Rufus for Linux

 What is Rufus?

Rufus is a program for free software that generates bootable USB drives. You can use Rufus to install Windows 10. It can also install multiple operating systems on the same device to create multiboot USB drives. If your job means working countless hours in front of the computer, creating an emergency toolkit is crucial. You can quickly resolve any problem that causes your operating system to stop working normally and disrupt your work by preparing a collection of essential Windows utilities. In addition, you should have your Windows edition ready for a bootable pen drive, just in case you have to reinstall your OS quickly. And there's no better software application we can think of for the job than Rufus.

Rufus for Linux

Rufus is a popular free-source software tool that is used on the Windows platform to burn USB ISO files. It's now a standard when it comes to creating a bootable USB for OS installation.  You will see a lot of good reviews and recommendations when you are looking for suggestions for ISO burning software. And do a lot of users want to know if there is a version of Rufus for Linux? Some say yes, and others say no. So is that true?

 

Unfortunately, the Linux platform is still not compatible with Rufus. Though plenty of users made a request for the Rufus Linux version, the developer failed to fulfil this demand yet. When you click the Download section of the official Rufus website, all download links point to the .exe file, which means that this is a Windows-only app. So both Rufus for Linux and Rufus for Mac does not exist. 

Rufus for Linux alternative: UNetbootin

When Rufus is only available Windows, UNetbootin is available as open-source software for Windows, Linux and macOS. For installing operating systems on bare metal PCs, Unetbootin Netbootin (Universal Netboot Installer) can be used with a FAT32 formatted USB stick instead of a DVD. It is available in both 32 and 64-bit. One can use UNetbootin to create bootable USB drives for various Linux distributions and BSD operating systems, the best thing being that we can directly download their respective latest ISO image within the software. For instance, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Debian, NetBSD, Fedora, Gentoo, Linux Puppy, OpenSUSE, LinuxMint, Zenwalk, CentOS, Elive, DreamLinux, CloneZilla, FreeBSD, Linux Arch, and more. Bluntly, it has a complete list of mainstream and popular Linux. Moreover, if one is not there still we can use the ISO image directly in the tool. In addition to Open-source distros, it further supports various rescue and administration systems such as Parted Magic, System Recovery CD, Dr Web Antivirus, Kaspersky Rescue Disk, Backtracks or Ophcrack.

Rufus for Linux alternative: balenaEtcher

Etcher is another Rufus alternate tool to run on Linux to create bootable drives. It is a wonderful tool, however, after flashing a USB drive using it, it creates multiple partitions on USB, which is a little bit annoying especially for users that are not much familiar with it. It was formerly known as Etcher. This is freeware and a cross-platform tool means it supports Windows, Linux and macOS to flash different operating systems ISO files to USB sticks and memory cards. In addition to the installer version of Windows, there is also a portable version that can be used without installation. Apart from ISO, the program also supports BIN, BZ2, DMG, DSK, ETCH, GZ, HDDIMG, RAW, RPI-SDIMG, SDCARD and XZ file formats.

Rufus for Linux alternative: WoeUSB

WoeUSB is an interesting app which lets you create a Windows bootable USB drive on a Linux machine. Basically, you can use WoeUSB to flash Windows ISO images on a removable drive if you use Ubuntu or some other Linux distro. The best part about WoeUSB is that, unlike most Linux programs, it has a GUI interface and you can build a USB installer in a few clicks. No need to mess with commands and Terminal! Further, it supports Windows from Vista to the latest version of Windows 10. And it is compatible with older Legacy BIOS, MBR partition and the newer UEFI mode. All in all, WoeUSB is a godsend for people who want Rufus like features on Linux for creating Windows bootable drives.

Rufus for Linux alternative: Gnome Multi-Writer

Gnome Multi-Writer is a free open-source USB bootable software written entirely in Python. Unlike the other apps in this list, you can use Multi-Writer to simultaneously flash multiple USB drives. The only caveat is that the USB drives need to be between 1 to 32 GB. The app automatically detects the supported USB drives and it can flash all of them in one click. Multi-Writer might come in handy when you have to test a live image for a huge number of systems. There is not much to talk about in this app, apart from the multiboot support.