Disclaimer: I accept and claim no responsibility for any unintended consequences to your devices or data as a result of following this tutorial. Perform these steps at your own risk. Always back up your data before conducting any changes to your device(s). Check out my full Terms of Service for more details.
So, you decided that you want to give Linux a try, eh? Awesome! Linux has many benefits such as increased privacy, customization and stability. I’ve been using the Zorin OS flavor of Linux to revive an old laptop of mine and it has worked so very well. I hope your journey into Linux is every bit as successful.
To get started, I’ll walk you through installing your chosen flavor of Linux onto a USB thumb drive so that you too can enjoy the amazingness of Linux, let’s go!
Note: Before beginning this process, create a new folder on your desktop and name it “ISOs”, you’ll see why I have you do this later on.
1. Grab a USB flash drive with at least 8 GBs of storage
Caution: Whatever drive you use is going to be completely erased as part of this tutorial, so this drive needs to be one that you’re not using for anything else
If you don’t have a USB flash drive, here’s one you might want to consider (not an affiliate link):
Amazon Basics 128 GB Ultra Fast USB 3.1 Flash Drive, Black
2. Download a copy of the Linux OS variety that you are going to install.
Save the ISO file to the ISO folder that I recommended earlier. This way the ISO file will be easy to find in subsequent steps. (I’m going to cover three of the most popular Linux OS varieties for beginners, but if you have another in mind, by all means go for it!)
Click on the OS below that you would like to use for your bootable disk
Ubuntu
Note: I prefer the “LTS” (Long Term Support) version because as the name suggests, you’ll get a longer period of support and updates.
Linux Mint
Note: (I recommend the Cinnamon Edition, but if the computer you’re installing on is very old or doesn’t have a powerful processor and/or RAM, go for the Xfce edition. I’ll make a post on the different versions of Linux soon with more details on this)
Zorin OS
(I recommend starting with the free “Core” edition and then work your way into the Pro edition (which comes at a one time cost of 47.99 as of this writing)
3. Download and install the balenaEtcher app to your computer
Note: (balenaEtcher works on Windows, Mac or Linux) If you need help installing balenaEtcher, check out the Etcher documentation page here https://etcher-docs.balena.io/ and scroll down until you find the operating system on which you need to install balenaEtcher
4. Click on “Flash from file” (go to the “ISOs” file folder I had you create earlier on your desktop)
5. Insert the USB flash drive into your computer that you’re going to use as your bootable USB drive.
6. Click “Select target”
7. Find the USB flash drive and click on it
Find your USB Drive in your computer’s file manager and select it as the target drive for etcher to place the ISO file.
8. Click flash
After clicking flash, the time it takes to complete the process varies depending on how powerful your CPU and RAM are.
From here, the next step would be installing Linux on your chosen machine (or you could also use it purely as a bootable OS from the drive itself when you need it). I’ll post install guides on how to get this done with Ubuntu, Linux Mint, and Zorin OS soon. Until then, NICE WORK! You (hopefully) got yourself a fully working bootable flash drive! If by chance you experience an error or other unexpected out, please let me know in the comments below and I and other readers will do our best to assist. Thanks!
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