Make a USB Boot CD for Xubuntu

How to Create a USB Boot CD for Xubuntu. The resulting disc can be used to boot a Xubuntu USB flash drive on computers with a BIOS that does not natively support booting from USB. A Boot CD created via this process works by loading the Initial Ram Filesystem along with any USB drivers from the CD. Because the USB drivers are made available from the Boot CD, the system will then attempt to find, decompress and load the final Xubuntu squash filesystem and casper-rw persistence file (if it exists) from the USB flash drive.

Essentials to make a USB Boot CD for Xubuntu

  • Test PC with a BIOS that doesn't support booting from USB
  • PC that can boot from USB or the Live CD
  • Working CD Burner
  • USB flash drive with Xubuntu preinstalled

How to Create a USB Boot CD for Xubuntu

Note: We prefer to perform the following steps by booting from a prebuilt Xbuntu Live USB on a machine that does support booting from USB. This allows us to free up the CD Burner and use it to burn the final ISO.

  1. Insert your Xubuntu Live USB or Live CD and restart your computer, booting from the device
  2. Open a Terminal (Applications > Accessories >Terminal)
  3. Type sudo apt-get install grub
  4. Type mkdir -p ubcdx/boot/grub
  5. Type cp /usr/lib/grub/i386-pc/stage2_eltorito ubcdx/boot/grub
  6. Type mousepad ubcdx/boot/grub/menu.lst
    Copy the following information to the menu.lst file and save the file:

    title Start Xubuntu from USB DISK
    root (cd)
    kernel /boot/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/xubuntu.seed boot=casper noprompt cdrom-detect/try-usb=true persistent
    initrd /boot/initrd.lz
    boot

  7. Type cp /cdrom/casper/vmlinuz ~/ubcdx/boot
  8. Type sudo mousepad /etc/initramfs-tools/modules
    Add the following lines to the end of your modules file and save the file:

    usbcore
    usb-storage
    uhci_hcd
    ohci_hcd
    ehci_hcd
    sd_mod
    scsi_mod

  9. Type sudo mousepad /etc/initramfs-tools/initramfs.conf
    Add the following line to the bottom of the file and save the file:

    WAIT=8

  10. Type sudo mkinitramfs -o ubcdx/boot/initrd.lz
  11. Type mkisofs -R -b boot/grub/stage2_eltorito -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -o usbcdx.iso ubcdx
  12. Type brasero -i  usbcdx.iso to Burn the ISO to a CD