unetbootin / unetbootin

UNetbootin installs Linux/BSD distributions to a partition or USB drive

UNetbootin

Homepage and Downloads

https://unetbootin.github.io/

Github

https://github.com/unetbootin/unetbootin

Source

See the src/unetbootin directory, ie https://github.com/unetbootin/unetbootin/tree/master/src/unetbootin

Bug Tracker

https://github.com/unetbootin/unetbootin/issues

Building

https://github.com/unetbootin/unetbootin/wiki/compile

Contributing

https://github.com/unetbootin/unetbootin/wiki/development

Licence

GNU GPL v2 and above

Contact

Geza Kovacs

unetbootin's Issues

Links clicked in unetbootin opened with root

Because unetbootin is started with root/sudo, every link clicked is opened also with root-account. a) it will not use existing browser instance (because started with different user). b) Not good idea to run browser with root.

"Open Disk Image File" browser has DnD enabled

At least in Ubuntu it does & with root permissions.
There is no need for this & can cause the inadvertent moving of a file or folder, particularly with touchpads.
LP bug -
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unetbootin/+bug/1438236

That finish the instalation without GUI

http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/unetbootin/wiki/commands#autoinstall

GUI is blank on Fedora 22 when run as root

When I run sudo unetbootin in a terminal, the window opens but is blank. Please see attached screenshot.

http://unetbootin.github.io/ says Sourceforge is the offical download site

From the FAQ:

Does UNetbootin have any spyware, viruses, trojans, or other malware?

No; though some anti-virus products (Kaspersky) raise "Trojan.generic" warnings due to the auto-uninstall feature, these are false positives. Just make sure you obtain UNetbootin from the official downloads page on Sourceforge not some shady third-party source. If you're absolutely paranoid, you can check the source code and compile it yourself.

Is Sourceforge still the official source for downloads or should this be switched over to Github?

Please, add ReactOS to supported distribution

Hello. Please, add to Unetbootin support of ReactOS.
For reactos need syslinux 4.05 and later. ReactOS developer Hermes Belusca made usb-key with syslinux, wich used in Unetbootin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eancDwmWyCw
For hybrid image, bootcd or livecd, after unpacking, need specify boot driver: /loader/setupldr.sys
I checked it in GRUB, on HDD. https://youtu.be/gtxvVeJO8NY?t=1m32s
Already Rufus (http://rufus.akeo.ie/) supported ReactOS, but your program, unlike her, doesn't format flash drive and cross platformed.

could "setting up persistence" be optimized?

it seems like "setting up persistence" is very slow, i wonder if there's room for significant performance improvements? (on windows, anyway, takes circa 30 minutes per gigabyte on my system :( )

ftp://ibiblio.org changed to ftp://distro.ibiblio.org

Announcement: ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/README.txt

Page gives error 505 now (#23).

Happens e.g. :

-       "ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/damnsmall/current/" << 
+       "ftp://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/damnsmall/current/" <<
-               "ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/mepis/released/antix/" << 
+               "ftp://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/mepis/released/antix/" <<
-               "ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/mepis/released/" << 
+               "ftp://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/mepis/released/" <<
-       "ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/puppylinux/" <<  
+       "ftp://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/puppylinux/" <<

Do not hardcode syslinux file paths (menu.c32, ...)

Various syslinux versions available in current distros use different paths.. something like

else if (srcfName == "menu.c32")
                srcF.setFileName(QFile::exists("/usr/share/syslinux/menu.c32") ? "/usr/share/syslinux/menu.c32" : "/usr/lib/syslinux/menu.c32");

is not working on various Debian/Ubuntu systems, probably others.. the relevant file might be
/usr/lib/syslinux/modules/bios/menu.c32 with current syslinux versions..
Please create a function to find these files in a somewhat more clever way - and display an error message if it can't be found, instead of silently producing unbootable USB sticks.

Windows Download Link Broken

http://launchpad.net/unetbootin/trunk/613/+download/unetbootin-windows-613.exe Ist not working at the moment. Stalls after 400k then times out.

Maybe a Launchpad Issue maybe corrupted upload.

ISO Packaged for LiveUSB, but Install Linux, does not work

Hi there
I have made a LiveUSB (using the Windows version 6.1.3), package of Linux Mint 13, (32bit, Maya Xfce), and when it boots the target system two laptops (one with Windows Filesystem, another with Linux Partitions on their HDD), nothing happens when i press the Desktop shortcut to 'Install Linux Mint' ?
On thhe Linux Partition Laptop, the Live version says right away:
Not enough space on /var/log/installation
The other Laptop, doesn't give any clue, in fact the Desktop shortcut, seems not to be the same.
Where is the problem, you think, in the:

1. unetbootin software ?
2. in the ISO packaged with unetbootin ?
3. both ?
   Thanks, in advance

OS X creating a custom bootable linux image

In order to make a bootable USB stick on OS X from an ISO containing a new firmware for my ssd* I had to follow the instructions on http://www.pyrosoft.co.uk/blog/2013/01/09/creating-a-bootable-usb-stick-from-osx/ and first write a mbr.bin from syslinux with dd before I could use unetbootin. With unetbootin alone the USB stick simply didn't boot.

• http://www.crucial.com/wcsstore/CrucialSAS/firmware/BX100/MU02/BX100_UPDATE_MU02_BOOTABLE.zip

release 613 doesn’t work with Fedora 22

unetbootin only displays an empty window.

Error message is the following:

]$ su -c unetbootin
Password: 
Qt: Session management error: None of the authentication protocols specified are supported
X Error: BadAccess (attempt to access private resource denied) 10
  Extension:    130 (MIT-SHM)
  Minor opcode: 1 (X_ShmAttach)
  Resource id:  0x13e
X Error: BadShmSeg (invalid shared segment parameter) 128
  Extension:    130 (MIT-SHM)
  Minor opcode: 3 (X_ShmPutImage)
  Resource id:  0x1c0000a
X Error: BadShmSeg (invalid shared segment parameter) 128
  Extension:    130 (MIT-SHM)
  Minor opcode: 3 (X_ShmPutImage)
  Resource id:  0x1c0000a

Is this a missing dependency?

Support FreeDOS 1.1

Support for FreeDOS 1.1 (install and bootable USB disk).

The image from this website worked for me:
http://www.chtaube.eu/computers/freedos/bootable-usb/

"This is not a bootable disk"

On Ubuntu 15.04, I built unetbootin from git (619-5-g57c4402), inserted a new 16 GB USB key, did
sudo fdisk /dev/sdc
did o to create a new partition table, n to create a new primary partition, t to mark it type c, a to mark it bootable, and w to write; then did
sudo mkfs.fat -F 32 /dev/sdc1
then removed and reinserted the USB key, and ran
sudo ./unetbootin
It detected the USB key fine, and I pointed it at my windows 10 ISO. This completed fine,
and doing
sudo mount -o ro,loop Win10_German_x64.iso /mnt
diff -ur /mnt /media/dank/J_CCSA_X64FRE_DE-DE_DV5/
found only reasonable differences,:
Only in /media/dank/J_CCSA_X64FRE_DE-DE_DV5/: menu.c32
Only in /media/dank/J_CCSA_X64FRE_DE-DE_DV5/: syslinux.cfg
Only in /media/dank/J_CCSA_X64FRE_DE-DE_DV5/: ubnfilel.txt
Only in /media/dank/J_CCSA_X64FRE_DE-DE_DV5/: ubnpathl.txt

I then enable legacy boot in the target computer and ask it to boot from usb.
But no matter what computer I try that on, I get "This is not a bootable disk".

I worked around the problem by reformatting the USB key as NTFS after
unetbootin had detected it, and then using unetbootin to transfer the iso to the usb key as usual.

Why is it again that you don't allow ntfs-formatted usb keys?

Make a check for Filesystem before Copying to USB

If the target filesystem is NTFS, Unetbootin will copy just fine, but at re-boot, you get a message "bootmgr not found" and lock you up. Please add a check to determine Fat32 or other supported FS

Add checkbox 'Format drive'

Support for Qt5

Hi (and happy new year)

Any plans to support build unetbootin with Qt5 frameworks?

greetings

Non-GUI?

Why is this program GUI-only and why can't I define a USB device, and why can't I just write an ISO to use with dd?

Can I make live USB with few systems?

Please don't use root at runtime

Not using root at the beginning will make it easier for the user to get an ISO. When formatting, use root.

FreeDOS Hangs

I tried to create a bootable flash drive with FreeDOS 1.0 using two different flash drives (just in case one was defective) and used GParted to format each with FAT16 (tried this first) and then FAT32 (tried this second) but when booting from the flash drive, it would always hang on a line that says:

• InitDisk
  All I want to do is be able to update my BIOS with a DOS program. So far, even though I'm a self taught computer consultant, I have not been able to get ANY method to work.

Show file progress

When writing large files to USB drive, it can happen that Unetbootin stays on same spot for very long time, giving user the feeling that it froze. There is absolutely zero indication of any activity, just "file X of Y" and stuck on same %. This can be quite a problem with users in a hurry, or users that are just impatient.
I would really like to see that either progress of individual file gets shown to user (either as text next to "file X of Y" or by making secondary progress bar) or that main progress bar starts showing actual progress, not just visual representation of what we already see in text.

UEFI Support

Hi, its posible the uefi support? actually a lot of laptops have uefi system (and some only have uefi), and for install for example grub it requiere a efi usb.

Thx.

Checksums of downloaded files are not verified

Unetbooting doesn't verify any checksums of the downloaded image files.

Those files are downloaded via HTTP, thus, you can't even rely on a secure connection to the server.

Not verifying checksums is a big invitation for Man-In-The-Middle attacks.

Example download:

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.0/fdboot.img

Possible resolution: Include a list of checksums that includes an entry for each image that is downloadable via unetbootin.

UI In Ubuntu enables drag and drop

I just had sudo privileges on the ui and dragged my /lib folder into my /home folder and now all of my shell commands are broken. Wish me luck fixing this with a live cd...

Unetbootin does not work in Windows

Hi,

I have tried various versions in 3 different PC's and without exception no configuration will recognise the USB stick. Random drive letters appear in the selection box, none of which are valid.

I am running it under Win7/64 (also 32) SP1 and versions 276, 549, 585 and 613.

This is quite poor considering it is supposed to be a well established product.I don't know anyone else who can get it to work.

I switched to Yumi-1.9.9.9 and that works absolutely fine. So not an urgent fix required, but I can hardly believe how usless unetbootin is.

If you don't believe me or dispute what I am telling you, I can send you a video capture of the procedure. It will be quite large though.

Best Regards,

Jim-A

Format Disk

It doesn't ask for you to format the disk, instead it just replaces the files in the USB. It would be nice if it asked to format.

FTP error 505 is not handled

When ftp error 505 occurs, e.g. ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/mepis/released/antix/
unetbootin::lstFtpDirFiles (specially: ldfWait.exec();) unetbootin stalls. Progress bar stucks on 0% and it will not continue with another addresses.

Some boot options are listed twice...?

I used a pre-existing Ubuntu 15.10 ISO I had already downloaded and used unetbootin-windows-613 to put it on a USB drive. This is what the boot screen looks like:

• Default
• Help
• Try Ubuntu without installing
• Install Ubuntu
• Check disc for defects
• Test memory
• Boot from first hard disk
• Try Ubuntu without installing
• Install Ubuntu
• OEM install (for manufacturers)
• Check disc for defects

USB Drives under Windows

Testing for GetDriveType==DRIVE_REMOVABLE is wrong. Testing for BusTypeUsb is right.

Here is some code to get the BusType by a given drive letter.

typedef struct _STORAGE_PROPERTY_QUERY {
int PropertyId;
int QueryType;
UCHAR AdditionalParameters[1];
} STORAGE_PROPERTY_QUERY, *PSTORAGE_PROPERTY_QUERY;

typedef enum _STORAGE_BUS_TYPE {
BusTypeUnknown = 0x00,
BusTypeScsi,
BusTypeAtapi,
BusTypeAta,
BusType1394,
BusTypeSsa,
BusTypeFibre,
BusTypeUsb,
BusTypeRAID,
BusTypeMaxReserved = 0x7F
} STORAGE_BUS_TYPE, *PSTORAGE_BUS_TYPE;

typedef struct _STORAGE_DEVICE_DESCRIPTOR {
ULONG Version;
ULONG Size;
UCHAR DeviceType;
UCHAR DeviceTypeModifier;
BYTE RemovableMedia;
BYTE CommandQueueing;
ULONG VendorIdOffset;
ULONG ProductIdOffset;
ULONG ProductRevisionOffset;
ULONG SerialNumberOffset;
STORAGE_BUS_TYPE BusType;
ULONG RawPropertiesLength;
UCHAR RawDeviceProperties[1];
WCHAR wszExtendedBuffer[1];
} STORAGE_DEVICE_DESCRIPTOR, *PSTORAGE_DEVICE_DESCRIPTOR;

define IOCTL_STORAGE_QUERY_PROPERTY ((DWORD)0x2D1400L)

int GetBusType(char DriveLetter)
{
char szDevice[] = { '', '', '.', '', DriveLetter, ':', '\0' };

HANDLE hDevice = CreateFile(szDevice, 0, FILE_SHARE_READ | FILE_SHARE_WRITE, NULL, OPEN_EXISTING, 0, NULL);

if ( hDevice == INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE ) {
    return 0;
}

DWORD dwOutBytes = 0;
STORAGE_PROPERTY_QUERY Query = {0}; // input param for query, wee need all zero

char OutBuf[256] = {0};
PSTORAGE_DEVICE_DESCRIPTOR pDevDesc = (PSTORAGE_DEVICE_DESCRIPTOR)OutBuf;
pDevDesc->Size = sizeof(OutBuf);

// Query using IOCTL_STORAGE_QUERY_PROPERTY 
BOOL bRes = DeviceIoControl(hDevice,
        IOCTL_STORAGE_QUERY_PROPERTY,
        &Query, sizeof(STORAGE_PROPERTY_QUERY),
        pDevDesc, pDevDesc->Size,
        &dwOutBytes, NULL);

CloseHandle(hDevice);

if ( bRes ) {
    return pDevDesc->BusType;
}

return 0;

}

link for iso "super grub disk" is wrong

Download of Super Grub Disk Latest from http://download.berlios.de/supergrub/super_grub_disk_english_floppy_0.9799.img failed. Please try downloading the ISO file from the website directly and supply it via the diskimage option.
I try version for linux and windows

Wish: improve the CLI interface.

I am trying to make a batch of 20 USB disks. One thing that would make this easier is better command-line support. So, here are a few problems - none is severe, but if you use the program 20 times in a row, every minute and typo counts:

• Invoking unetbootin with --help shows the options for gksu, not for unetbootin itself.
• man unetbootin unfortunately doesn't document any CLI options.

What I really wanted were options to specify:

• use an iso.
• the iso image path
• the target device
• automatically start
• automatically exit when done.

Meanwhile, a couple of GUI fixes that would also be useful:

• When I start unetbootin (as myself), it gains root privileges, which means that it then starts the file-picker in the /root directory. It would be better to start in my /home/username/ directory.
• Don't default to offering to reboot when done. I'm always worried I might accidentally hit enter at the wrong place. I think that reboot button should be removed or at least not the default.

And lastly, Knoppix isn't listed among the set of distributions that Unetbootin supports. It might be a useful addition.

(I'm using 608 on Ubuntu Wily-64).

Thanks for your help, and a great program.

Does not recognise any drive on Mac OS X El Capitan

The drive list remains empty. Mounting / Unmounting the thumbdrive (before launching unetbootin) does not make a difference.

First in the menu of start in windows

Use HTTPS and signing on unetbootin.sourceforge.net

UNetbootin is one of the primary install vehicles for GNU/Linux operating systems. Ergo, it requires a high level of trust.

Given what we know, this project absolutely needs to adopt more secure and verifiable means of delivering the binaries. Currently, users have no way to know whether backdoors are being inserted into their installation media by the NSA or GCHQ or another advanced adversary via compromise of UNetbootin with MITM, HTTP/DNS or browser exploits.

Your downloads are not signed, but there are SHA1 and MD5 checksums available. Yet these too are served over plain HTTP so could be modified in transit.

Please come up with a key and start signing the files with it, and also secure the SourceForge project page with an SSL certificate, and force HTTPS.

Support for multi distro flash drive

It would be fine if unetbootin had support of installing multiple distros on the flash drive. Currently all solutions on linux neither do not work, neither buggy

Auto eject USB drive when done

When creating a USB drive to use on another computer, you usually want to eject it right after copy is finished.
Just thought having a checkbox to do that in unetbootin would be nice (similar to DVD burn software having a check box "auto eject tray when done").

This would also avoid user disconnecting USB drive without properly ejecting (some file might not properly be written).

Keep up the great work and thanks again for this very useful software!

Progress bar appears to hang when extracting a squashfs file from an ISO (just wait patiently please)

I'm using Ubuntu 15.04, and have tried installing both Kubuntu 15.10 and Parted Magic (forget the version) to a 2GB flash drive. UNetbootin does not crash or otherwise deliver errors or warnings, but I'm seeing lots of I/O without seemingly any progress...but only when it extracts a squashfs file from the original ISO.

EDIT: However, I successfully installed Parted Magic to a different 2GB flash drive. Is it possible the first flash drive is faulty somehow, and if so how can I check?

memtest with out initrd entry

https://bugs.funtoo.org/browse/FL-2181

hi could you please make a "safe mode" memtest menu entry with out the initrd image. the initrd crashes on my computer, i have to tab and remove the line. thanks for this wonderful utility! =)

Boot loop...

I am hoping someone could help me understand my problem. When I reboot to USB I get the boot screen that gives me the only option of "Default" and whether I hit enter or not the countdown just keeps resetting back to 10 and starts again over and over in a perpetual loop. Any ideas? It was formatted in FAT32. Any help would be appreciated! Thx

check for size of drive before continuing

The edit would probably be around here I am suggesting that the program should probably check to make sure that the size of the ISO is at least not greater than the size of the drive.

Please create an AppData file for UNetbootin

Please consider writing and installing an AppData file with the application description and some screenshots, else UNetbootin looks really bad in the GNOME and KDE Software Centers. We'd love to showcase more applications, but without the extra data file we can't. See http://people.freedesktop.org/~hughsient/appdata/ for details; thanks!

Richard

ubnldr.mbr

Bootloader can't find it

Download does not work

I'm waiting for about 30 Minutes now, still 0%
Anyone?

Add distribution "tanglu"

Please add tanglu as a default distro. Tanglu is a Debian derivative aimed at providing more frequent releases than Debian and being targeted at Desktop users. Its goal is to be used together with Debian, where Debian runs on servers and Tanglu on desktops.

Missing dependency on Xubuntu 14.04, not detected

./unetbootin-linux-608.bin: error while loading shared libraries: libXrandr.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

I have libxrandr-dev and libxrandr2 installed. Even putting libXrandr.so.2 in the same directory as UNetbootin won't work. unetbootin-linux-585 also suffers from the same problem.

Windows binaries not signed.

The windows unetbootin executables are not signed.

Windows has built-in facilities for validating the integrity of binaries, considering the privilege level that unetbootin requires to operate, having some manner of assurance the binary is valid is completely critical.

FreeNAS, FreeDOS and perhaps other Distributions not listed as Supported

although the screenshots, shown here from the pulldown menu, clearly shows them:
http://unetbootin.github.io/#features

I guess these came in fast and someone forgot to add them to list of Supported Distributions.

are admin rights really required?

@gkovacs, sorry if the question is stupid (I cannot code), but the answer is very relevant for me.

Is it really necessary that unetbootin should have admin rights to write an USB file?

In Linux, admin rights seem to be mandatory to run the program.

Would it be possible to make this optional?