How to Create a Bootable USB for Linux ISO

Introduction

The most generic way to create a bootable USB with a Linux ISO file, is to use the dd command.

Prerequisite

On RHEL/CentOS/Fedora

# yum install syslinux

On Ubuntu/Debian

$ sudo apt-get install syslinux

Steps

1. Download ISO file

2. Convert your normal ISO file to a hybrid ISO.

# isohybrid /home/magnus/Downloads/ubuntu-12.04.4-desktop-amd64.iso

3. Create a bootable USB.

$ dd if=/home/magnus/Downloads/ubuntu-12.04.4-desktop-amd64.iso of=/dev/sdf
1501184+0 records in
1501184+0 records out
768606208 bytes (769 MB) copied, 286.08 s, 2.7 MB/s

NOTE: the device name is without number, e.g. /dev/sdf1.

If you are unsure what the device name is you can e.g. use lsblk.

$ lsblk
NAME                        MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sr0                          11:0    1  1024M  0 rom  
sda                           8:0    0 167.7G  0 disk 
├─sda1                        8:1    0   500M  0 part /boot
└─sda2                        8:2    0 146.5G  0 part 
  ├─vg_rhel6-lv_root (dm-0) 253:0    0   127G  0 lvm  /
  └─vg_rhel6-lv_swap (dm-1) 253:1    0  19.5G  0 lvm  [SWAP]
sdf                           8:80   0   3.7G  0 disk