UNetbootin (Automated, graphical approach)

UNetbootin for Mac OS X can be used to automate the process of extracting the Ubuntu ISO file to USB, and making the USB drive bootable. The resulting USB drive, however, can be booted on PCs only. If attempting to make a USB drive that can be booted from a Mac, follow the instructions below.

Manual Approach

We would encourage Mac users to download Ubuntu Desktop Edition by burning a CD for the time being. But if you would prefer to use a USB, please follow the instructions below.

Note: this procedure requires an .img file that you will be required to create from the .iso file you download.

TIP: Drag and Drop a file from Finder to Terminal to 'paste' the full path without typing and risking type errors.

MacBook Air 3,2

Please notice: While all of the info and above commands are executed properly on a MacBook Air 3,2 (that is the 2010 version 13" version of the Air) the end result will not produce a bootable USB device, at least not with the image for Ubuntu 10.10 64-bit. When booting of the USB device the following message or something similar will appear: "Missing operating system" and the process is auto-magically halted.

To get the USB device (e.g. a USB stick) to show up at all in the boot menu you also may have to reboot/turn on/off the computer a couple of times and also resync the partition tables using rEFIt. After doing this the USB should then appear as a bootable device while holding in the alt or c key when you are rebooting the computer. Notice that both the computers built in bootloader and rEFIt will identify the USB device as a Windows device, but that's not a problem and expected.

A workaround to the-usb-device-is-not-booting-problem is to:

Alternatively, burning a CD and installing via an external CD-drive will work fine on the Macbook Air 3,2.

Other procedure

(Moved from Installation/FromUSBStick)

We would encourage Mac users to download Ubuntu Desktop Edition by burning a CD for the time being. But if you would prefer to use a USB, please follow the instructions below. Note: this procedure requires an .img file that you will be required to create from the .iso file you download. TIP: Drag and Drop a file from Finder to Terminal to 'paste' the full path without typing and risking type errors.

Note: OS X tends to put the .dmg ending on the output file automatically.

How to install Ubuntu on MacBook using USB Stick (last edited 2013-04-30 12:21:08 by CPE-124-181-128-191)