1 sudo dd if=[path_to_iso] of=[path_to_usb] In my case: 1 sudo dd if=/home/slick/Downloads/debian-7.4.0-amd64-CD-1.iso of=/dev/sdb IMPORTANT: Don’t provide path to the exact partition, for example: 1 sudo dd if=/home/slick/Downloads/debian-7.4.0-amd64-CD-1.iso of=/dev/sdb1 When you do that, you’re bootable pendrive won’t boot! What dd command does? In brief explaination it will copy whole ISO content as a raw data into your USB. After minute or two you should see something similar to: 1 1275904+0 records in 2 1275904+0 records out 3 653262848 bytes (653 MB) copied, 17,4742 s, 37,4 MB/s Your bootable USB with Debian is ready to go.