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I am running usb-creator-gtk.

After copying files it says: "system policy prevents installing the bootloader".

Why does it say this? I am not trying to modify my system. I am creating a bootable USB drive. I don't understand why modifying a thumb drive would require administrator privileges.

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    I found that the Disks utility (gnome-disks) can be used as a replacement for usb-creator-gtk (there is an option called "Restore Disk Image"). This also requires administrator privileges, but I got the sense that it was less buggy than usb-creator-gtk. Just be sure that you select the correct USB device. Dec 16, 2013 at 1:02
  • Or just use the dd utility to copy the .iso file to the USB device. Dec 16, 2013 at 1:04

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Because the system policy for usb-creator-gtk is set up like that. See the /usr/share/polkit-1/actions/com.ubuntu.usbcreator.policy file and the /var/lib/polkit-1/localauthority/10-vendor.d/com.ubuntu.desktop.pkla file. Why? I don't know, maybe the usb-creator code is not safe enough, and the program can be used even to modify internal drives. Maybe it is safe, but the creators don't want to risk it, so they chose not to allow modifications without privileges.

If you don't like that, you can override it (of course that process will require root privileges).

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