How to create an Ubuntu Server SDcard for Raspberry Pi

Key Value
Summary In this tutorial, you will learn how to flash Ubuntu Server on a microSD card for Raspberry pi 2, 3 and 4
Categories iot
Difficulty 1
Author Canonical Web Team webteam@canonical.com

Overview

Duration: 1:00

In this tutorial, we will walk you through creating a bootable Ubuntu microSD card for your Raspberry Pi.

What you’ll learn

  • How to use the Raspberry Pi Imager
  • How to create a bootable microSD card to run Ubuntu Server on your Raspberry Pi

What you’ll need

  • A microSD card (4GB minimum, 8GB recommended)
  • A computer with a microSD card drive
  • A raspberry pi 2, 3 or 4

:warning: Warning
Following these steps will erase any existing content on the removable drive!

Prepare the SD card

Duration: 5:00

Insert the microSD card into your computer and install the right Raspberry Pi Imager for your operating system. You can do this with the following links:

Or if you’re on Ubuntu by opening a terminal and running:

sudo snap install rpi-imager

Once this has downloaded install and open the application. It should look something like this:

Open the “CHOOSE OS” menu, scroll down and click “Ubuntu”.

You will then be able to see a list of Ubuntu downloads to choose from. For this tutorial we recommend you select the Ubuntu 18.04 download. As indicated in the imager this will work for the Raspberry Pi 2,3, 3+ and any of the 4’s.

Select the image you want and open the “SD Card” menu. Select the microSD card you have inserted.

Finally, click “WRITE” and wait for the magic to happen… (This magic might take a few minutes)

That’s it!

Duration: 1:00

You did it!

Now you can eject the card, insert it in your Raspberry Pi and boot it up.

For more details about Raspberry Pi specific packages included with this image and further customisations, such as accelerated video drivers and optional package repositories, you can refer to our RaspberryPi wiki.

You also may want to install some software on your Pi. Ubuntu has extensive repositories available, that you can browse at packages.ubuntu.com. You can also use the snap command to install snap packages: the Snap Store is where you can find the best Linux open source and proprietary apps to install on your Raspberry Pi and get started with any project!

3 Likes

Kind of right, but people may think that this is Ubuntu Desktop. Please instruct :slight_smile:

Ah, good point, made the changes thank you :slight_smile:

1 Like

I’ve attempted to use the Raspberry Pi Imager for Windows with a new Sandisk Industrial 8GB SD card. It fails because the SD card needs formatting. Of course, I’m unable to format the SD card in Windows.

Please address the need and the how to overcome this issue.

All of these download links now return 404’s, apparently because the downloads are now versioned and there is no (more?) server side symlink to the latest.
https://downloads.raspberrypi.org/imager/

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