how to make linux bootable off a usb stick on mac

What distribution of Linux? There are distributions that install and boot off a thumb drive. What do their respective instructions say?

Personally I would install the distribution specified by your school in a virtual machine such as Parallels, Fusion, or VirtualBox running on my computer.

Yes, but why would you want to? Running Linux from an external device will be much slower than running it in a virtual machine on your hard drive. This is in part why Linux distributions intended for installation on a usb stick are pared down versions of the distribution.

Parallels, Fusion, and VirtualBox will all run Linux. As to space, it depends on the distribution and what you will be running. A full desktop version of Linux with multiple desktop configurations will take more space than a headless server version of Linux.

But in a VM you have control over the size allocated to the VM and guest operating system so you can change the size dynamically as needed. A virtual machine does not partition the drive it only crreates a virtual drive (file).

Parallels and Fusion have full trial downloads and you can download a Linux distribution. Try these. VirtualBox is free and again you can download a Linux distribution. I have used all three virual machines and am now using Fusion and VirtualBox. Each works, imho, as well as the other.

Like others have indicated running a virtualized Linux distribution is the best option. The process is:

1) download Virtualbox and install

2) download a linux distibution as an .iso

3) start Virtualbox and set up a virtual machine where:

- the virtual CD mounts the .iso

- the virtual hard drive is a file on your computer (this ia all pretty straight forward through the setup)

- select the amount of RAM the VM get

4) start the virtual machine and go through the installation

Don't know. It depends on what you already have installed and what Linux distribution and programs you will be running. Should be enough though. How much ram you have also makes a difference.

Did you visit the VM sites to see what their requirements are?

8 GB ram is enough to run a VM with Linux. Try allocating 4GB to OSx and 4 to the VM. Why don't you download and install the free VirtualBox and a distribution of Linux llike Ubuntu and try it for yourself. Allocate something like 60GB hard drive space to the VM. Or, some VMs can be set up to dynamically allocate hard drive space. I can't remember if VirtualBox can allocate space dynamically but it does not matter.

Try it.

I have the same question, but parsed differently. What people have tried answering here is:

how to (make linux (bootable off a usb stick on mac))

What I'm trying to find is:

how to make ((linux bootable off a usb stick) on mac)

That is, I don't want to boot from the usb stick on my mac; I want to write an ISO to a usb stick that's plugged into my Macbook Pro (Mavericks), then carry the stick to a different machine (several discarded Windows boxes in fact), plug it in there, and watch it boot on that machine. I've done a bit of googling, but everything I find talks about making USB drives with content that can be booted on a Mac. What I'm wondering is if it's possible to write to use my Mac to write bootable USB gadgets that work on other machines that aren't running OSX software.

Anyone know if this is discussed anywhere? If not, what's the right forum to ask it on? And how do I ask it so that I don't get yet another explanation of how to make something that will boot on my Mac?

I have several linux ISOs waiting. Actually, I could do the job on one of several available linux boxes. But I'd like to do it on my portable laptop, which at the moment is this Macbook Pro.

The bootable USB should be interchangeable. I've used the same Ubuntu boot disc on a Windows and Mac machine.