Installing Ubuntu Netbook Remix from a USB stick

David M Williams
Monday, 04 May 2009 07:15

Opinion and Analysis

To run from the command line, download the program flashnul. The web site is in Cyrillic characters, but there is nothing to be concerned by; option 5 – “Download” is written clearly in English.

Download the first program in the list, which is the newest version. At the time of writing it is version 1, release candidate 1. Extract the zip file to a directory that you will remember, such as C:\TEMP.

To make things a bit easy on yourself move the Ubuntu Netbook Remix image file into this folder also.

Click Start, Programs, Accessories and start a command prompt. Type CD \TEMP\FLASHNUL-1RC1 and press enter to move into the directory where you extracted flashnul. If you used a different folder be sure to use that name instead.

Insert your USB stick if you have not already done so and take note of the drive letter that Windows assigns to it, for instance G:.

Flashnul is a useful little tool. If you want to know more about it type flashnul -h |more into the command prompt window and press enter. You will see various options that let you wipe a disk with zero bytes as well as options to load and save image files from disks.

We will actually be loading an image file onto a flash disk but you can see that this tool will also let you convert an existing disk – be it a flash disk or not – into an image file which may in itself be useful to you for other reasons.

For our purposes, type in flashnul G: -L jaunty-netbook-remix-i386.img and press enter; be sure to replace G: with whatever the actual drive letter of your flash drive is, and replace the image filename with whatever the correct name is.

Once again, when this is complete you are finished! You can remove your flash drive and then use it to boot your netbook, or any other computer.

Go give Ubuntu Netbook Remix a try. Remember, no matter what operating system your netbook shipped with you do have the power to choose what you run on it. Why stick with aging Windows XP or pre-release Windows 7 software when you could be using the most modern operating system on the planet?