How To Create A Live USB For Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal

In this tutorial, we will see three methods for creating a live USB for Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal. Creating live USBs will be very useful mainly for users of netbooks, laptops, and tablets. This tutorial is also applicable for other Linux distributions (Linux Mint 13, Debian Squeeze, etc.).

Preparing The USB Flash Drive

To be able to install a Linux distribution on a USB stick, it's recommended that you format it as ext4, but you can choose any other file system. Let's first identify your USB device using this command:

df -h

For my system, the USB drive is mounted as /dev/sdb1:

Change /dev/sdb1 with the name of your USB stick and run these commands to format it as ext4:

sudo umount /dev/sdb1

sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb1

If you want to format it as FAT32, run these commands:

sudo umount /dev/sdb1

sudo mkfs.vfat /dev/sdb1

Finally, remount your USB drive. See now below for ways to create a live Ubuntu USB.

1. Startup Disk Creator

If you are under Ubuntu, you can simply use Startup Disk Creator to create a live USB. Via Unity Dash, search and open Startup Disk Creator:

Click "Other" and select the Ubuntu 12.10 iso file, then click "Make Startup Disk":

2. UNetbootin

UNetbootin is a tool with GUI that allows users to create live usbs for various Linux distributions. To install it under Ubuntu/Linux Mint, run this command:

sudo apt-get install unetbootin

For RPM-based systems, you can install UNetbootin with this command:

sudo yum install unetbootin

From the main interface of UNetbootin, select "Diskimage" and click the browse button, then select the image of Ubuntu 12.10 from your hard drive:

Select now Type > USB Drive and Drive: /dev/sdb1, then click OK to create the live USB:

Wait now while your image is being exported to the USB drive:

At the end of the operation, reboot your system and boot from the USB drive.

3. Create a Live USB Via The Terminal

In the terminal, run this command to create a live usb for Ubuntu 12.10:

sudo dd if=/ubuntu-12.10-desktop-i386.iso of=/dev/sdb1 bs=1M

- /path/to/ubuntu-12.10.iso  --> Replace it with the full path to Ubuntu 12.10 iso image.
- /dev/sdb1 --> Replace it with the name of your USB drive.