I’ve recently bought an Asus EeePC901 which runs an Asus version of Xandros as standard. All very nice and simple but I wanted to take a look at some of the replacement Linux distributions that are out there without actually having to install them, at least until I find the one that works for me.

The thing is this means creating a bootable USB memory stick which takes time and gets a little technical. It was while I was looking at the various distributions that I stumbled across the Unetbootin utility which automates the entire process for you whether you run Windows or Linux on your PC.

The usual warning about messing with your OS applies: you do this at your own risk so don’t blame us if you accidentally trash your main hard drive!

Having said that, the process worked for me so if the warning didn’t scare you away, read on…

Unetbootin knows about various standard Linux distributions out of the box – choosing one of the known distributions from a drop down list allows you to then choose from the various versions and types available for that variant. In my case I chose the Live versions which allowed me to boot directly from a USB stick rather than install the distribution. Once you’ve picked a distro, Unetbootin downloads it for you.

Alternatively if you’ve found a distribution online download that and tell Unetbootin where you’ve saved it.

All that remains is to point Unetbootin at the USB stick, HDD or SD card that you want to make bootable and click on the OK button. Bootable images are created very quickly allowing you to easily try a number of distributions. I finally settled on the Remix version of Eeebuntu as it has all the drivers required for the ASUS and works well with the small screen.