Ubuntu – Can I create a LiveUSB for installing Lubuntu without using a CD

The Ubuntu Startup Disk Creator in the Ubuntu 14.04 LTS family (including Lubuntu) is buggy. The new version introduced in version 16.04 LTS is a cloning tool and much more reliable.

You can use another cloning tool in order to make USB boot drives in Lubuntu 14.04 LTS, for example Disks alias gnome-disks, which is part of the release, and mkusb, which you can install from a ppa according to the following link.

help.ubuntu.com/community/mkusb

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mkusb/ppa  # and press Enter
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mkusb mkusb-nox usb-pack-efi

Cloning is a very reliable method to create an Ubuntu USB boot drive, and will eliminate several problems. But there are other things, that can cause problems, for example

• Bad download: Please check that the md5sum of the iso file matches the listed value at

  help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuHashes

• ACPI, APIC ... : There may still be problems that can be worked around with boot options.

• graphics: You may have problems with the graphics chip/card, that can be fixed temporarily with the boot option nomodeset and later on fixed in the installed system with a proprietary driver.

  Edit: Now that I know that you have an nvidia card, I think that you need the boot option nomodeset to run with simple graphics, and after installation you should install a proprietary graphics driver. There are several questions with good answers about that at AskUbuntu, for example How do I install the Nvidia drivers?

• wifi: You may have problems with the wifi chip/card, that can be fixed in the installed system with a proprietary driver.

You help us help you, if you specify your computer, at least

• Brand name and model
• CPU
• RAM (size)
• internal drive (size)
• graphics chip/card (brand name and model)
• wifi chip/card (brand name and model)

Ok, I understand you in two different ways. First one is that you simply need Ubuntu on a USB stick, so that you can install it to some system using that same USB stick. In other words, the USB stick replaces the installation DVD. This would be done like this:

• download the desired ISO-image of Ubuntu. This could be ubuntu-17.10-desktop-amd64.iso.
• Insert the USB stick into your computer and type sudo fdisk -l to find the device name your USB stick has in your system. If I put a USB stick in my system, the name will be /dev/sdc.
• Copy the ISO-image to your USB stick using sudo dd if=/path/to/your/iso/ubuntu-17.10-desktop-amd64.iso of=/dev/sdc. You'll have to adapt the path and the drive to your system. Oh, and pay attention to the drive. If it fdisk shows you something like /dev/sdc1 and /dev/sdc2, then you still use only /dev/sdc without the number behind, because you want to overwrite all the partitions on the stick.
• Reboot your system and boot from your USB stick.

The other way your question could be interpreted, is that you want to use your USB stick as main or secondary drive. This should be fairly simple. Use gparted to partition your USB stick. For instance a 2 GB SWAP, a 50 GB ext4, and the rest with a third partition with ntfs. You'll use the SWAP and the ext4 partition for Ubuntu and the ntfs partition for file exchange between Windows and Linux.