expected some hassle, but it turns out to be trivial if you’re already on a Ubuntu machine, so long as your BIOS supports booting from USB devices. So…
- Check the computer you want to install into supports booting from USB; if it doesn’t I guess you’re stuck with the CD option
- Slap a USB stick with 2GB space or more in a slot on another Ubuntu machine (make sure there’s nothing on the stick you’ll miss if it gets lost!)
- Start up usb-creator from the command line (just type usb-creator, or sudo apt-get it if it’s not installed)
- Choose the .iso in the usb-creator utility
- Choose the target USB device
- Wait while files are copied and stuff
- Pull out the USB stick when it’s ready, plug it into your target machine and reboot.
The familiar installer screens should start up.
More details here.
These are my thoughts and opinions and do not reflect
those of anyone else. Read the disclaimer for more verbal
teflon.