rufus

Creating bootable USB drives the easy way

Description

Rufus is a small utility that helps format and create bootable USB flash drives, such as USB keys/pendrives, memory sticks, etc.

It can be be especially useful for cases where:

• you need to create USB installation media from bootable ISOs (Windows, Linux, etc.)
• you need to work on a system that doesn't have an OS installed
• you need to flash a BIOS or other firmware from DOS
• you want to run a low-level utility

Despite its small size, Rufus provides you with everything you need!

Oh, and Rufus is fast. For instance it's about twice as fast as UNetbootin, Universal USB Installer or Windows 7 USB download tool, on the creation of a Windows 7 USB installation drive from an ISO (with honorable mention to WiNToBootic for managing to keep up). It is also marginally faster on the creation of Linux bootable USB from ISOs ⁽¹⁾.
A non exhaustive list of Rufus supported ISOs is also provided at the bottom of this page ⁽²⁾.

Finally, please remember that once formatted, your drive is still usable as before to transfer data: it doesn't have to be dedicated for DOS or ISO installation only.

Download

Two versions of Rufus are provided for your convenience: one with FreeDOS support and one without.

• Rufus v1.1.7 with FreeDOS support (415 KB)
• Rufus v1.1.7 without FreeDOS support (154 KB)
• Other versions

Apart from the ability to select FreeDOS rather than the default Microsoft DOS, these versions are exactly the same. If you use a non-US keyboard, FreeDOS is recommended as it supports more keyboard layouts. In both cases, if you choose DOS, Rufus will try to set the keyboard locale for you.
If you use plan to use ISO images only, any version will do.

Once downloaded, the application is ready to use — no installation or other files are necessary.

System Requirements

Windows XP or later, 32 or 64 bit doesn't matter.
If elevation is required, you will be prompted for it.

Usage

Download the executable and run it - no installation is necessary.

The executable is digitally signed and is produced in a 100% transparent manner, from its public source, using a MinGW32 environment.
The signature should state "Pete Batard - Open Source Developer".

ISO Support

The current version of Rufus allows the creation of a bootable USB from an ISO image (.iso). In a futture version, we may add the ability to read files directly from a CD/DVD drive for from a folder, but the time being you have to provide a .iso.

However, creating an ISO image from either a CD or DVD or from a set of files is very easy to do using a CD burning application. The one we recommend, because of its ease of use, is the freely available CDBurnerXP.

License

GNU General Public License (GPL) version 3 or later.
You are free to distribute, modify or even sell the software, insofar as you respect the GPLv3 license.

Feedback, Bugs or Enhancement Requests

Please use the github issue tracker. Or you can send an e-mail.

Versions

• Version 1.1.7 (2012.04.06):
  • Fixes wrong bootable disk ID introduced in 1.1.6 (reported by Jeff Byers)
  • Fixes support for minint WinPE 1.x images
• Version 1.1.6 (2012.03.27):
  • Add ISO support for Windows XP (SP2 or later), Windows 2003 and BartPE
• Version 1.1.5 (2012.03.12):
  • Fixes detection of devices without friendly name (reported by rschiang)
  • Fixes support of WinPE/AIK ISO images (reported by Dmitry Sokolov)
  • Fixes no disk at launch with empty card readers (reported by ChrisR
  • Add download of vesamenu.c32 for ISOs that need it
• Version 1.1.4 (2012.03.03):
  • Fixes ISO support for directories with extended characters (reported by ChrisR)
  • Fixes bad blocks test issues (reported by steve6375)
  • Read extended labels from autorun.inf when present
  • Update FreeDOS files to latest versions
• Version 1.1.3 (2012.02.24):
  • Fixes an issue on XP when using Windows ISOs (reported by wimb)
  • Disable listing of fixed drives (eg. HDDs)
  • Add 'fake' USB drive detection during bad blocks check
• Version 1.1.2 (2012.02.22):
  • Fixes ISO support for Fedora, openSUSE and Hiren's Boot CD
  • Add icon and extended/international label support
• Version 1.1.1 (2012.02.16):
  • ISO image support (syslinux) - targeted at Linux installation ISOs
  • ISO fixes and UI improvements
• Version 1.1.0 Beta (2012.02.08):
  • ISO image support (NTFS, bootmgr only - targeted at Windows installation ISOs)
• Version 1.0.7 (2012.02.02):
  • Fixes a detection issue on platforms with multiple optical drives (with thanks to ElGaton)
  • Add number of passes for bad blocks check
  • Improved locale selection for FreeDOS
• Version 1.0.6 (2012.01.03):
  • Log report when bad blocks are found
• Version 1.0.5 (2011.12.25):
  • Keyboard layout detection & support
• Version 1.0.4 (2011.12.16):
  • FreeDOS support
• Version 1.0.3 (2011.12.12):
  • First public release
  • Progress status improvements
  • Filtering of invalid cluster sizes
  • Disable Autoplay on Vista and later while the application is running
• Version 1.0.2 (2011.12.06):
  • Beta release
  • Support for bad blocks check
• Version 1.0.1 (2011.12.04):
  • Alpha release

Source

• Rufus v1.1.2 source (816 KB)
• Alternatively, you can clone the git repository using:

  $ git clone git://github.com/pbatard/rufus

• For more information, see the github project.

If you are a developer, you are very much encouraged to tinker with Rufus and submit patches.

 

(1) Speed comparison between Rufus and other applications

The following tests carried out on a Windows 7 x64 Core 2 duo/4 GB RAM platform, with an USB 3.0 controller and a 16 GB USB 3.0 ADATA S102 flash drive.

• Windows 7 x64: en_windows_7_ultimate_with_sp1_x64_dvd_618240.iso

Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool v1.0.30	8 mins 10s
Universal USB Installer v1.8.7.5	7 mins 10s
UNetbootin v1.1.1.1	6 mins 20s
RMPrepUSB v2.1.638	4 mins 10s
WiNToBootic v1.2	3 mins 35s
Rufus v1.1.1	3 mins 25s

• Ubuntu 11.10 x86: ubuntu-11.10-desktop-i386.iso

UNetbootin v1.1.1.1	1 min 45s
RMPrepUSB v2.1.638	1 min 35s
Universal USB Installer v1.8.7.5	1 min 20s
Rufus v1.1.1	1 min 15s

• Slackware 13.37 x86: slackware-13.37-install-dvd.iso

UNetbootin v1.1.1.1	>60 mins
Universal USB Installer v1.8.7.5	24 mins 35s
RMPrepUSB v2.1.638	22 mins 45s
Rufus v1.1.1	20 mins 15s

 

(2) Non exhaustive list of ISOs Rufus is known to work with

Arch Linux, Archbang, BartPE/pebuilder, CentOS, Damn Small Linux, Fedora, FreeDOS, Gentoo, gNewSense, Hiren's Boot CD, Knoppix, Kubuntu, Linux Mint, NT Password Registry Editor, OpenSUSE, Parted Magic, Slackware, Tails, Trinity Rescue Kit, Ubuntu, Ultimate Boot CD, Windows XP (SP2 or later), Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 Consumer Preview, etc.

Great find for making bootable USBs

The team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 12 “Lisa”.

 

Linux Mint 12 “Lisa”

New features at a glance:

• Gnome 3 and MGSE
• MATE
• Artwork improvements
• Search engines

For a complete overview and to see screenshots of the new features, visit: “What’s new in Linux Mint 12“.

Important info and release notes:

The Release Notes are an important source of information. Here are some of the topics they cover:

• Tips and Tricks
  • Information about DuckDuckGo
  • Switch to a single top panel
  • Switch to a black panel, menu and window list
  • Quickly preview files without opening them
  • Restart Gnome Shell when needed
  • Debug Gnome Shell (for developers or to troubleshoot)
  • Run Gnome Shell in Virtualbox (for testers and reviewers)
  • Install MATE from the CD edition
  • Workaround for a disappearing MATE panel
  • Workaround for 100% CPU usage in MATE
• MATE
• mint4win
• Moonlight
• Upstream issues

System requirements:

• x86 processor (Linux Mint 64-bit requires a 64-bit processor. Linux Mint 32-bit works on both 32-bit and 64-bit processors).
• 512 MB RAM (1GB recommended for a comfortable usage).
• 5 GB of disk space
• Graphics card capable of 800×600 resolution
• CD/DVD drive or USB port

Upgrade instructions:

• To upgrade from a previous version of Linux Mint follow these instructions.
• To upgrade from Linux Mint 12 RC, simply apply any level 1 and 2 updates (if any), as well as level 3 “mate” and “caja” updates available in the Update Manager.

Download:

Md5 sums:

• DVD 32-bit: ee3d6e2ca498bc7685b7f17cdb5f2eea
• DVD 64-bit: 548f0ac303fea840ef138e5669880a74
• CD no codecs 32-bit: 40562d26447207cb5111f94b93957a58
• CD no codecs 64-bit: 641e0ab8f746b82c36fc3f0bbca70dc7

Torrents:

• DVD 32-bit
• DVD 64-bit
• CD no codecs 32-bit
• CD no codecs 64-bit

HTTP Mirrors for the 32-bit DVD ISO:

• Australia AARNet
• Australia Internode
• Australia Western Australian Internet Association
• Australia Yes Optus Mirror
• Austria Goodie Domain Service
• Belarus ByFly
• Brazil Universidade Federal do Parana
• Canada University of Waterloo Computer Science Club
• China University of Science and Technology of China Linux User Group
• Czech Republic Silicon Hill
• Denmark klid.dk
• France Gwendal Le Bihan
• Germany Copahost
• Germany GWDG
• Germany NetCologne GmbH
• Greece National Technical University of Athens
• Greece University of Crete
• Ireland HEAnet
• Japan JAIST
• Japan Yamagata University
• Latvia University of Latvia
• Lithuania Atviras kodas Lietuvai
• Netherlands Tuxis Internet Engineering
• Poland Polish Telecom
• Portugal CeSIUM – Universidade do Minho
• Romania Apollo Hardware Consulting
• Romania ServerHost
• Russia Yandex Team
• South Africa Internet Solutions
• South Africa Web Africa
• Sweden DF – Computer Society at Lund University
• Sweden Portlane
• Switzerland SWITCH
• Turkey Linux Kullanicilari Dernegi
• USA mirrorcatalogs.com
• USA University of Maryland, College Park
• USA Yellow Fiber Networks

HTTP Mirrors for the 64-bit DVD ISO:

• Australia AARNet
• Australia Internode
• Australia Western Australian Internet Association
• Australia Yes Optus Mirror
• Austria Goodie Domain Service
• Belarus ByFly
• Brazil Universidade Federal do Parana
• Canada University of Waterloo Computer Science Club
• China University of Science and Technology of China Linux User Group
• Czech Republic Silicon Hill
• Denmark klid.dk
• France Gwendal Le Bihan
• Germany Copahost
• Germany GWDG
• Germany NetCologne GmbH
• Greece National Technical University of Athens
• Greece University of Crete
• Ireland HEAnet
• Japan JAIST
• Japan Yamagata University
• Latvia University of Latvia
• Lithuania Atviras kodas Lietuvai
• Netherlands Tuxis Internet Engineering
• Poland Polish Telecom
• Portugal CeSIUM – Universidade do Minho
• Romania Apollo Hardware Consulting
• Romania ServerHost
• Russia Yandex Team
• South Africa Internet Solutions
• South Africa Web Africa
• Sweden DF – Computer Society at Lund University
• Sweden Portlane
• Switzerland SWITCH
• Turkey Linux Kullanicilari Dernegi
• USA mirrorcatalogs.com
• USA University of Maryland, College Park
• USA Yellow Fiber Networks

HTTP Mirrors for the 32-bit CD No codecs ISO:

• Australia AARNet
• Australia Internode
• Australia Western Australian Internet Association
• Australia Yes Optus Mirror
• Austria Goodie Domain Service
• Belarus ByFly
• Brazil Universidade Federal do Parana
• Canada University of Waterloo Computer Science Club
• China University of Science and Technology of China Linux User Group
• Czech Republic Silicon Hill
• Denmark klid.dk
• France Gwendal Le Bihan
• Germany Copahost
• Germany GWDG
• Germany NetCologne GmbH
• Greece National Technical University of Athens
• Greece University of Crete
• Ireland HEAnet
• Japan JAIST
• Japan Yamagata University
• Latvia University of Latvia
• Lithuania Atviras kodas Lietuvai
• Netherlands Tuxis Internet Engineering
• Poland Polish Telecom
• Portugal CeSIUM – Universidade do Minho
• Romania Apollo Hardware Consulting
• Romania ServerHost
• Russia Yandex Team
• South Africa Internet Solutions
• South Africa Web Africa
• Sweden DF – Computer Society at Lund University
• Sweden Portlane
• Switzerland SWITCH
• Turkey Linux Kullanicilari Dernegi
• USA mirrorcatalogs.com
• USA University of Maryland, College Park
• USA Yellow Fiber Networks

HTTP Mirrors for the 64-bit CD No codecs ISO:

• Australia AARNet
• Australia Internode
• Australia Western Australian Internet Association
• Australia Yes Optus Mirror
• Austria Goodie Domain Service
• Belarus ByFly
• Brazil Universidade Federal do Parana
• Canada University of Waterloo Computer Science Club
• China University of Science and Technology of China Linux User Group
• Czech Republic Silicon Hill
• Denmark klid.dk
• France Gwendal Le Bihan
• Germany Copahost
• Germany GWDG
• Germany NetCologne GmbH
• Greece National Technical University of Athens
• Greece University of Crete
• Ireland HEAnet
• Japan JAIST
• Japan Yamagata University
• Latvia University of Latvia
• Lithuania Atviras kodas Lietuvai
• Netherlands Tuxis Internet Engineering
• Poland Polish Telecom
• Portugal CeSIUM – Universidade do Minho
• Romania Apollo Hardware Consulting
• Romania ServerHost
• Russia Yandex Team
• South Africa Internet Solutions
• South Africa Web Africa
• Sweden DF – Computer Society at Lund University
• Sweden Portlane
• Switzerland SWITCH
• Turkey Linux Kullanicilari Dernegi
• USA mirrorcatalogs.com
• USA University of Maryland, College Park
• USA Yellow Fiber Networks

Enjoy!

We look forward to receiving your feedback. Thank you for using Linux Mint and have a lot of fun with this new release!

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Great Linux OS Distro for everyone to try.

Awesome Plugin for Windows Media Center.

For all the people that are wanting to try Chrome OS but don't want to buy a $500 laptop to do it. You can go here download the latest build of Chromium OS and install it on VirtualBox.

CleanMyMac is a great tool for cleaning off your old cache, logs and other system files they you don't really need but don't want to mess with either. My first run I cleaned out 2GB of useless stuff.

Probably the best tool I have used for cleaning up my hard drive from old files and stuff I dont need anymore. I cleaned off 50GBs of old worthless stuff. Got more than 20% of my Macbook Pros HD back.

All you ubuntu freaks out there can now upgrade to the alpha release of ubuntu 11.04 – 11.10 would be the 2nd release i guess

press alt+f2-> type “update-manager -d” and click upgrade ! simple as pie (I don’t really know what that means)

You might not see the 11.04 upgrade if you are not already on 10.10 maverick meerkat.

I am not sure if it is 11.04 actually – cause canonical just released 10.10 which is not even a final release and when you click upgrade it shows “upgrading to ubuntu 10.10″ instead of 11.04 . i’ll try it tonight and let you guys know.

Update: Yes it is 11.04, I ran the upgrade through a terminal and it was extracting from natty narwhal archive. So it is 11.04.[natty narwhal is the weird code name for ubuntu 11.04, like every other ubuntu release has.]

Now all you guys asking Why upgrade to Ubuntu 10.10 ? Cause you get to upgrade to 11.04 ! lol

Ubuntu 11.04 is yet in alpha stage (unstable release), so this is not for the weak hearted and people who require anger management sessions! it might be frustrating at times as there are certain bugs (nothing major but).
You are probably gonna face problems using Ubuntu Tweak too so,
Once you install ubuntu 11.04 natty narwhal, you might face this problem- missing windows borders, title, close minimize maximize buttons. to fix this:
Open a terminal type “gconf-editor”
navigate to desktop>gnome>applications>window_manager and change the value of default from (I presume) /usr/bin/compiz to /usr/bin/metacity .

Or you can open synaptic package manager and reinstall compiz .Exit -logout -login and your good to go!

Have fun!

© 2010 – 2011, zee. All rights reserved. DO NOT copy without prior permisson OR provide link back as credit.

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Cool thing on how to upgrade ubuntu from 10.10 to 11.04 (which is still alpha)

Images

We provide pre-built images for several open-source operating systems.

Please note that:

1. Every image contains the latest software as of the day the image was built. Performing updates is on your own, and may require looking for documentation to read using your favourite search engine.
2. Default usernames and passwords, where required, can be found next to the download link of each image. You are warmly invited to create your own user, or at least to change passwords, if you intend to use the images in a public environment.

GNU/Linux (GNU userland tools running on top of the Linux kernel)

• Archlinux (website).
• CentOS (website): the installation is done from the DVD, with default parameters set
• Damn Small Linux (website): the installation is done from the CD, with default parameters set.
• Debian (website): the installation has been done from the netinstall ISO image for the x86 architecture.
• DeLi Linux (website).
• Dreamlinux (website): the installation has been done from the CD, with default parameters set.
• Fedora (website).
• Fluxbuntu (website): the installation is done from the CD, with default parameters set.
• Gentoo (website): the installation is done from the ISO image, then customized .
• gNewSense (website): the installation is done from the CD, with default parameters set.
• gOS (website).
• Kubuntu (website): the installation is done from the CD, with default parameters set.
• LinuxMint (website): the installation is done from the CD, with default parameter set.
• Mandriva (website): the installation is done from the CD, with default parameters set.
• Moblin 2 (website): the installation is done from the .img/.iso file provided by the project.
• moonOS (website).
• OpenSUSE (website).
• PCLinuxOS (website).
• Puppy Linux (website).
• Sidux (website).
• Slackware (website): the installation has been done from the first CD, selecting the bare minimum disk sets.
• SliTaz (website)
• Tiny Core Linux (website)
• TinyMe (website)
• Ubuntu (website): the installation is done from the CD, with default parameters set.
• Ubuntu Studio (website): the installation is done from the CD, with default parameters set
• Xubuntu (website): the installation is done from the CD, with default parameters set.
• VectorLinux (website):the installation is done from the CD, with default parameters set.
• Zenwalk (website): the installation is done from the Standard Edition CD, with default parameters set.

GNU/OpenSolaris (GNU userland tools running on top of the OpenSolaris kernel)

• OpenSolaris (website).
• Nexenta (website): the installation is done from the CD.
• MILAX (website): the installation has been done from the official ISO image.

GNU/FreeBSD (GNU userland tools running on top of the FreeBSD kernel)

• Debian GNU/kFreeBSD (website): the installation has been done from the daily mini.iso.

BSD

• FreeBSD (website):the installation is done from the bootonly iso

Other

• AROS (website): the installation has been done from the nightly build ISO image.
• FreeDOS (website): the installation has been done from the official ISO image.
• Haiku (website): the image has been done from the nightly build HDD raw image.
• MINIX (website): the installation has been done from the official ISO image (MINIX 3).
• ReactOS (website): the installation has been done from the official ISO image.
• SYLLABLE (website): the installation has been done from the official ISO image.
• Android-x86 (website): the istallation has been done from the daily ISO image.

For anyone wanting to install Linux with virtualbox (virtualbox.org) you can go here and get the Virtual Appliance image ready for quick testing. I am currently using this for Ubuntu 10.10, it is 852MBs and everything is all setup for use with virtualbox.

Wunderlist is so great! Tasks, notes, schedule. It's so simple to sync with many different things Mac, PC, iPhone.

I have been using it for a while now and when I don't use it I am so lost.

More details on NoteSlate and NotesLate. Looks like it will be a killer device. As a person that draws, takes notes, and has kids this thing will be perfect for me.