Selecting a tool to create USB boot drives from ISO files

[sudodus]

Which tool to create USB boot drives from ISO files would you like to include in Ubuntu and the Ubuntu family of operating systems?

There have been problems for years with the Ubuntu Startup Disk Creator alias usb-creator-gtk. There is also Disks, but it is not advertized much for this purpose. And there are cp and dd, if you want to do it 'without safety belt'. These alternatives can only make 'live only' pendrives.

So please participate in this poll in order to prepare for a discussion at the ubuntu-desktop mailing list and the corresponding forums where it can be decided for Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu Gnome ... Xubuntu

You find the corresponding discussion in the following thread Discussion: Selecting a tool to create USB boot drives from ISO files

Edit: You may want to select two alternatives, one which only makes 'live only' pendrives, and one which can make 'persistent live' pendrives.

[ajgreeny]

I have used SDC, unetbootin, dd and what you have called "Grub-n-iso Boot" with complete success, though the way I use the latter, it is limited only to certain iso files, mostly related to Ubuntu in some way; perhaps other iso files also work fine if you fully understand the way in which that system works and make appropriate changes, which I am happy to admit, I do not know enough about to do.

Overall I would think that unetbootin is probably the easiest to use for beginners, but I've never tried any of the others you mention so it is not for me to either choose them in the poll, or make comments here in this post; I can only "speak as I find".

I note the poll does not even offer the possibility of getting SDC to work properly as it used to; I am pretty sure from what I recall that it still does fine in 14.04, but I can't really remember when I last used SDC so I may be wrong about that.

[sudodus]

I have used SDC, unetbootin, dd and what you have called "Grub-n-iso Boot" with complete success, though the way I use the latter, it is limited only to certain iso files, mostly related to Ubuntu in some way; perhaps other iso files also work fine if you fully understand the way in which that system works and make appropriate changes, which I am happy to admit, I do not know enough about to do.

Overall I would think that unetbootin is probably the easiest to use for beginners, but I've never tried any of the others you mention so it is not for me to either choose them in the poll, or make comments here in this post; I can only "speak as I find".

I note the poll does not even offer the possibility of getting SDC to work properly as it used to; I am pretty sure from what I recall that it still does fine in 14.04, but I can't really remember when I last used SDC so I may be wrong about that.

In your situation, I would vote for Unetbootin. When you write that voting is not for you, I think very few people will feel that they know enough to vote.

Or maybe the poll is set up in a bad way?

There are still bugs with the Startup Disk Creator, SDC. It has been buggy for several years now in spite of many efforts to debug it by dedicated people. If you know how to use it, it works, but some things do not work. I think it was made in such a way, that when Ubuntu changes between versions, there are things that stop working in the SDC.

[PaulW2U]

I'm not sure I have much that I can add here but I too would like to see the option of SDC being retained with obviously a major overhaul so that as many bugs are fixed as possible. I'm used to its GUI having used it for five years now but appreciate the problems that have been seen when creating live USBs for versions of Ubuntu other than in which they were created.

I've just downloaded a couple of Wily images and used UNetbootin, mkusb and mkusb-nox to have a look at the latest Xubuntu and Ubuntu GNOME development version. I much prefer the GUI for Unetbootin but both the outdated version in the repository and the latest version in the official PPA produced something that I could not boot.

Both mkusb and mkusb-nox worked perfectly. I like the simplicity of the console version although I think I need to use it a few times to be confident of actually writing to my USB device and not my hard drive

As I've never heard of most of the other options in the poll I'll vote for mkusb and Unetbootin (on the basis that it has always worked previously).

[QDR06VV9]

Kind of fun here to see different results using unetbootin
In precise12.04) unetbootin would work 80 to 90% of the time on trusty(14.04) I am lucky to get any thing to boot installer or live.
@sudodus I am assuming our votes were counted from the other thread!
If not I will come back and vote.
Regards

[sudodus]

I'm not sure I have much that I can add here but I too would like to see the option of SDC being retained with obviously a major overhaul so that as many bugs are fixed as possible. I'm used to its GUI having used it for five years now but appreciate the problems that have been seen when creating live USBs for versions of Ubuntu other than in which they were created ...

This option (to wait for the SDC to be debugged) has been selected and worked along for years (longer than the time since Trusty was released). Many of us have given up the hope that the SDC will ever work properly. But on the other hand, the result of this poll will not automatically make any change. People can and will argue for the SDC at the deciding forums (for standard Ubuntu, Kubuntu, ..., Xubuntu).

Maybe the result of these efforts at the Ubuntu Forums will be that the SDC is replaced, maybe the result will be much more emphasis on really debugging and back-porting the SDC, so that it will work from older versions to newer versions, and both of these results are good.

[sudodus]

Kind of fun here to see different results using unetbootin
In precise12.04) unetbootin would work 80 to 90% of the time on trusty(14.04) I am lucky to get any thing to boot installer or live.
@sudodus I am assuming our votes were counted from the other thread!
If not I will come back and vote.
Regards

I have tried to extract all alternatives mentioned in the other thread. I could count the 'votes', but I cannot add them into this poll, because I can only enter my own vote. So please come back and vote here.

I will try to keep the discussion alive (here and/or in the other thread) and posts discussing details will certainly count, when we try to come to a conclusion. We cannot rely blindly on the result of poll.

[sudodus]

...

I note the poll does not even offer the possibility of getting SDC to work properly as it used to; I am pretty sure from what I recall that it still does fine in 14.04, but I can't really remember when I last used SDC so I may be wrong about that.

I'm not sure I have much that I can add here but I too would like to see the option of SDC being retained with obviously a major overhaul so that as many bugs are fixed as possible. I'm used to its GUI having used it for five years now but appreciate the problems that have been seen when creating live USBs for versions of Ubuntu other than in which they were created.

...

I found out that I could edit the poll and add the option "Edit: Keep the Startup Disk Creator, it is the best alternative". It will be interesting to find out how many votes it will get

Edit: I added this SDC option, when (only) 7 people had voted.

[cariboo]

I use dd and Disks, most of the time, I'm not really happy with the results using unetbootin, but it does work every time.

[ventrical]

I pointed out once before - that I do use SDC in a MM 10.10 ubuntu - install and it works just fine there. In the meantime I use 'disks' (as which was recommended during the Utopic cycle), is very reliable and I can also 'restore' a complete and bootable *snappy* image to harddrive using a USB docker and then take that hard drive and boot it on any PC with the appropiate graphics hardware. Also mkusb for installing 'live' and persistent selectable .ISOs side by side.

Regards..