Writing bootable ISO images to USB media

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Iinterweb instructions are often overly complex, using all kinds of “image burning” applications.

You need nothing special.

If the image is bootable, it will show as such:

$ file image.iso
image.iso: ISO 9660 CD-ROM filesystem data (DOS/MBR boot sector) 'FOOBAR_1.0' (bootable)

Writing image to USB media

Always check and confirm your target device with lsblk.

Umount old fs before doing anything.

Writes directly to block device

cat image.iso >/dev/sdb

Possibility to specify more efficient block size and get some progress info