Linux Answered

Did you ever felt the need to have a Linux operating system right here, right now? But all you have is a laptop running Windows7 or Windows XP. Well, this tutorial is helping you to create a USB-stick that will live boot Linux.

All we need is the image of your favorite distribution. In my case this is either Fedora, Backtrack or today, Linux Mint (I’m testing it right now as a possible replacement for my Fedora with Gnome3. My desktop still has problems with it).

There are many ways to create a Linux boot stick under Linux, perhaps the most common way is with the dd command.

dd.exe if=/path/to/the/downloaded/iso of=/path/to/the/USB/device

Voila, that’s how you create a boot stick under Linux. This however will use the entire USB stick, leaving no place for persistent storage. But that’s not what this tutorial is about. It’s about Windows

So what if you want to create a Linux bootable stick but you don’t have a Linux operating system near you. I used to use unetbootin. This however, failed more then it actually worked.

Yesterday (31 July 2012) I was in one of those positions in which I desperately needed my Linux operating system.

It didn’t took to much time to find a new tool that promised to do the same thing, creating a Linux bootable stick.

Universal USB Installer – Easy as 1 2 3 does what it promises, the GUI is easy to use and it takes only minutes to create your stick. It even allows you to create a persistent Linux.

How To

Download the program from the website, run this program and accept the license agreement.

Next, you need to choose which Linux distribution, I’m going to use Linux mint. Since I already downloaded the ISO, I’m selecting it, instead of re-downloading it. I created a persistent storage file of 2GB.

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Now, when you’re ready press “create”. This will start the creation of your Linux bootable stick.

Press “Yes” if you are sure.

The process might take a while. In my case it took about 5 min to flash the Linux on to the stick and a few min to create the persistent storage. When Linux is unpacked onto the stick the installer will continue.

As you see here, Linux is unpacked on the stick, however, right now the installer is creating the persistent file. This might take a while!

All you have to do now is reboot and enjoy. Make sure that you select your USB device as the device to boot from. You can either change this in your Bios or use your manufacturers option for a one time boot device. In my case I needed to press f8 while in the BIOS screen.

Cheers!