Booting Ubuntu from USB flash drive

[Pentacle]

I have having some issues with this. Do I need the live CD to boot Ubuntu from my USB drive? I downloaded the ISO onto the flash drive, unpacked it, but when I go into BIOs and switch the boot order, I get the black screen of death with one line about SYSLINUX. I've used my Googling power and looked at several methods of doing this but that only succeeded in confusing me more. I've tried entering "USB HDD:stuff" after pressing ESC and getting the 'boot' line and I can't get anything to be recognized. Have I gone about this wrong or is there a step I'm missing/something I'm not doing?

[Dahaar]

Well, I'm not an expert with this, but as far as I know, you can't just boot any system with any USB-stick. Maybe it has something to do with drivers or something like that that aren't loading before the OS

[ghost107]

You should try this software(UNetbootin), helps making bootable live usb.
http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/
If you want to Read and write on the USB search for Persistent USB Drive.

[centip3de]

You have to change the file-system ON the USB drive, which is why they say it ruins the drive. Normally, the file-system on the drive is meant to be accessible by the current OS, and perform operations such as storing, reading, and writing. This is no where near boot-able. To make it boot-able, you have to throw up some fancy shit that I feel you don't need to know, and then put the OS on it. Just putting the OS on a flash drive and expecting it to run is like putting wheels on a refrigerator and expecting it to drive.

[Pentacle]

Thanks for the link ghost! I got it to work, and yes I do admit that it's not for any particular purpose than to see if I could do it, but it runs. I'm posting from it now. ^.^ The problem was the ISO file. I got cut off downloading it before so I deleted the old one, tried it with a new one, changed around the boot order again and it worked. The only thing I'm thinking is that the live UBS might not save my settings for the OS or programs...because isn't it meant to just be a testdrive before installing it to your computer?

[ghost107]

To save setting you need to make a persisten usb drive this means you have yo make a linux partition on the drive and install the operationg system on the linux partion(same as you install on the hard drive).