How to create a bootable Linux USB drive on Mac OS

I find using these commands myself regularly, so decided to write them down in a separate article for not having to find the information between lines.

So here it goes. Remember to choose right disk! otherwise, you could override your system! Replace /your/image/path/here with the path to your image file, diskX with your disk and your-linux-image.iso with your image file.

diskutil list
sudo diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskX
sudo dd bs=4m if=/your/image/path/here/your-linux-image.iso of=/dev/rdiskX

Note: with /dev/rdisk (with letter R, instead of just “disk”) the command is 20 times faster on Mac Os X. Have fun installing!

Thanks for reading! I need your attention for a moment.

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Roni Laukkarinen

Editor-in-chief and owner of Geeky Lifestyle blog. Truly a jack of all trades, a Swiss knife; an avid tech and multimedia geek, coder, owner of a digital agency company, sysadmin, music enthusiast, artist and film critic.

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