How to Create a Bootable Linux Live USB on Mac – Guide

Linux is known for its bootable flash drives, whether it’s fixing a problem with the main operating system or trying out different distros. There are several ways to create a bootable USB drive for Ubuntu (or any other Linux) for Mac. You can either go the freeware path for an easy option or invest a little time to create the drive using Terminal. If you don’t want to use Etcher (maybe you’re working with an incompatible version of macOS), you can also do the task from the command line.

To use Terminal, you first need to create a new folder on your Mac. This is where you will store all of your terminal commands. You can do this by choosing File → New Folder and entering the name Terminal in the text field. Once you have created your new folder, you can begin to store all of your terminal commands in it. To do this, choose File → Store Commands and enter the following into the text field: Now that you have stored all of your terminal commands in a new folder, it’s time to use them! To start using them, simply type their names into Terminal and hit return. You can also press control-F5 to run a command multiple times at once.

How to easily create a live usb from linux on macOS

Formatting the USB drive correctly

To install Ubuntu Bionic Beaver on a Debian-based system, you will need to download the disk image for that distribution and burn it to a CD or DVD.

  1. Plug in your USB drive.
  2. Open Disk Utility.
  3. Select the USB drive in the list on the left and click “Erase.”
  4. Type a name for the new disk and click “Erase.” ..

Please make sure you select the correct USB drive when you select your computer from the sidebar. If you select the wrong drive, your data will be lost.

The Disk Utility window will disappear and you will be able to access your Mac’s hard drive again.

To format a drive using the MS-DOS (FAT) scheme, first set “Format” to “MS-DOS (FAT)” and “Scheme” to “GUID Partition Map”. If you don’t see the “Scheme” option, make sure you’ve selected the drive in the sidebar instead of the volume below it. The drive will have the component name, while the volume will have a user-applied name. ..

Erase the disk to clear it of all data.

When formatting your disk, you may need to repeat the operation if it is not successful.

Writing the ISO with Etcher

Etcher is a software program that can be used to erase files and folders.

Open Etcher and click “Select Image”. Navigate to your ISO in the pop-up Finder window and select it.

You can now select the USB drive you just formatted to use as your new hard drive.

Flash! To start the writing process, you need to click the “Flash!” button. ..

Once the writing process is complete, you can distribute your ISO file.

When flashing is complete, macOS will pop up a warning that says “The disc you have inserted is not readable by this computer”. This is expected, but don’t click boot. This will send us back to Step 1, requiring a USB drive reformat. Instead, click “Ignore”. ..

Booting into Linux

To restart your Mac, connect the USB drive. ..

If the computer has been turned off and restarted without first launching the Boot Manager, the user may be unable to select a boot disk.

To boot your computer from a USB drive, select it from the menu and press Enter. ..

This will take you to the installation dialog for your distribution. On Ubuntu, click on the process to try Ubuntu instead of installing.

Final note

How to Create a Bootable Linux Live USB on Mac In this guide, we will show you how to create a bootable Linux live USB on your Mac. This is an important step if you want to use your computer for other activities while you are using Linux. You can also use a bootable Linux live USB as a storage device for your operating system. First, we need to create a new folder on our hard drive where we will store our bootable Linux live USBs. We will call this folder “boot”. Next, we need to install the necessary software for creating and using bootable Linux liveUSBs. We will use the Terminal application to do this. To do this, open up Terminal and type the following command: sudo apt-get install linux-image-3.10.0-desktop-amd64 linux-headers-3.10.0-desktop-amd64 linux-libc6 linux-tools libc6a libpthread1 sudo aptitude install buildroot mkdir -p /boot/vmlinuz sudo cp -r /boot/vmlinuz /boot/liveusb mkdir -p /boot/lowlatency sudo cp -r /boot/lowlatency/* /usr/local/bin