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Dvoraky's avatar
Dvoraky
Iron Contributor
Feb 10, 2025

Create Asahi Linux bootable usb installer on my Windows 11 Laptop?

I heard Asahi Linux is a special Linux distribution for Apple Silicon Mac and it is time to try it out now as I was gifted a MacBook Air M1 from my friend. Currently, there is no os on the Mac as the...
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Yarisyoyo's avatar
Yarisyoyo
Bronze Contributor
Feb 10, 2025

If you have WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) installed on Windows 11, you can use the native Linux dd command to make Asahi Linux bootable usb for free. 

If you haven't installed WSL, open PowerShell as Administrator and run:

wsl --install

Open an elevated Command Prompt or PowerShell and run:

wmic diskdrive list brief

Note the disk that matches your USB drive (its size should help you identify it). You need its Windows identifier (for example, PhysicalDrive2). Once mounted, WSL will assign it a device name such as /dev/sdX (you can run lsblk inside your WSL terminal to verify).

Open your WSL terminal (for example, Ubuntu). Locate your ISO file (for instance, it might be accessible at /mnt/c/path/to/asahi_linux.iso).

lsblk
sudo dd if=/mnt/c/path/to/asahi_linux.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress
wsl --unmount \\.\PHYSICALDRIVE2

The above command will create Asahi Linux bootable USB on Windows for free!

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