how to create a live usb stick

[Dave Hunt]

Hi, Tom!

The first time I did this, I used the unetbootin tool, with commandline 
options.  This put the system onto the flash drive, as if I'd gone 
through Ubiquity, and started a Unity-3d session, on boot-up,which did 
not work well.  Attempts to change the desktop to Unity-2d, by editing a 
file in /var/lib/AccountsService/users/ubuntu resulted in a system that 
would not bring up any kind of desktop.  As a result of some discussions 
on this list, here's what I ended up doing.

Keep in mind, I was already using Trisquel 5.5 beta.  If using any 
ubuntu-style desktop Linux, this will work.


1) insert flash drive;
If nautilus window, showing contents show up, note the volume's name, 
and close window;
3) open a terminal;
4) sudo -i;
5) enter password for sudo;
6) umount /media/drive-name;
7) dd if=/path-to-iso-file of=/dev/sdb bs=1M;
(this assumes your flash is /dev/sdb, adjust accordingly)
8) when dd command finishes, make sure bits-in and bites-written are equal;
9)exit;
10) close terminal.

If you want persistence:
with flash drive inserted and unmounted, open disk utility or gparted, 
on your flash drive, you should see one bootable partition the size of 
the iso file, and the rest of the space as unallocated.  Make a new 
partition of type 'ext3', and call it casper-rw; this is your persistent 
storage.

HTH,


Dave




On 04/13/2012 11:59 AM, Tom Masterson wrote:
> On the stuff I have found on the web it says to use usb-creator to
> create the flash drive. As I recall that particular package is not very
> usable. Is there another way to create a usb stick to try precise?
>
> Thanks
> Tom
>