I can never remember how to do this and the Ubuntu pages are, surprisingly, useless. So, for future reference:
- Download Ubuntu server from: https://ubuntu.com/download/server
- Write it to a USB stick: dd if=ubuntu-24.04.1-live-server-amd64.iso of=/dev/disk2 bs=1m
- Set PC to boot from USB stick
- Boot.
In my case I’m using a small Dell OptiPlex 7070 Micro. So, to get into the BIOS it’s:
- Boot
- Hammer F2
- General -> Advanced Boot Options -> Enable Legacy Option ROMs
- General ->Boot Sequence -> Legacy External Devices
- Reboot
- Hammer F2
- General -> Boot Sequence -> USB Storage Device
It should now be possible to boot from the USB stick.
When partitioning the disk don’t get confused between the USB stick filesystem and the PC filesystem. It’s pretty easy once you realise that the PC is NVME.