The following is a quick reference list of some useful Linux shell commands along with a short description of common usage. There are several more, but this basic list was created to help familiarize the newly introduced Ubuntu users. Those who might be migrating from a Windows operating environment.
Making a Damn Small Linux Live USB (DSL). This is a revisit of my Windows DSL bootable USB installation tutorial: "Putting Damn Small Linux on a USB". Based on the 2.4 kernel, this tiny distribution is great to use for older and slower computers as well. It will fit and run on portable devices or thumb drives as small as 64 MB.
How to Create a PCLinuxOS Bootable USB Drive: PCLinuxOS is a clean, compact, and visually appealing Live Linux CD compilation developed by Texstar. Originally derived from Mandriva Linux, it has grown into a standalone Linux distribution known for its stability, rolling release model, and user-friendly design. This Live Linux OS is a versatile option for creating a portable operating system you can carry on a USB flash drive.
The following detailed guide demonstrates how to install, boot, and run Feather Linux from a USB flash drive using either the Universal USB Installer on Windows or the dd command on Linux. Feather Linux is a compact (under 128MB), clean, and efficient Knoppix Linux remix, based on Debian. This minimalist Linux distribution is easy to set up, making it ideal for users looking for a lightweight operating system solution.
Creating a USB Bootable RUNT Linux; This walk through illustrates how to install, boot, and run RUNT Linux from a USB flash drive. RUNT is a super super tiny and very basic Linux distro. It is recommended for intermediate to advanced users who prefer to do work without using a graphical interface like X. Beware that by default it does not feature a GUI, it uses a text only based interface.
How to manually create a bootable USB from ISO Files Using the Linux dd Command. You can use dd to write ISO to USB from within Linux or any Unix based system. The dd command is powerful and can be used for copying data bit by bit from a source to a destination, in essence making an exact copy of the source at the destination.
Recover Lost Space on a USB Flash Drive: Missing space on your USB drive after formatting? Is your USB drive showing the wrong capacity? You may have encountered this issue after using tools to burn an ISO to a USB. Don't worry, recovering lost space on a USB flash drive is straightforward!
Can you boot from an exFAT USB? Yes, but not directly using a single exFAT partition. To make a USB flash drive bootable in UEFI mode with exFAT, you must create two partitions: one exFAT for storing ISOs and one FAT32 for booting. Grub2 is then installed to the FAT32 partition, enabling boot support for both UEFI and BIOS systems.
How to boot a VirtualBox VM from USB: Convert your VirtualBox virtual machine (VHD or VDI) to a raw disk image, write it to a USB flash drive, and then boot from that USB on physical hardware. This post walks you through each step to convert a Virtual Machine into a bootable USB in Windows and Linux.
Convert FAT32 to NTFS Without Losing Data. Do you need to store files larger than 4GB on a FAT32-formatted drive? The FAT32 file system has a limitation that prevents you from doing so, making it necessary to convert to NTFS. Luckily, you can convert FAT32 to NTFS without losing your data or needing to reformat. In this tutorial, we'll walk you through the process step by step.
Easily Write Image ISO to USB: Win32 Disk Imager is a free and open source utility for writing disk image files to USB drives and SD cards. It supports both ISO and IMG formats, making it useful for creating bootable media, backing up removable storage, or duplicating Raspberry Pi SD cards. Whether you're a hobbyist, developer, or sysadmin, this tool offers a simple, reliable solution for image writing and recovery tasks.
Use Balena Etcher to easily burn ISO files to USB or Clone your USB drives. Ever wondered how to burn an ISO file to create a bootable USB drive? Or perhaps you're looking for a simple tool to clone a USB drive? Etcher, a freely available software utility, makes both of these tasks as straightforward as possible for users of all skill levels.
Ventoy is a powerful open-source tool for creating a multiboot USB drive. With it, you can boot directly from multiple ISO files stored on a single USB, no reformatting or reinstallation needed. Just drag and drop your ISOs and boot!
Rufus - easily boot DOS from USB: Creating a bootable USB flash drive to boot DOS from USB can be complicated. However, a tool called Rufus (Reliable USB Format Utility), created by Pete Batard, can make this task relatively simple. This utility can also be used to create a Bootable USB of a given distro from an ISO or image file.
LiveUSB Install is a versatile third party tool used to create Live Linux Bootable USB drives. It enables you to easily transfer a Live Linux distribution of your choice onto a flash drive, ideal for testing or installing Linux systems without modifying your hard drive. You can write an existing ISO, use a CD/DVD as the source, or download a Linux ISO file directly from the internet.
SARDU (Shardana Antivirus Rescue Disk Utility) is a powerful multiboot USB and DVD creation tool for Windows and Linux systems. Designed for IT professionals, system administrators, and tech enthusiasts, it supports multiple Live Linux ISOs, Windows setup installers (Windows 11, 10, 8, 7, XP), antivirus boot utilities, and recovery tools, all from a single USB flash drive.
Boot Multiple ISO from USB using GRUB2 from Linux. Here is one way to manually create a Multiboot USB Flash Drive (Multiboot ISOs) from a running Linux environment. Allowing you to store and run Multiple ISO files from one single USB drive.
Creating a Bitdefender Rescue USB: The Bitdefender Rescue CD is a free bootable antivirus and malware removal utility created by Bitdefender, a leading name in cybersecurity. Designed for emergency virus recovery, it allows users to scan and clean infected systems that can no longer boot into Windows. You can create a portable rescue environment by running it directly from a USB flash drive, eliminating threats from outside the compromised system.
Easily create a bootable GParted Live USB flash drive from Windows using YUMI, or using dd in Linux or on macOS. GParted, a popular graphical partition editor developed by Curtis Gedak, is a powerful open source USB partition tool for managing disk partitions. It allows you to create, resize, delete, and reorganize partitions with ease. Additional features include managing boot flags, formatting drives, cloning partitions, and more.
System Rescue USB (formerly known as System Rescue CD) is a Linux based live system toolkit designed for troubleshooting, repairing, and recovering computers. It helps fix unbootable or damaged systems, restore operating systems, repair filesystems, and recover data after crashes.
Want to try a Live USB Kubuntu without installing it on your hard drive? A bootable USB lets you test it in live mode. With persistence enabled, you can save files, settings, and installed software for future sessions. This guide shows how to create a Kubuntu live USB using tools like YUMI, Etcher, and dd, on Windows, Linux, or macOS.
How to Install Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR) to a USB Drive: Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR) is a lightweight version of Ubuntu Linux developed by Canonical Ltd. for netbooks and other low-powered computers. Though officially discontinued, it remains an excellent operating system for reviving old netbooks and laptops.
Boot from a USB Ubuntu Live with Persistence: Learn how to create a bootable USB stick that not only runs Ubuntu Live but also remembers your settings and files. This guide shows how to use YUMI from Windows (or Linux via WINE), as well as other tools like Etcher and the dd command for advanced users.
Let's create a Casper-RW partition larger than 4GB on your USB drive: This tutorial will guide you through the steps to create a writable casper-rw partition larger than 4GB on your USB flash drive. This allows persistent storage beyond the 4GB limit imposed by a casper-rw file, giving you more flexibility for storing files, settings, and configurations on your Ubuntu based Live USB.
The Universal USB Installer (UUI) is a powerful bootable USB software tool for creating USB boot drives from ISO files, perfect for installing Linux or Windows, running live systems, or building diagnostic toolkits. This versatile ISO-to-USB software makes it easy to boot from USB and create Live USBs for Linux distributions, Windows setup installers, antivirus tools, and system diagnostic utilities. Whether you need a multisystem Windows Media Creation Tool, a Live USB Linux installer, or an all-in-one PC diagnostic toolkit, UUI offers a reliable and flexible Linux and Windows bootable USB creator.
In this tutorial, you'll learn how to install the Puppy Arcade retro gaming Linux distro to a bootable USB flash drive using Windows. Puppy Arcade is a remastered version of Puppy Linux, designed specifically for Linux-based game console emulation. Originally developed by Scott Jarvis, it features a collection of built-in emulators for classic gaming systems.
Create a Bootable StartOS (YlmF OS) USB Drive on Windows, Linux, or macOS. Formerly known as YlmF OS, this tiny Linux distribution is modeled to look and feel like Microsoft Windows. Often described as the Linux that looks like Windows, it combines the visual familiarity of Windows with the performance, security, and freedom of open source software.
How to Create a Ubuntu Rescue Remix Bootable USB flash drive from within Windows. The following tutorial covers one method of installing and running (URR) Ubuntu Rescue Remix to a USB drive using a Windows PC and the Universal USB Installer to do the Boot creation. Upon completion, the distribution can then be booted and run from your removable device.
How to Boot a USB flash drive in VirtualBox. In this segment you will learn how to successfully boot a portable operating system from a USB flash drive or removable external hard drive while still running from within a Windows, Linux, or Mac OS X environment using vbox.
Can You Boot a Portable VirtualBox from USB? Yes, you can! Want to run VirtualBox directly from a USB drive without installing software on the host PC or restarting the system? Thanks to Portable VirtualBox, it's entirely possible!
Easily create a bootable Live KNOPPIX USB flash drive using the Universal USB Installer. KNOPPIX is a free, open-source, Debian-based Live Linux distribution. It's well known for its portability, automatic hardware detection, and usefulness in system recovery, diagnostics, and hardware testing.
How to make Clonezilla USB bootable flash drive from Windows. Clonezilla software is a free partition or disk clone tool that works similar to Norton Ghost and Partition Image. It can be used to backup (clone) information from media to media.
Learn how to create a bootable USB for Simply MEPIS Linux using YUMI (Windows), dd (Linux/Windows), or Terminal on macOS. Simply MEPIS was originally developed by Warren Woodford in 2002 as a user-friendly Debian-based Linux distribution.
How to Make a SLAX Bootable USB Drive: Running Linux from a flash drive gives you portability, flexibility, and a practical way to test or troubleshoot computers without affecting your primary system. In this walkthrough, you'll learn how to set up a SLAX live USB using YUMI Multiboot USB Creator on Windows, or on Linux via WINE. Methods are also provided to help do the same natively from Linux or a macOS.
How to create a bootable USB Debian Live flash drive from Windows by using Etcher by Balena, YUMI Multiboot USB tool, DD for Windows or the Linux DD command. The following tutorial covers the process of installing Debian to a USB drive from within Windows, Linux, or macOS. Resulting in a Live bootable USB with optional persistence. Upon completion, you can also use the resulting device to install Debian from USB to an internal hard drive.
Make a USB bootable Sugar on a Stick flash drive; Sugar on a Stick (SoaS) is a compressed version of Fedora Linux. It was created as a portable Linux for kids; as an alternative to using Fedora's office style desktop. It essentially consists of a learning platform for children that promotes collaborative learning through activities that encourage critical thinking.
This tutorial will guide you through the steps to create a bootable USB drive with Eeebuntu, a lightweight Linux distribution originally tailored for Asus EeePC netbooks. With persistence enabled, your portable operating system can save files, settings, and system changes between reboots, turning a basic flash drive into a powerful on the go portable Linux workstation.
In the following tutorial, I cover how to create a Parted Magic bootable USB flash drive from within Windows. This fully functional portable Operating System doubles as a disk management utility to help you perform disk editing, disk imaging, and partitioning tasks with ease.
USB CentOS Installation: How to Create a Bootable CentOS USB Drive on Windows. The following tutorial covers the process of creating a CentOS bootable USB using Windows and the LiveUSB Creator. Once installed, the CentOS Live USB will operate like the Live CD, allowing you to test and install CentOS from USB to a hard drive. Note that a persistence feature is not included in this tutorial, so any changes made will not be saved on subsequent boots.
Easily create a Fedora Live USB: This tutorial explains how to install and boot Fedora Linux from a flash drive using the Fedora Media Writer, YUMI, or the Linux dd command. Fedora is a free and open source Linux distribution sponsored by Red Hat and developed by a global community. It's known for integrating cutting edge technologies while remaining stable and secure.