Create a Bootable USB from an ISO image
Published: 2025-04-15 19:23:01 +1200
Last Modified: 2025-04-15 19:23:01 +1200
Background
When I first started learning about Linux, I created a dual-boot setup with Windows/Linux. To install Linux I was using Rufus in the Windows OS, which was a relatively easy GUI to use for me at the time. These days I'm on Linux only, and have moved to use the dd command to set up a bootable USB. This is how I do it.
Method
Download ISO
Download ISO from the Debian website. At time of writing I will be using debian-12.10.0-amd64-netinst.iso.
Prepare USB stick
Check USB name:
lsblk
Returns something like:
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda 8:0 0 29.8G 0 disk
└─sda1 8:1 0 29.8G 0 part /media/zkbro/ALPINE-STD
Unmount disk:
umount /dev/sda1
Erase disk (actually not required as dd will do this when creating bootable USB from ISO):
sudo dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sda bs=4M status=progress
Create bootable USB disk for ISO:
sudo dd if=/home/zkbro/Downloads/debian-12.10.0-amd64-netinst.iso of=/dev/sda bs=4M status=progress
Load disk in BIOS on new machine.
As computer is turning on keep pressing ESC/F12 (depending on what device being used) to load BIOS.
Find option to boot from USB and reboot.
Next steps
Install Debian - This will be included in a separate note.