How-To: Create a bootable Linux USB drive on Windows 10 using Balena Etcher

Hello and welcome to another tutorial from Vulnifo. Today we are going to be creating a bootable Linux USB drive from windows that we can use for installing Linux. We will be using balenaEtcher to do this, as it is very straightforward and simple to do.

You will need:

-A USB flash drive (adequate size for your distro, 4GB minimum, 8 GB recommended)

-An ISO image of a Linux/Unix distribution (i.e. Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE etc…)

-A copy of Balena Etcher Installed which can be found here

Lets Begin!

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Using balenaEtcher

The first thing we need to do is open Balena Etcher. You will be presented with a screen like this:

Select “Flash from file” and select your Linux ISO

After selecting your file, we can move on to the next step which is selecting the target. (Make sure your USB flash drive is plugged in!)

Click on “Select target” and a screen will appear showing your currently connected USB drives.

Select your USB flash drive here. I am using a small 4GB HP drive. Make sure that you select the correct one and that there is no data you need on it as the next step will ERASE ALL DATA on the USB Flash Drive.

Select “Flash!” to start flashing your ISO to the USB stick. (You will need to grant Admin Privileges to do this, select Allow on the Windows Pop up)

Flashing time will vary depending on how large your ISO is, as well as the speed of your USB drive/port.

That’s it! You now have a bootable Linux USB drive that you can use to install Linux!

I hope this tutorial was helpful. Any questions or comments feel free to comment below and we will see you on the next one!

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