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Got Mint?

Finally I did it. I made myself a bootable USB flash drive which can run Linux. I’ve always been a fan of Linux and wanted to try it out. Kubuntu, using Wubi, was my first foray into Tux land. While it went quite well, I lost the installation to a format. Then I tried Ubuntu, this time by actually installing it on my HDD. I did find Gnome better then KDE, but there was still something lacking; not to mention the fact that my wi-fi didn’t work.

Then last month I stumbled across Mint. It seemed like a good alternative for me to try, it looked way better than the default theme that Ubuntu comes with. So off I went & downloaded the ISO. Little did I know that my CD drive had decided to take a hike, leaving me with an ISO image and nothing to burn it onto. I thought my Mint foray was doomed.

Except I found LiLi (Linux Live) Usb Creator. From the website:
LiLi USB Creator is a free software for Windows that allows you to create a bootable Live USB key with a Linux on it.
This software also offers an exclusive option of automatic virtualization to directly run Linux in Windows without any configuration nor installation.
  • create bootable Live USB of Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Mint, CrunchBang, Kuki and Fedora
  • enable persistency of your data
  • launch Linux directly in Windows with a special Portable Virtual Box
  • hide created files on the key
Anybody can use LiLi USB Creator. It's really easy to use and you don't have to be a computer geek.
What really caught my eye was the last bit about not needing to be a geek to use it. If it was that easy, surely even I can’t mess it up. So I downloaded it, fired it up and in roughly 10 minutes, I had myself a bootable USB drive which I can use as a portable OS (it has a persistent layer to store data) or even just as a live CD. Oh and of course, if I wanted to install Mint on a pc, I could do that too.

All I can say is, this was way easier than I thought it would be. Here are a few screens from my efforts:
mint 1
mint 2

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