Sure, if you really wanted to make the most out of the raw power that comes with Linux, you could make use of the command line, but you don’t have to. That’s the point. Also: How to install Ubuntu Server in less than 30 minutes But no matter how easy the Linux desktop has become, there’s still one thing keeping you from using it. Installation. Keep in mind that modern Linux installers are very easy. In fact, with just a few quick clicks, you’re on your way to having Linux installed and ready to go. But before you click your way towards open-source fun, you have to create a bootable USB drive. Don’t worry, even that is simple. Let me show you how.

Creating your bootable USB drive

Requirements

To create a bootable USB drive, you’ll need the following:

An ISO image of the distribution you want to use.A machine with a USB port.A USB flash drive with at least 16GB of space.A piece of software to create the bootable drive.

The one thing to keep in mind is that there are quite a few tools available to help you create a bootable USB drive. And because we’re all on different operating systems, I’m going to walk you through the steps using a piece of software that’s available to Linux, MacOS, and Windows. That software is UNetbootin. You can easily install UNetbootin by downloading the executable file to your desktop and running it (it installs like most applications on both MacOS and Windows). Also: 8 things you can do with Linux that you can’t do with MacoS or Windows As far as an ISO image, here are the download links for five of my favorite distributions:

Pop!_OS.Ubuntu.elementary OS.Zorin OS.Fedora.

That’s all you need. Let’s get to the creation. When the process completes, click Exit, safely eject the USB drive, and you’re good to go. You can now insert the USB drive into the machine that will serve as your new Linux desktop, boot the machine, and start the installation of the operating system. Also: Emmabuntüs is a Linux distribution geared toward those who don’t know Linux If you choose from one of the pre-configured distributions, make sure you then select the most recent version of that distribution from the Select Version drop-down in the upper right corner. Also: Want to save your aging computer? Try these 5 Linux distributions Depending on if you have to download a distribution, the speed of your network, and the speed of your machine, it shouldn’t take more than 5 to 15 minutes for this process. You might find that UNetbootin seems to stall out halfway through the extracting and copying files phase. Be patient and it will finish.