…… Linux Mint ISO Download?

[Kris Gandillon]

Maybe I am just tired and not seeing it but I can’t seem to find an actual link to DOWNLOAD a current version of Mint Cinnamon ISO.

I see lots of talk and instructions about it but can’t seem to actually find and click a link that will download. Yes, I’m an idiot!

Can one of you Linux Mint gurus spin me around and point me in the right direction?

 

[Repairman-Jack]

Linux Mint 21.2 "Victoria" - Linux Mint

Linux Mint is an elegant, easy to use, up to date and comfortable desktop operating system.

linuxmint.com

You should be able to grab from one of the mirrors on the page

 

[EastWest]

Chris, It’s been a while since I downloaded & created bootable drive for Linux plus I use another variety but here’s what I could find for mint.

Download Page: Download Linux Mint 21.2 - Linux Mint

Install Instructions: Linux Mint Installation Guide — Linux Mint Installation Guide documentation

There are some elements like downloading the ISO then using a program to create a bootable drive like Unetbootin or one from here: 10 Useful Tools to Create Bootable USB from an ISO Image

 

[rickd94]

Each of those links in Post #2 is to the ISO file at their location(s).
download, confirm correct, make bootable USB drive, boot computer, play with Linux, install Linux alongside or instead of the existing operating system on your computer....

 

[Carl2]

I download various Linux versions to try them out on a regular basis. Often, doing a direct download of the .iso file results in a corrupted file that fails to install. Downloading via "torrent" wherein the downloading is shared among net users has failed much less often; there seems to be error correction in the torrent download process. Doing a torrent download also is far less resource intense for the source site. Some web browsers may be capable of downloading torrents but the two standalone torrent downloading programs I use under Linux are "Deluge" and "Transmission". Here is the link for Linux Mint Cinnamon edition: Torrent Download: 64-bit

 

[ChetekTech]

I recently (last week) downloaded the latest from the page Repairman-Jack posted. Mirrors work the best IMO.

 

[Kris Gandillon]

Progress! (Maybe)

Got the Mint Cinnamon ISO downloaded.

Used UII to put it on a Flash Drive in supposedly bootable format.

Lenovo Z580 doesn’t seem to be able to boot from the USB stick.

From Windows 10 it SEES the USB stick and the ISO image, it just will not boot from the stick. No error. Just acts like it isn’t seeing it when I force it to try and boot from USB. Just goes ahead and boots Windows 10 normally.

Thoughts?

Should I use something other than UII to put the ISO image on the Flash stick? Am I missing something else?

 

[SmithJ]

Progress! (Maybe)

Got the Mint Cinnamon ISO downloaded.

Used UII to put it on a Flash Drive in supposedly bootable format.

Lenovo Z580 doesn’t seem to be able to boot from the USB stick.

From Windows 10 it SEES the USB stick and the ISO image, it just will not boot from the stick. No error. Just acts like it isn’t seeing it when I force it to try and boot from USB. Just goes ahead and boots Windows 10 normally.

Thoughts?

Should I use something other than UII to put the ISO image on the Flash stick? Am I missing something else?

I’ve had good lu using Rufus to make bootable usbs

 

[SmithJ]

Rufus - Create bootable USB drives the easy way

Rufus: Create bootable USB drives the easy way

rufus.ie

 

[brizziechap]

To create the bootable USB, I used Etcher (balenaEtcher - Flash OS images to SD cards & USB drives) - as per the mintlinux installation support doc url noted in this thread:

Linux Mint Installation Guide — Linux Mint Installation Guide documentation

linuxmint-installation-guide.readthedocs.io

You may need to disable secure boot on your Lenovo (from bios):

How to boot from USB disk in the BIOS (Boot Menu) - ideapad, Lenovo - Lenovo Support AU

pcsupport.lenovo.com

Cheers,

Briz

 

[EastWest]

You may have to change the BIOS Setup/Boot Order with USB being first. I have loaded Linux on a lot of Lenova’s, Dell & HP’s and some required me to manually select the boot order to override Win 10’s boot.

 

[Tristan]

I've used Etcher in the past when working on a Windows system, and it worked well.

Was just going to recommend, but saw some shade being cast on it online, as in it acting like spyware.

Haven't dug deep enough to determine the validity of the claims, yet... :/

 

[Tristan]

You may have to change the BIOS Setup/Boot Order with USB being first. I have loaded Linux on a lot of Lenova’s, Dell & HP’s and some required me to manually select the boot order to override Win 10’s boot.

Some have a Fkey to tap at startup for a one-time boot selection... f12 on the HP I was working on a bit ago...

 

[rob0126]

I like the latest YUMI multiboot usb creator. (supports exFAT, UEFI, and BIOS)

YUMI Multiboot USB Software ✅ Boot Windows or Linux Easy

YUMI Multiboot USB boot maker. Bootable USB software for Windows or Linux. Make a multi-booting USB flash drive. Run multiple ISOs from USB

pendrivelinux.com

It uses the ventoy method but it's compatibility with OTG seems to be better then ventoy alone in my experience.

What I like about it is that you can just throw an ISO into the YUMI/Installed ISO's folder, and boot up, then select the ISO. (It auto configs, so it will either boot or it won't)

You still have the option to config however.

However, it only runs in windows so if you run linux only, you have to run a VM of windows or load up a live image of windows(PE), to run the file.

 

[rob0126]

Some have a Fkey to tap at startup for a one-time boot selection... f12 on the HP I was working on a bit ago...

F10 or F12 as well on some systems.
Boot up screen with details should say which one does it.

 

[Doc1]

Kris, I have downloaded Linux in the past a couple of times, but in more recent times I buy a disc of anything important. That way I'll always have it if I need it.

Best
Doc

 

[Slydersan]

Another possible option is head to your favorite bookstore and look for one of those Linux-type magazines that have the free Linux Mint download CD included with it. Some have multiple OS's on the CD. I've used those with high success in the past.

 

[GammaRat]

It sounds like you've successfully created a boot USB stick, (although I've seen them not work, depending on which app you used to create it) Belana Etcher almost always works.

It also sounds like USB is not in front of your hard drive for boot order. This is normal.

You either need to change the order, or get into the one time boot menu. You can go into your BIOS and make the change, to pull up the boot meno with an F-Key. Each PC is different...

Usually either can be pulled up by REPEATEDLY pressing F9-F12 as soon as the PC starts until you see the menu, or you see the Windows spinner (which means you missed it)

Each BIOS is different, but they all have a section on Boot Order.

 

[BH]

Mint itself has a bootable stick maker that I have used successfully for years. If you download the mint iso on windows you can create a virtual machine and boot the vm from the iso. Then use the mint utility to make the bootable stick. Alternatively, if you can burn the iso to a dvd and boot from that on machines that do not support bootable sticks and have a disc drive. Kinda a chicken and egg situation in some cases.

 

[Tristan]

Another possible option is head to your favorite bookstore and look for one of those Linux-type magazines that have the free Linux Mint download CD included with it. Some have multiple OS's on the CD. I've used those with high success in the past.

I haven't seen any linux magazines with a DVD in years. They still do that?

Haven't read the entire thread - does Kris have a dvd in his designated box?

 

[Kris Gandillon]

does Kris have a dvd in his designated box?

I do in one (the Lenovo Z580) but not the other (a 3 year old Dell notebook).

Backstory is that my work replaces notebooks every three years. This year, for the first time, they are allowing employees to keep their old notebook for a one-time $75 payroll deduction.

I signed up, not that I “needed” yet another computer but saw it as an opportunity to try my hand at Linux for the first time in close to 20 years. They take my old computer and wipe all the licensed software off. Then they install a trial version of Windows 10 and send it back to me.

My intent is to make it a dual-boot. Will install a real version of Windows 11 Pro and then Mint Cinnamon.

I decided to download Mint Cinnamon, create a stick and try it out in “live” mode on the Lenovo while I wait for them to send my old Dell notebook back to me.

That is where I am at in this process.

I could have installed Windows 11 a dozen times in the time I have wasted trying to get a bootable, working Mint stick!

 

[Tristan]

I do in one (the Lenovo Z580) but not the other (a 3 year old Dell notebook).

Backstory is that my work replaces notebooks every three years. This year, for the first time, they are allowing employees to keep their old notebook for a one-time $75 payroll deduction.

I signed up, not that I “needed” yet another computer but saw it as an opportunity to try my hand at Linux for the first time in close to 20 years. They take my old computer and wipe all the licensed software off. Then they install a trial version of Windows 10 and send it back to me.

My intent is to make it a dual-boot. Will install a real version of Windows 11 Pro and then Mint Cinnamon.

I decided to download Mint Cinnamon, create a stick and try it out in “live” mode on the Lenovo while I wait for them to send my old Dell notebook back to me.

That is where I am at in this process.

I could have installed Windows 11 a dozen times in the time I have wasted trying to get a bootable, working Mint stick!

Kind of them to do that! I'd take that deal in a hot second.

"I could have installed Windows 11 a dozen times in the time I have wasted trying to get a bootable, working Mint stick!"

Funny, my experience has been 180 degrees the opposite.

The few things I see as potential hiccups for you are UEFI boot, who's purpose seems to be to complicate things. I have more trouble with that than almost anything.

Dual boot is certainly possible, but I've not done it in a while; there was a point that every time I booted into Windows X (don't remember the version) it would oh-so helpfully destroy the linux install. So helpful, doncha know. That was the straw that took that camel out of action for me...

The creation of the memory stick from the iso or img file from Windows would be the last; as I stated before I've used balena etcher but there's now been some discussion as to whether it's gathering more info than necessary, so, can't recommend that until further clarification. Others have given recommendations, though.

I've finally got decent speeds on my internet, and seriously, I can download and have a bootable USB stick in about 10 minutes, including stopping to get coffee. I sincerely don't know what the issue is, but as noted I haven't tried to read every post on the thread.

Want me to make a bootable stick and send it to you? Send me a message.

eta: I went ahead and downloaded Mint Cinnamon 21.2 Cinnamon preemptively, just in case... DL'd from the mirror at giganet, linked from Mint's DL page. Took about 2 minutes...

There's probably others that would do the same as well.

 

[Tristan]

Progress! (Maybe)

Got the Mint Cinnamon ISO downloaded.

Used UII to put it on a Flash Drive in supposedly bootable format.

Lenovo Z580 doesn’t seem to be able to boot from the USB stick.

From Windows 10 it SEES the USB stick and the ISO image, it just will not boot from the stick. No error. Just acts like it isn’t seeing it when I force it to try and boot from USB. Just goes ahead and boots Windows 10 normally.

Thoughts?

Should I use something other than UII to put the ISO image on the Flash stick? Am I missing something else?

Alright, looked over the thread a bit more.

First, I'm not familar with UII. Whazzat? A quick search didn't help.

However, If I'm reading this correctly, You did get the ISO file (image) onto a memory stick. When windows boots, you can see the memory stick, and it has a single ISO file on it?

If so, that is the issue. You need something like Balena Etcher to get the image unpacked and written to the memory stick in proper, bootable form. Even simply unpacking the files onto the memory stick don't do it, either.

I can understand your frustration if that's the case...


If I'm reading this wrong, let me know.

 

[Kris Gandillon]

Fat fingered the double letters. It is UUI - Universal USB Installer

One of several options that were suggested to me.

Universal USB Installer ▷ USB Bootable Pendrive Software

Universal USB Installer (UUI): USB Bootable Pendrive Software. Easily boot from USB Windows, Live Linux ISO files, setup installers, system repair tools

pendrivelinux.com

 

[Tristan]

Fat fingered the double letters. It is UUI - Universal USB Installer

One of several options that were suggested to me.

Universal USB Installer ▷ USB Bootable Pendrive Software

Universal USB Installer (UUI): USB Bootable Pendrive Software. Easily boot from USB Windows, Live Linux ISO files, setup installers, system repair tools

pendrivelinux.com

OK, that clears that up. I'll d/l that and give it a test.

So, were you saying (in your previous post I referenced) that when UUI had done it's thing, that you could plug in the memory stick, and when it booted into windows, you could look at the stick and see a ISO file?

Or, once booted into win, were there numbers of files/directories on the stick?

 

[Kris Gandillon]

I think there were 1-2 folders and a handful of files. The iso was there.

 

[feralferret]

NO! Do NOT boot into Windows first. You MUST boot from the memory stick/thumb drive with Linux on it. Use the boot option screen when the computer does it's POST (power on self test).

 

[Tristan]

NO! Do NOT boot into Windows first. You MUST boot from the memory stick/thumb drive with Linux on it. Use the boot option screen when the computer does it's POST (power on self test).

I have the idea that he tried to boot from the memory stick, but that it wasn't bootable... I've had that happen in the past, and sometimes it just came down to a usb stick that wouldn't do it.


eta: just verified and wrote the iso I downloaded, rebooted and it worked fine. Of course, I used linux to do the write; haven't fired up the win lappy to try UUI.

Here's the root directory of the USB stick after writing:



Did it look like that?

 

[Tristan]

I think there were 1-2 folders and a handful of files. The iso was there.

On the stick I just created (see above post), there are two partitions and no ISO file. The list of files and directories are in a partition labeled "Linux Mint Cinnamon 64 bit"

Something likely went wrong in the preparation of your USB stick. (unless I'm misreading your message)

 

[feralferret]

On the stick I just created (see above post), there are two partitions and no ISO file. The list of files and directories are in a partition labeled "Linux Mint Cinnamon 64 bit"

Something likely went wrong in the preparation of your USB stick. (unless I'm misreading your message)

You absolutely should NOT see an ISO file on the USB stick. The ISO file is an image of the drive. It's kind of like a ZIP file. The contents are extracted and written onto the USB drive.

Link to installation instructions page:
Linux Mint Installation Guide
Step by step instructions.

 

[ChetekTech]

If you can't boot to the USB drive. That is your BIOS or the stick itself and I echo what Tristan said and add the thought to default your BIOS settings and try the boot process again.

 

[rob0126]

Have you tried YUMI?

YUMI allows UEFI booting (it runs on an exFAT partition system) so its a windows compatible file system.

Plus, you can just dump ISO's into a folder(once any live iso is established), boot up the stick, pick which one to load, and the boot method, and run.

And it doesnt take up the whole usb stick so you can use it for storage too.

Loup should be able to guide a bit on this as he is familiar with ventoy's method of formatting a usb stick.

 

[Slydersan]

Just a word or warning - lots of people have issues trying to dual-boot linux/windows. It is certainly possible, but there are lots of snags. Windows does not like to share. From everything I have read/tried the recommended way is to load Linux first and then load windows. Obviously not possible in your case.

Have you tried just booting from the USB stick and just doing the "Live" version ?? That is where it "loads" Mint to see if your PC is compatible with Mint. It gives you a chance to try it out/kick the tires before you actually Install it on the hard drive. There are rare cases with Mint and other Linux versions just don't play well with certain hardware combos. Also if you didn't see it - make sure you verify the .ISO image by downloading and running the SHA256 hash steps. I've had quite a few CDs/USBs where it "looked like" it was fine, but there was some issue that the 'Verify' steps found.

But I second all of the above about setting up the BiOS to boot from the USB as your first option and while in there turn off "Secure Boot" and/or UEFI. There should be some option called "Legacy boot" or something like that. I'd switch to that if possible.

Another option would be to try to install it on a completely different (even much older) PC/desktop/laptop, whatever you have lying around, just to see how it is "supposed" to load and what the process looks like.

 

[Kris Gandillon]

My goal as a first step was to simply boot Mint in Live mode from the stick. No install or dual boot yet. Just a simple boot from stick.

The Lenovo has a simple Boot menu that allows you to boot from DVD, or USB or the hard disk.

I also tried using the Windows advanced Settings to select Boot from USB on next reboot.

Every attempt either didn’t find a bootable stick or something else was wrong that caused it to not boot from stick.

 

[Tristan]

Have you tried YUMI?

YUMI allows UEFI booting (it runs on an exFAT partition system) so its a windows compatible file system.

Plus, you can just dump ISO's into a folder(once any live iso is established), boot up the stick, pick which one to load, and the boot method, and run.

And it doesnt take up the whole usb stick so you can use it for storage too.

Loup should be able to guide a bit on this as he is familiar with ventoy's method of formatting a usb stick.

Perhaps we shouldn't throw too many variables into the mix.

Get a good image on a stick, make sure the laptop is set to boot from USB, test.

If it won't boot, it's probably due to one of these things: the stick wasn't imaged correctly, or the boot parameters in the BIOS don't allow booting - like I said earlier, UEFI can give fits, at times.

If the stick doesn't look the same as the image I posted above (for Mint Cinnamon 21.2), then it's likely the writer (UUI?) didn't work correctly.

 

[BH]

I too have never seen an iso file on any bootable stick I have made.

I can download a new mint iso, verify it, make the bootable stick, install it on my laptop, configure it, load all the software I use and put all my data back in 2 hours. The actual mint install takes about 5 minutes, most of the 2 hours is installing software and loading my data. I do have my disk partitioned to separate the OS from my data to make replacing the OS easier.

 

[Tristan]

My goal as a first step was to simply boot Mint in Live mode from the stick. No install or dual boot yet. Just a simple boot from stick.

The Lenovo has a simple Boot menu that allows you to boot from DVD, or USB or the hard disk.

I also tried using the Windows advanced Settings to select Boot from USB on next reboot.

Every attempt either didn’t find a bootable stick or something else was wrong that caused it to not boot from stick.

Your first goal is spot-on.

Sounding more and more like the issue is how the stick was written.

(Though it's tough to diagnose long-distance, of course.)

 

[Kris Gandillon]

No joy yet.

I recreated the bootable USB using Yumi as suggested.

I am now convinced that the issue is likely with the Lenovo notebook rather than the stick.

I am going to pause this exercise until I receive my previous Dell work notebook that I purchased from the company for $75 when they gave me my new work notebook.

I’ll update this thread if I have a better, different experience with the Dell.

Thanks everyone for your input and suggestions thus far.

 

[feralferret]

Make sure the USB stick is formatted in FAT32 format before installing the Linux on it from the ISO image. Any other format will NOT boot.

 

[Kris Gandillon]

Make sure the USB stick is formatted in FAT32 format before installing the Linux on it from the ISO image. Any other format will NOT boot.

Yumi wipes and formats the stick as the first step of the process.