I’m stuck near the beginning of installing ubuntu desktop for windows, I’ve downloaded the image file(iso) onto my usb stick, I ran rufus and the form asks me to select from a dropdown box at the very top of the form, but no options are available to select, so I’m stuck at this point.
My question is really am I using a usb stick that is to big and can’t be recognised, I tried with a 2 TB stick and a 1 TB stick, with the same result as above or does anyone think the problem might lie elsewhere.
I also tried mint cinnamon with pretty much the same result, and I reformatted the usb drives.
Yes windows picked up the usb sticks no problem and I moved the iso files to the usbs,
I tried balena etcher as well, it picked up the iso files from the usb’s but wouldn’t let me select them in the second step, although you can see the iso files. sorry I forgot to mention that.
Does your computer have BIOS only, or is it UEFI-configured?
If BIOS only, you need to use a smaller stick (keep it below 64GB to be on the safe side) and format with msdos partition table. Otherwise, the BIOS likely can’t handle it.
Also, be sure the stick has a bootable image, not store the ISO file directly on the USB.
[Edit]
You might want to take a look at what I posted in this other discussion. It offers a script to transfer the ISO to a USB, but with a comment about ensuring you create that msdos partition first.
I am confused. We do not move ISO files or even copy them onto USB sticks. They are written to the USB memory stick. And we boot into Ubuntu on the USB memory stick.
What is this second step you mention?
Are you actually talking about Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)?
On the off chance that this is a help request about installing Ubuntu on Windows Subsystem for Linux, I offer this:
The thing about ISO images is that they are bit-for-bit images of a bootable DVD, so we need to turn a USB thumb drive into something that, for all intents an purposes, looks like a DVD to the computer. That’s what tools like Rufus do.
So the downloaded .iso file should not be saved to the USB device; just put it in the normal Downloads folder, @billmcl61. Then you instruct Rufus to use that file to write directly to the USB thumb drive. If all goes well you will end up with a bootable USB device, which you can run the Ubuntu installer from.
Write the downloaded Ubuntu image to a USB stick to create the installation media. This is not the same as copying the downloaded image file: you have to use special software.
Pardon me for using the same language as the official Ubuntu tutorial.
Perhaps you are doing it the wrong way around. The ISO image writing tool writes from the Windows drive to the USB memory stick. With the ISO image on the USB memory stick the only place the image writing tool can write to is your Windows drive. Perhaps this is the reason why the tool is not letting you select the ISO image.
Hi Guys, many thanks for your replies, I’m sorry if I’ve not explained this very well, but to give you an update on where I am.
I have the iso files for ubuntu and mint cinnamon in my download folder on my pc (dell inspiron 15 3520, 16 gb ram 1 tb hard drive, approx 1 year old, running win11), the usb stick that I’m currently concentrating on is 1 tb, reformatted and the windows 11 installation media tool installed, I have both rufus and balena etcher installed on my pc. I’ve tried using both of them but to no avail, currently I don’t know if I’m going down the right path: with rufus I now seem to be unable to complete any of the fields in the opening form, with etcher the first option “flash from file” lists the directories of the win11 installation media tool on the flash drive.
I’ll take screen shots of the different stages and things that I’ve tried, I’ll reboot first and take screenshots of my bios page and each stage I’ve tried, and hopefully they’ll help to explain things a bit better, then I’ll post them here, hopefully they’ll make sense to you, I realise that there’s probably 1 wee thing that I’ve missed, but at the moment, I’m just not getting it, I really appreciate the help you’ve offered and you’re taking the time to help.
I’ll repost soon with the screenshots which I hope will explain things a bit better.
Most of the tools to create a USB flash drive installer totally erase the USB flash drive. So that is why smaller 8 or 16GB flash drives are now suggested. Ubuntu has become more than 4GB, so smaller does not work at all.
Did Windows encrypt or use its fast startup setting which is hibernation which prevents writing into it?
Since larger flash drive, you may want to consider Ventoy which boots both Windows & Linux ISO directly. You just copy ISO into Ventoy’s ISO partition.
Thank you for your suggestions, I’ve disabled hibernation on my laptop so win11 is on all the time, unless I shutdown of course, windows starts normally on start-up and is not encrypted.
I like the sound of Ventoy so I’ll try this later on.
In your initial post, you mention that you were ‘installing ubuntu desktop for windows’ and you were asked in a later post if that meant Windows Subsystem for Linux and you never responded. You need to answer that.
You also posted above that you ‘reformatted and the windows 11 installation media tool installed’ so the question here is formatted as what filesystem type. My understanding is that the windows installation media tool only works with windows systems.
If you want to install Ubuntu to a 1 or 2 TB drive, you need to first write it to a USB flash drive with appropriate software (Ventoy is probaby easiest) then boot it and select the 1 or 2 TB drive to install to. If you are planning to use WSL, that is a different method and is explained in the link posted above by graymech.
Be sure to run a full backup before you start this. I’d recommend resizing the NTFS in Windows to leave unpartitioned space for Ubuntu to use.
You keep saying “files”… are you extracting the ISO then copying the resulting files to the USB as this won’t work. You need an application like Balena Etcher etc which will set up the USB stick as needed.
Resizing NTFS should be done from Windows, not from Linux … especially if you are keeping the NTFS partition around on a disk having the msdos partition table format.
Many thanks for your tips and guidance, I’ve read all of your answers, I realise how frustrating my answers probably were, but I eventually got up and running with a dual boot of Ubuntu and win11 on my laptop.
I think the biggest problem with all of this was me (1 step forward-10 steps back), but the help from everyone has been great, I ran Ventoy which made my usb workable, without it installed on my usb stick I was getting nowhere. I then used Rufus to get the iso from my downloads to my usb stick, in my bios I temporarily disabled all of the boot options except for the usb stick, rebooted and voila thankfully, eventually, we were off to the races, and I now have Ubuntu up and running. Once again I would like to thank everyone for their help, the response was brilliant and much appreciated.
I went down a number of rabbit holes before I fully understood what I was doing, the windows 11 installation media tool was one of them as you pointed out, I hope that I haven’t been disrespectful to anyone, I was trying one thing then trying another etc etc and time ran away from me, but all is good now.
