In the old times, CD/DVD was popular for operating system installation. The operating system images were burned into CD or DVD then the installation was started via CD or DVD. Currently, USB or Flash Drives are popular to install new operating systems like Ubuntu, Windows, Mint, etc. Rufus is a simple tool that is used to burn the operating system images into the USB or Flash Drives.
Rufus Features
Rufus is a simple tool but provides a lot of useful features to create bootable USB/Flash Drive. Here are some of the popular features of Rufus.
- Twice faster then UNetbootin, Universal USB Installer or Windows 7 USB download tool.
- Supports a lot of different languages
- Rufus is an open-source tool which source code can be downloaded from GitHub
- MBR, GPT partition scheme support
- BIOS, UEFI target system support
- FAT32, NTS file system support
- Adjustable cluster size
- Specify the volume name
Download Rufus
Rufus is provided for different platforms and operating system. Rufus mainly used for windows operating system. Rufus can be downloaded from the following link.
If we want to download for ARM, Beta or different versions we can navigate to the Other versions where all download types are provided.
Start Rufus
We will run the downloaded Rufus executable which will ask us Administrative rights. Because burning a USB/Flash disk requires some low-level functions which are only accessible with Administrative privileges. We will click Yes like below to provide.
For the first start, Rufus will ask us if we want to check updates from the internet. We will click to Yes in order to check updates regularly.
If you want to get more information about the Rufus update policy please click to the “More information“.
Rufus Menu
Rufus is a simple tool with a single screen. All configuration and operation are done via following the single screen. Let’s explain the configuration.
Drive Propertiesis a section that contains source and destination drive related optionsDeviceis the destination device which is a USB Flash Drive we will burn the isoBoot selectionis the type of boot style that should stay defaultSELECTis the button that is used to select ISO imagePersistent partition sizeis the size which will persistent during boots via USBPartition schemeis the partition scheme which is MBR by defaultTarget systemis the type of BIOSShow advanced drive propertieswill provide some detailed option
Format Optionsis a section that contains the name, file system related optionsVolume labelwill be used to set the name for the created installation mediaFile systemwill be used to set the file system of the USB Flash Drive. The default file system is FAT32 which is compatible with most of the systems like TV, Mp3 player, embedded device, IoT, etc.Cluster sizewill be used to set the size of the cluster of the USB Flash Drive. The cluster size is 4K or 4096 bytes by default.
Statuswill print the progress of USB Flash media creation
Download Ubuntu ISO Image
In this tutorial, we will create an Ubuntu Bootable Installation USB/Flash Disk. So we will download the Ubuntu ISO image. Ubuntu ISO images can be download in various ways. In this case, we will download from the Ubuntu web page as below. We will select the latest version 19.04.
The downloaded Ubuntu ISO image has name ubuntu-19.04-desktop-amd64.iso.
Create USB Ubuntu Installation Media
Before starting the USB Ubuntu installation media we have to plug the USB Flash media drive to the system. It will be automatically recognized by the Rufus. Then we will provide the ISO file from the SELECT button of the Rufus like below.
We will see the following screen where we will select the Ubuntu ISO image file and then click to the Open.
We can check provided ISO file validity by calculating hash values. Rufus provides MD5,SHA1 and SHA256 hashes of the given ISO files. We will click on the following check button.
Calculated hash values will be printed with the following message box.
We will start the burning provides by clicking the Start button like below. There will be some questions related to the USB Flash Drive creation.
As new Ubuntu ISO images provide different burning options we have two options ISO Mode or DD Mode. By default, we will select the ISO Mode.
For the last warning, all data stored in the plugged USB media will be deleted. So please take a backup of the USB flash drive. We will click OK to continue.
We will see that the progress will be shown in the Status part of Rufus. There are different phases during a USB installation media creation.
When the burning process is completed we will the Status part as Ready in green color like below.
Rufus Alternatives
Rufus is the most useful and stable USB Flash Disk Installation Media creator there are also some alternatives which provide different features.
Live Linux USB Creator
Live Linux is mainly developed to create Linux USB installation media. It provides a lot of different Linux distributions automatically without any explicit download. It can also add some virtual box software to run the Linux distributions on Windows without a reboot.
UNetbootin
Unetbootin is a cross-platform USB Flash Disk installation media creator where it supports Windows, Linux, MacOS. It can also automatically download some Linux distributions.
Universal USB Installer
Universal USB Installer is another tool alternative to Rufus. It is a bit outdated and provided by the Pendrivelinux community.
Windows 7 USB Download Tool
As its name contains download but it can also burn Windows 7 Images into the USB Flash Drive.
Windows Media Creation Tool
Windows Media Creation Tool is created for Windows 10 USB Flask Drive. It can also download Windows 10 Images. More details and usage information can be found in the following link.
How To Download and Use Windows 10 Media Creation Tool To Create Windows 10 USB or DVD?