having trouble putting linux on a USB

I tried this Boot and run Linux from a USB flash memory stick | USB Pen Drive Linux and got an error message stating the USB will not be bootable. Is there another way to create a bootable USB key?

 

you could try Unetbootin UNetbootin - Homepage and Downloads.
its always worked well for me

 

Make sure you completely format the usb drive before each and every attempt otherwise it will never work.

Unetbootin works well except sometimes it doesn't play well with my eeepc.

If you want some variant of ubuntu, they have a slick bootable usb drive creation tool that will do everything for you. The catch is you have to run a live session on a computer with an optical drive to use it.

 

If you can find a computer that's already running linux, usb-creator can take an iso and make it bootable. No need for the optical drive, just the ISO file.

 

http://www.linuxliveusb.com/

Finds isos for you, pretty much works for every distro includes virtual box aswell

and has a persistance mode so it acts as a hard drive rather than just a rom

 

That's my favorite to use. Does everything for you.

Running Ubuntu 10.04 on a 4GB USB flash drive with a 2.5GB persistence file. Not that I need that much but you never know.

 

I never formated the brand new key that must be the problem. The two computers I have access to won't let me format the drive. I may try booting from a camera card I think my camera will format an SD card.

 

this is a pretty awesome app. Makes it so easy to try out different distros.

 

Are you trying to install to the USB or make a USB live cd? If you are trying to install to a USB, it isn't complicated at all; ubuntu will install to a thumbdrive and treat it like a hard drive ... provided your compute has the ability to boot from USB.

 

note: booting from USB is a pain, on the order of 10x slower to get up and running. That said, there's no impact on the computer itself and you can access whatever you'd like off the computer's hard drives (for the most part).

 

I've been doing it for a year. It is slow ... crawls along at times. On my main computer. I live with it though, psuedo SSD ftw!

 

This didn't work either I get an error saying unable to open script file. Also I tried 3 different ubuntu's desktop 32 desktop 64 and net book with pendrive linux and get an error saying drive will not be bootable. Yes the USB was formated fat 32. Also I tried multiboot from pendrive linux and get an error saying something about syslinux.

 

Trying going into gparted and removing all partitions, then redoing everything. Certain flash drives have hidden partitions that mangle stuff up (Thinking about U3 in particular).

I've had good success with usb-creator-gtk, but I don't know how well it works in or for non-Ubuntu-based distros. I'm playing with PeppermintOS on a LiveUSB atm w/2gb persistence file, works prettty well, although creating the persistence file added a good chunk of time to creating the liveusb (would have been 12 seconds without it)

 

^^^ this is what I was trying to explain earlier

If you can use an ubuntu live cd to start a live session on another computer with an optical drive, you can use gparted and usb creator to set up the bootable stick.

 

... That person is kidding right? Windows doesn't block Linux

 

I use ultraIso. The trial version works great, just open your iso, plug in your usb stick and click Bootable>Write Disk Image>Choose your usb drive and click Write. It will be screaming fast for use as a live distro. There are other ways to set up persistence but it will slow it down

 

Assuming you are doing this from Windows: Microsoft Store: Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool Help

Linux: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/FromUSBStick

 

I'm not kidding when linux started appearing in netbooks microsoft offered XP for about $5 to manufactures even though they said before XP was dead and they would no longer sell it. When the DOS window comes up the second line says access denied though the rest of it went to fast to read.

 

I recommend that too.
Paired with a "fast" USB 2.0 pen i can nearly run at full speed, and its much better than a Live CD / DVD.

 

It says there are 4 kilobytes of something and 4 gigabytes of free space surely a partition can't be that small.

 

That's a marketing issue. It has nothing to do with the fact that linux does nothing to windows. It doesn't touch the windows bootsector, it just precedes it.

The problem you're having with syslinux looks alot like a corrupted bootsector. Why not just wipe the flash drive and try again or use a different flash drive? Most of the problems people face with LiveUSB tend to be due to a user taking shortcuts. Many distros have been successfully used on a variety of hardware.

 

Does this happen when you are trying to make the live USB? Of course it's going to happen if you are trying to make a live USB for Linux in the same way that you would do it for Windows.

There's no code (that I'm aware of) that would block Linux. Maybe they did pay $5 or something but that wouldn't stop this.

Depending on where you install the bootloader, you may have a problem Whenever I install to USB, I always make sure to remove the hard drive(s) in the system and get the bootloader on the USB drive. That way it's "portable" and as long as I select USB from a boot device menu in BIOS it will work.

Trying to install the bootloader to the hard drive and use it for both or trying to install the bootloader to the USB and using it for both is definitely going to be an issue; USB isn't always the same (HD0, SD0, HD1, SD1, etc).

 

Using Linux on usb for a live demo is a good idea in theory. I haven't found a solution yet that works consistently. Netbootin is a failure...hardly ever works...

It does load a bit faster than CD at least in my experience. The problem is creating the live cd is much easier than the usb option... When there's good software that can produce the live demo on usb stick consistently, then it will go a long way towards giving a real option over Live CD/DVD.

 

There is a utility in Ubuntu called "USB Startup Creator" ... that always works for Ubuntu. Well, creating the Live USB.

 

http://www.linuxliveusb.com/

???

Anybody have experience using this? I was wondering what 'Hide Created Files on Key' means and why it's there.

 

Progress the folks at linux live recomended this program Télécharger HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool (gratuit) It worked but linux live dosen't like any of my linux choices AMD 64 bit.

 

all it does is mark the files that it creates (boot, system, directories, etc), as hidden by changing their attributes. I'm not sure why its there.

 

Success! I now think the problem was with the USB key it has 250 megabytes of something on it probably a wear leveling program. HP seem to be the only one smart enough to work around this. And you thought they only made good ocilloscopes.

 

They make good printers, too

 

My favourite is https://fedorahosted.org/liveusb-creator the software works with any Linux ISO image. You can als specify persistent storage on the USB stick. So far I did not encounter any problems. Choose your ISO and press "Do the magic" and you are done.