Live USB does not boot

[mbohets]

I run Kubuntu 14.04 and downloaded a copy of 14.10 and put it on an usb stick with the usb creator.
The md5 checksum is correct !!

When I boot from the usb stick, I immediately get an error message about missing lib32 (something like that) and other

When putting a Kubuntu 14.10 and Mint iso image on the stick, also using the usb creator, I got the same result --> no joy
the Ubuntu 14.04 image worked, but I don't like the ubuntu GUI, so I looked further.
I downloaded the kubuntu and mint images multiple times and each time got the same result, a non booting usb stick.

In the past, I used linux mint, and I was able to create live usb sticks with the mint usb creator, in this way I created a Kubuntu live usb
to go back to Kubuntu, when trying to create a live usb with the Kubuntu usb creator, using the same iso image and the same usb stick,
it dit not work, so there may be a problem with the Kubuntu usb creator.

I needed to remove my linux dual boot from my work pc (IT security rule) so I now only have a working live usb of Kali Linux
The only live usb i have now is kali linux which I put on a stick using
dd if=kali-linux-1.0.8-amd64.iso of=/dev/sdb bs=1M
http://docs.kali.org/installation/ka...sb-persistence

Trying to put the Kubuntu image on a stick using the Kali dd method also resulted in a none booting usb with the same error messages as I had with the Kubuntu usb creator.

So my question is, how can I make a bootable Kubuntu live usb stick starting from my Kali linux live usb ?
- There is no usb creator on Kali, so is there another alternative ?
- Do you have ideas why the usb creator does not seem to work correctly ?

[claydoh]

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...r/+bug/1325801
and some notes
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/In...n/FromUSBStick
and
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UtopicUnicor...d_post-install


You need to use either the usb-creator program from 14.10 - why they have not upgraded this for 14.04 is still beyond me
Or use the latest unetbootin from their sourceforge site
Or use dd --as you seemed to try without success It worked for me, though. Make sure that the command you use is pointing to the correct device, it might not be /dev/sdb

[Snowhog]

You need to use either the usb-creator program from 14.10 - why they have not upgraded this for 14.04 is still beyond me
Or use the latest unetbootin from their sourceforge site

I can't understand why the developers would permit usb-creator to remain crippled in this way. It is not a minor foo bar. And they haven't even updated the iso download sites to tell you what you need to do in order to get your Live USB to boot with 14.10.

[mbohets]

I tried some more things, and the only thing I get to work is with the dd command:
- Kali Linux
- Ubuntu 14.04.1 iso image
- Kubuntu 14.04.1 iso image

What does not work: (dd nor usb creator nor Unetbootin)
- Kubuntu 14.10 (I even borrowed a dvd RW from a neighbour and burned the image on the dvd)
- Kubuntu 14.04
- Kubuntu 15.04 daily
- mint 17

So I'll stick to Kubuntu 14.04.1 to install an my old desktop PC, and keep Kali as backup (or install it if 14.04.1 does not behave well after install)
It is a coincidence that at the same time I had a diskcrash on my old desktop pc and was ordered by it security to remove linux from my work laptop by tomorrow, and not being able to create a well behaving usb boot device ,
today was not such a good day.

Does anyone know how to make the Kubuntu 14.04.1 usb persitant with command line instructions ?
In Kali Linux they provide instructions on how to do that, but this procedure does not seem to work with Kubuntu.
http://docs.kali.org/installation/ka...sb-persistence

1. Image the Kali Linux ISO to your USB stick. We used the “Linux Method” and dd.
   dd if=kali-linux-1.0.8-amd64.iso of=/dev/sdb bs=1M
2. Create and format an additional partition on the USB stick. In our example, we create a 5 GB persistent partition and create a persistence.conf file on it.
   size=5gb
   read bytes _ < <(du -bcm kali-linux-1.0.8-amd64.iso |tail -1); echo $bytes
   parted /dev/sdb mkpart primary $bytes $size
   mkfs.ext3 -L persistence /dev/sdb3
   e2label /dev/sdb3 persistence
   mkdir -p /mnt/my_usb
   mount /dev/sdb3 /mnt/my_usb
   echo "/ union" > /mnt/my_usb/persistence.conf
   umount /dev/sdb3

[mbohets]

I can't understand why the developers would permit usb-creator to remain crippled in this way. It is not a minor foo bar. And they haven't even updated the iso download sites to tell you what you need to do in order to get your Live USB to boot with 14.10.

I don't understand this either, 14.04 is supposed to be a well maintained LTS release,
I guess the focus of the developpers is on getting KDE 5 ready for prime time now,
I can imagine that working on KDE 5 is more exiting than doing regression testing and bugfixes.

[oshunluvr]

I used Unetbootin here for 14.04.1 and 14.10_Plasma5 just this week and both booted fine and I did installs from both. There must be some problem specific to your install or something missing. Maybe your thumb drive is the problem?

Unetbootin allows persistence for Ubuntu variants.

[claydoh]

I've used dd to make booting disks myself as well, no problem

It is something dealing with the different versions of syslinux between 14.10 and everything previous

Due to changes in syslinux, it is not currently possible to use usb-creator from 14.04 and earlier releases to write USB images for 14.10; we believe that it is also not possible to use usb-creator from a 14.10 system to write USB images for earlier releases. For now the workaround is to use a matching release of Ubuntu to write the images, but we intend to issue updates soon to work around this incompatibility.

ANd Colin Watson has noted:

As far as I can tell, it's not so much that it's a regression in usb-creator or in the images, it's that the interface between the core of syslinux and its COM32 modules is incompatible between 14.10 and earlier versions; this means that running usb-creator from a 14.10 system to write a 14.10 image works fine (e.g. comment #49) but it doesn't work if you're running it from a 14.04 or earlier system, and I suspect that it also doesn't work if you try to use usb-creator from a 14.10 system to write a pre-14.10 image. And no, Erick, it is not a regression from bug 1112878even though it has the same final symptom - please don't conflate those two bugs.
This is obviously suboptimal and if we (relevant developers) had noticed this in time then we should certainly have fixed it in both 14.10 and earlier versions to reduce confusion. The least invasive fix is probably to copy the relevant .c32 files from the host system as well as running syslinux on the image, and comment #52 indicates that this approach works fine. However, since the most pressing need is to fix this in updates to usb-creator in 14.04 and earlier releases, there's no reason for it to block the release of 14.10.
I will write up something for the release notes, and see if we can get this patched up reasonably quickly.

[Snowhog]

Well, is this the proverbial "What came first? The Chicken or the Egg?"

To create a bootal USB of 14.10 (with the tools in 14.04), you first have to have a working 14.10.

[vinnywright]

strange ,,,,I made the USB of 14.10 that I installed the system I am on right now in 14.04 with the "startup-disk-creator" ??

VINNY

[Teunis]

Same here, I used the USB creator from 14.04 to make the 14.10 bootable USB drive...
The only problem I had was the fact you have to enter a command or use Tab to start the process of installing.

[mbohets]

I got 14.10 installed now by creating a usb stick with 14.04, installing that and then upgrade to 14.10.
Once installed, I tried to create a 14.10 live usb, but no luck either, the only distros I am able to put on a stick are Kubuntu and Ubuntu 14.04 and Kali linux.

Update:
I found a linux mint live usb and was able to make a kubuntu 14.10 live usb from there (using the same iso image as before).
The difference is that the mint live usb creator does not make persistent sticks.