Installing Ubuntu using USB drive

Sources: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27V2jFubDag (Creating live usb)

http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2011/05/04/manual-disk-partitioning-guide-for-ubuntu-11-04/ (Manual disk partitioning guide)

Creating live usb

• Download Ubuntu from here
• Format the usb drive to NTFS (Use Disk utility)
• Unmount the usb device (Don't remove it from pc)
• Use the following command in Linux terminal to copy the .iso file into the usb device

dd if=/location/of/.iso/file of=/location/of/usb/device bs=1024

• Finding /location/of/usb/device
• Remove the usb drive
• Type cd /dev in Terminal
• Type ls
• Plug in usb device
• Again type ls
• Now it will display the usb device's location (Eg: If two extra items sdc and sdc1 are displayed in the second case /location/of/usb/device =  /dev/sdc (and NOT /dev/sdc1). See the example below

dd if=/home/vineeshvs/Downloads/ubuntu-12.04.2-desktop-i386.iso of=/dev/sdc bs=1024 status=progress

Installation

• Restart the system and enter BIOS (press F1 or F2 or F10 or Del or Esc (different for different computers))
• Go to Boot menu and set the boot preference such that usb divice (USB HDD) comes gets the first priority
• Exit BIOS saving the changes and reboot with the usb device plugged in
• Now the boot will be done from usb device and you can install Ubuntu

     Manual partitioning

• Please visit the second link listed in Sources above
• Sample partition for a 250 GB harddrive:
• /boot : 300 MB
• swap : 1998 MB
• / : 7998 MB
• /home : 245704 MB