Creating a Bootable USB

Before you can install RakuOS, you need to write the ISO image to a USB drive and boot from it.

What you need

  • A USB drive with at least 8 GB of free space (its contents will be erased)
  • The RakuOS ISO, downloaded from the Download page
  • A tool to write the ISO to the USB drive

Writing the ISO

Pick whichever tool matches your current operating system.

On Linux

Use dd from a terminal. Replace /dev/sdX with your actual USB device, and double check the device name first with lsblk, writing to the wrong device will destroy its data.

sudo dd if=rakuos.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress conv=fsync

On Windows or macOS

Use balenaEtcher or Rufus (Windows only). Select the RakuOS ISO as the source image, select your USB drive as the target, and start the write. Both tools will format the drive automatically.

After writing

Once the write finishes, safely eject the USB drive. It is now bootable and ready to use for installation.