How To Install Ubuntu: A Guide for Beginners
Written in mid 2025. We will attempt to update this when any major changes are made to the process.
It’s no secret that the NuclearNotebook team’s PCs all run on Ubuntu Linux. Over more than 20 years, Ubuntu has consistently remained a very stable, modern & usable distribution of Linux, and it’s a great place to start if you’re just leaving Windows or MacOS for the first time because it has excellent out-of-the-box hardware compatibility for most systems.
This guide is for those who have never tried to install Ubuntu or any other distro of Linux on their computer before & want a basic step-by-step walkthrough of the process.
Step 1: Preparing Installation Media
The first thing you’ll need to do is head over to the Ubuntu website and download a copy of the operating system.
On a PC or Mac, head to https://ubuntu.com/download/desktop, where you’ll be presented with a couple of different options to download - mainly, an older LTS (“Long Term Support”) version of Ubuntu, and the latest version.
Note: Ubuntu releases are named in a simple YEAR.MONTH format - e.g. 25.04, which denotes to a release date of April, 2025.
On a laptop PC, especially a newer model, you are always going to be better off with the newest-possible release of Ubuntu, so we are going to scroll down to Ubuntu 25.04 - the latest version as of mid-2025.
Here you’ll just need to click the Download link relevant to the hardware you’re using.
In almost all cases, this will be “Intel or AMD 64-bit architecture”. Hit Download & an ISO file will download to your computer.
Once complete, we’ll need to properly flash the ISO file to a USB drive in order to boot from it & install Ubuntu.
Creating a bootable flash drive
You’ll need to dig up a USB flash drive of at least 8GB for the next steps. Believe me when I say the faster the the drive, the better - if you have a modern 128GB+ USB 3.0 drive, use that one. Otherwise the installation can take - very literally - hours.
Note that we will be fully erasing the drive, so double-check that you’ve copied anything that you intend to keep from the drive.
We’re going to assume that since you’re installing Linux, you’re probably using a Windows PC - however we’ll quickly run through how to make a bootable drive from both operating systems. Windows first.
Procedure 1: On Windows - Using Rufus
If you’re using Windows, you’ll need to head to https://rufus.ie/en/ and download a copy of the Rufus application. I would recommend downloading the Portable version which will run without needing to be installed.
Once you have downloaded & opened (or installed) the app, you’ll see the following before applying appropriate settings:
There’s only two things here that we need to change.
Starting from the top; you’ll need to select your USB flash drive from the “Device” drop-down menu.
Then, select your downloaded Ubuntu ISO from the “Boot selection” menu.
Once done, the drop-downs for “Partition Scheme”, “Target System”, “Volume Label”, “File System” and “Cluster Size” will all be automatically filled as shown below (note that some of these may appear slightly different for you):
Now, click on Start to begin flashing the USB drive.
You’ll be asked to confirm writing the image in “ISO Image” mode - just click OK as this is correct.
Once this process completes - which can take anywhere from 1-15+ minutes depending on the speed of your flash drive - you’re ready to reboot into Ubuntu.
Procedure 2: On MacOS - Using Etcher
On a Mac, despite Disk Utility’s built-in support for restoring from ISOs, you’ll still need to use a third-party tool - in this case, using Balena Etcher, available at https://etcher.balena.io/#download-etcher.
It’s not mission-critical to pick the right version, but users of Macs with the M1 chip or newer should choose the ARM64 option.
This program is delightfully simple to use. You’ll just need to select the Ubuntu ISO file you downloaded, the target USB flash drive, then click Flash!
And that’s it - you’re now ready to eject the drive & plug it into the computer you’ll be installing Ubuntu on.