Writing ISOs to USB flash drives?

[mikeymikec]

I've been writing ISOs to optical storage for years, but apart from using MS's Media Creation Tool once on Windows, I've never written a generic ISO image to USB flash using normal software (as opposed to the MCT which is designed for one ISO/job only).

I'm using Lubuntu 18.04 LTS x64 these days.

 

[TheELF]

One stop shop for everything to do with making bootable flash drives.
https://www.pendrivelinux.com/

 

[dave_the_nerd]

unetbootin

http://unetbootin.github.io/

It basically works like Rufus or Win32DiskImager on Windows.

 

[HY Kok]

rufus works great for me.

https://rufus.ie

 

[mikeymikec]

The Disks app that comes with Lubuntu 18.04LTS (which I think is the standard Ubuntu gnome-based one) seems to do it, but it didn't seem to work with the hybrid tablet/laptop I tried it with. That device was a fussy little **** though.

At a spare moment I'll try it on a spare PC and see if it works.

 

[mxnerd]

https://unetbootin.github.io/

https://www.balena.io/etcher/

http://multibootusb.org/

 

[Red Squirrel]

I usually like to use dd, it does not work for all ISOs though, it has to be a special type of ISO that is meant for it but think most Linux distros do use that format.

Basically you insert the flash drive, check dmesg to see what it's called (ex: /dev/sdb)

Then do

dd if=file.iso of=/dev/sdb

Be sure you don't mix up the sdb part or you might overwrite your local hard drive. Oops.

dd basically is a command to copy data in a raw way, so what it's basically doing is writing the ISO to the USB stick directly at the raw level.

 

[robb_nl]

As suggested by @mxnerd: go with etcher! It is multiplatform and works amazingly well. I never have seen a failed install on a thumbdrive.

 

[Modular]

EDIT: I see you're using Lubunu not Ubuntu and I'm unsure of the differences there. The below answer may not make any sense in that context.

I've had bad luck with Etcher. Linux Mint has this built in. Just right click the drive and select "Make Bootable".

Since Mint is basically Ubuntu, is it possible that there's a way to enable this in Ubuntu without downloading another program?

 

[Bardock]

I like grub4dos.

It's cool.

Format USB to fat32.

Install grub4dos on the drive.

Remember all the iso files you need.

Then make a menu.lst file to build a legacy grub usb boot menu.

The only Bugaboo I've run into with it is it hates loading iso files that are fragmented. And, by its very nature, Linux Filesystems cause fragmenting.

So best to at least copy to iso to the usb from windows or download iso directly from the net to USB on Linux.

Don't know if it works on gpt disks, maybe idk don't use it.