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I don't know what happened, but somehow I can't update my system. apt-get update returns broken package errors. And because I haven't been able to do this, I can't upgrade the release either. So it looks like my only option is to do a fresh install with the latest release - which I'm more than happy to do.

But, I can't create a bootable USB because my system (Ubuntu Studio 18.10) for some reason doesn't have the USB Disk Creator software AND (guess what) I can't install this software because my system is out of date.

As you can see I'm a Ubuntu noob, but this version prison loop is making me crazy.

Can someone provide some idiotproof instructions on how to do create a bootable USB on an old system that doesn't have the software?

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    You can use balena etcher since it doesn't require any software installation. You didn't tell us what errors you are getting, but I'm assuming they stem from the fact that your OS is way past End of Life. 18.10 has been EOL since July 2019. Don't let your OS go EOL.
    – Nmath
    Oct 12, 2020 at 17:47
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    Please tell us the version of Ubuntu that you have installed now. And tell us if you can connect to the internet via a web browser (in Ubuntu, some other Linux, Windows or MacOS). -- When we know that, we can suggest what tool to use (and how to get it, if it is not there already).
    – sudodus
    Oct 12, 2020 at 18:06
  • Ubuntu Studio 18.10. Yes I have internet.
    – Colin R. Turner
    Oct 12, 2020 at 18:16

2 Answers 2

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  • I suggest that you download UbuntuStudio 20.04.1 LTS (or some other flavour of 20.04.1 LTS).

  • Then you can use dd, but it is not 'idiotproof'. Even several linux gurus have destroyed data using dd. So if you want to use it, check and double-check that you will be writing to the correct target drive, the USB pendrive.

  • A safer alternative is to use mkusb. Instead of installing it via PPA (that might fail because apt is not working for you, you can download a tarball and extract it from the tarball.

    There are tarballs for two parts of mkusb

    If your current system is too damaged to make dus or mkusb-plug work, you can try with the very simple shellscript

    • mkusb-min: See this link

      It is not as user-friendly (as dus and mkusb-plug), but there are checkpoints for you where you get help to identify the target drive, so that you can avoid mistakes.

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Gnome-Disks

If you have trouble installing mkusb, (also my choice for installer), you can use Gnome-Disks.

Gnome-disks has an option to "Restore Disk Image"

This option can be used to flash the ISO files of many Linux distributions to a USB drive, creating a bootable USB.

Open Disks, select the USB you want to install the ISO on, click the 3 lines icon upper right and select "Restore Disk Image". A window will open, just select the ISO file you want to install, confirm the destination and click start restoring.

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  • I did not check in Ubuntu Studio 18.10, but in Ubuntu Studio 20.04 LTS I could find no gnome-disks installed by default (and no usb-creator-* alias Startup Disk Creator as described by the OP). So they are probably not available in this case. Otherwise both gnome-disks and the Startup Disk Creator are good alternatives.
    – sudodus
    Oct 13, 2020 at 6:32

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