Next you will select your USB drive by letter from the dropdown list. If you have already downloaded your iso then you will need to browse to the location where the file is located at.

If you don’t know where to download the iso file from you can run the Universal USB Installer, choose a flavor of Linux that sounds interesting or that you have heard about and check the Opted to Download the iso box or click the Visit the Linux flavor Home Page link. You will also need to download an iso image file of the version of Linux you want to boot to. A 4GB flash drive should work fine for most cases. You most likely don’t need the full blown version with all the bells and whistles since it’s just a temporary/minimal installation you will be working with. The size will depend on what version of Linux you are going to use since some versions are around 700MB and others can be over 3GB. To use the Universal USB Installer you will need a flash drive with a decent amount of capacity. Some distributions will have the option to install Linux from your bootable flash drive though. This setup comes in handy if you just want to play around with Linux or better yet if Windows crashes and you need to get into your hard drive to get some files off your computer before formatting the drive and reinstalling Windows. The only catch is that this is a temporary instance of Linux and once you shut down your computer then Linux goes away with it unless you boot up with the flash drive again. The Universal USB Installer will let you install Linux on a flash drive and then boot your computer with it and run Linux on your Windows based or other OS based computer without affecting your current Windows installation. For you Windows users who have always wanted to check out Linux but don’t want to install it on your computer or don’t have an extra computer lying around to install it on have another option to get your Linux fix.

Why do we need universal usb installer