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Does anyone have experience creating a bootable Ubuntu USB from the Trisquel OS?

I have no access to a Windows or OS X machine.

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    Close voters: This is not off-topic. Making a USB flash drive with Ubuntu from Windows and Mac OS X is on-topic. There's no reason it's off-topic for Trisquel (which actually has quite a few users). Jan 30, 2013 at 11:03

2 Answers 2

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Trisquel is sufficiently similar to Ubuntu that you can use essentially the same technique recommended for making an Ubuntu USB on a pre-existing Ubuntu system.

Or you can use the Trisquel GNU/Linux instructions for writing a Trisquel ISO to a USB flash drive, but write the Ubuntu ISO image instead of a Trisquel ISO image:

The Ubuntu instructions say to search for Startup Disk Creator in the Unity dash. The Trisquel instructions say to run it from System Settings (in the GNOME Control Center).

If you don't use a GNOME-based desktop (includes Unity), you can run it directly by pressing Alt+F2, typing usb-creator-gtk, and pressing Enter.

If you're using KDE as your desktop environment, run usb-creator-kde instead.

usb-creator-gtk and usb-creator-kde are available for all versions of Trisquel GNU/Linux. If you don't have them, you can install them with the package manager--for example, in Add/Remove Applications. But they are installed by default; it's quite unlikely you don't have them.

Here's a summary of what to do once you have successfully launched the utility:

One non-Unity interface's run dialog (this happens to be LXDE).

Then click Other, find the ISO image, and back on the main screen, select which device you want to write it to. (Be careful not to select the wrong one, as this overwrites whatever data are already there.) Click Make Startup Disk.

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Or use the terminal-based instructions:

The CLI instructions there work too. As it says, run:

sudo dd if=/path/to/image.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=8M;sync
  • /path/to/image.iso should be replaced by the actual path. (One way to get this is to drag the ISO image into the terminal window from a file browser window or the desktop.)
  • X should be replaced by the letter (a, b, c, ...) representing the physical disk to which you are writing the image.
  • It is very important to avoid accidentally writing the image (or any part of it) to the wrong drive. Like on Ubuntu, when you run sudo dd ... in Trisquel GNU/Linux, there is no protection against a typo that could potentially cause substantial data loss. While an equivalent mistake using the GUI utility (explained above) is possible, the interface makes it somewhat less likely. If you're not already comfortable using the command-line, I recommend the GUI way instead.
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I recommend MultiSystem utility for best results with the least problems, which you can download and install from here: http://liveusb.info/dotclear/index.php?pages/install

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  • That's primarily for creating a USB flash drive with multiple operating systems on it that can be selected between at boot-time. In contrast, here the OP just wants to write an Ubuntu ISO image to a USB flash drive, probably to try or install Ubuntu. Jan 30, 2013 at 11:19
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    Thanks for the comment Eliah; Ubuntu's own "Startup Disk Creator" whuich is probably included in the Ubuntu-based Trisquel OS might be more straightforward (one-step) solution for this purpose, but for instance I've encountered problems with it sometimes (e.g. with a 2GB USB stick) whereas "MultiSystem" does the same job and much more...
    – Sadi
    Jan 30, 2013 at 11:45

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