How to install Linux using an USB drive

This is a very common question in many linux related forums and groups. There are different tools available to create a linux live USB.

For whom?

Many users are requesting for dual boot of linux alongside with windows. The tool I will be explaining is the best option for such users. This tool can only be installed on Windows. Nevertheless it supports numerous Linux distributions.

Not for whom?

Please note that this tool does not support ISO files of BSD varients, Windows XP or Mac OSX

Linux Live USB Creator - LiLi

The tool I will be explaining about is Linux Live USB Creator (or cutely LiLi). I have been successfully using this small yet very useful tool for a long time for different Linux distributions by myself. Most important thing about this tool is that it is updated always to suit for latest releases of various linux distributions.
LiLi also provides fascinating features such as persistence.

How to create a bootable USB drive?

Instal LiLi and run it. Interface of LiLi is divided into sub parts according to what they are responsible for.

Step 01

Select Drive

Select USB drive you prefer. If it is performed correctly green light on the right bottom corner is lit.

Step 02 

Chose Linux Source

 Choose the source of linux to be installed. Source could be either

• ISO image file
• From Optical Drive
• Downloadable location

Step 03

Size of Persistence

Define size of persistence space. If you don't need persistence, it is okay to leave it as 0MB.

Step 04

LiLi Options

1.  Will hide all the files copied into USB drive. If you hope to copy some other files into the  drive later this option can be useful as very large number of files are created on drive.
2.  Will format in FAT32. It is important when you need to clean up drive or it is formatted in NTFS.
3.  VirtualBox (Portable Version) software is downloaded into drive and allow Linux version to be run inside a virtual box. If this option is selected you can simply run Linux inside windows using 'Virtualize_This_Key.exe' located in the VirtualBox folder on your USB key.

Step 05 

Create Live Key

Using option button here you can force LiLi to use parameters of a particular linux distribution by selecting it in the drop down menu, if you know what distribution it is. Else you can leave it up to LiLi to decide!

Other Options

Just click lightning icon. Your live linux usb key will be ready in few moments!

Ubuntu apt-get update error

Recently I had to reinstall Ubuntu. When I was trying to install bind9 (bind9 installing and configuring are further discussed here) on my fresh installation, I came across an error.
It was not a problem with bind9 installation. When I tried sudo apt-get update it comes up with the same error!

W:Failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/Release.gpg  Unable to connect to archive.ubuntu.com:http:

Same error message was repeated for multiple lines. Special feature of all the error messages was that it was prone to occur from same resource http://archive.ubuntu.com. To be precise, this error is not limited to above mentioned server. By searching google I have found out that many people had come across the same error in different servers.

W: Failed to fetch http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/Release.gpg  Unable to connect to extras.ubuntu.com:http:

W: Failed to fetch http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-security/Release.gpg  Unable to connect to security.ubuntu.com:http: [IP: 91.189.92.190 80]

A solution for apt-get error

This error can be easily corrected by changing the sources list of ubuntu.

/etc/apt/sources.list

Follow the below steps in order

1. Go to Ubuntu Sources List Generator
2. Select your country and Ubuntu release



Select country and ubuntu version



3. Select required sources. First 12 sources are recommended.



Select required sources

4. Hit Generate List Button
5. Copy generated list





My sources list. Yours can be different.

6. Backup the old sources list

sudo mv /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.old

7. Create new source list

sudo vi /etc/apt/sources.list

If you prefer graphical text editor

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

8. Paste newly generated sources list and save
9. Retry sudo apt-get update or any other apt-get command

Voila! should be working perfectly