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Fedora’s liveusb-creator on Ubuntu

lunux
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Running Fedora’s liveusb-creator on Ubuntu

 

Running Fedora’s liveusb-creator on Ubuntu

Filed under: Fedora, Free Software, Linux, Ubuntu — ifireball @ 16:06

One of the things I find most annoying about Linux distributions is that when it comes to distribution-oriented tools, they tend to make other distributions feel like second-class citizens even when compared to Windows. One such example is the Ubuntu One service which had a Windows client released recently and will soon see a Mac client while it is yet to be unsupported on any other distro besides Ubuntu. Another such, albeit smaller, example is the Fedora liveusb-creator tool.

The Fedora liveusb-creator tool is used when one wants to install Fedora while using a USB stick rather then a CD-ROM. While Ubuntu does include a comparable tool called “Startup Disk Creator”, that tool only supports creation of bootable USB sticks for Debian-derivative distributions.

Installation of the  liveusb-creator tool is of course extremely easy on Fedora where it is accessible directly from the distribution’s repositories, the tool’s website also provides a Windows installer, but when it comes to other distributions the site resorts to providing a source archive without even including instructions as to what packages might be needed to run it.

Fortunately for users of other distributions, the Fedora liveusb-creator tool is written in Python, therefore running it on other distributions is a rather simple task, following are 3 simple steps required to use the liveusb-creator on Ubuntu, similar steps may apply to other Debian-derived distributions as well.

 

Step 1: Install required packages

The following packages are required to run the liveusb-creator, all of them can be found in the Ubuntu repositories.

  • isomd5sum
  • python-parted
  • python-pyisomd5sum
  • python-urlgrabber
  • extlinux
  • python-qt4
  • python-qt4-dbus
  • tar

The packages can all be installed with the following command line:

sudo aptitude install python-parted isomd5sum python-pyisomd5sum python-urlgrabber extlinux python-qt4 python-qt4-dbus tar

Step 2: Download and extract the liveusb-creator source

The liveusb-creator source can be downloaded from the website and extracted with the following commands:

wget https://fedorahosted.org/releases/l/i/liveusb-creator/liveusb-creator-3.11.7.tar.bz2  tar -xvjf liveusb-creator-3.11.7.tar.bz2

Step 3: Run liveusb-creator

The one thing to know here is that you need to run liveusb-creator as root to allow for low-level access to the USB stick, on Ubuntu this is typically done with “sudo”:

sudo ./liveusb-creator-3.11.7/liveusb-creator

Thats it! Enjoy your new Fedora installation…