Brief: Wondering how to format a USB or SD Card in Ubuntu Linux? This screenshot tutorial teaches you exactly that along with a few hints about possible troubleshoot.
Formatting a removable media like USB disk or SD Card is a pretty
simple task in Ubuntu Linux. No, I am not going to use terminal here
although you can always use the command line in Linux. I am going to
show you how to format USB in Ubuntu or other Linux distributions
graphically.
Format USB disk in Ubuntu & other Linux distributions
I am using Ubuntu with GNOME desktop environment in this tutorial but
this should be applicable to other Linux distributions and other
desktop environments as well.
Plug in your USB or SD Card. Now go to the File manager. You should see your USB or SD Card here.
Right click on it and you should see the format option.
Format option for USB in Ubuntu When you hit the format option, it will give you the option to name the device, choose filesystem.
When you have selected the appropriate options, hit Next button in the top right corner. Chose the filesystem on the USB
You’ll see a warning that all the data on the USB disk/SD Card will be erased. That’s obvious.
ust hit the format button in the top right corner.
Format Usb Ubuntu
Your USB disk will be formatted in a few seconds or a couple of minutes at the most.
Once it’s formatted, you’ll see that it has reappeared in the file manager with the new name you provided to it.
That’s it. That’s the standard way of formatting a USB drive in Ubuntu Linux.
Troubleshooting when you cannot format the USB disk in Ubuntu Linux
I never thought I could ever be troubled with formatting a simple SD
Card or USB/Pen Drive until I came up with this problem in Ubuntu. When I
looked on the options given by right clicking on the mounted removable
disk, I found none for formatting.
So I tried with the default disk utility of Ubuntu: Disks. But it failed and gave me the following error: Error formatting disk – Error synchronizing after initial wipe: Timed out waiting for object (udisks-error-quark, 0)
The above mentioned error is a known bug which has been unresolved for months and Disk is still being served as the default disk utility program (why?).
I had to go around and format the removable disk with the help of
GParted. And thus I came up with this tutorial to help others know how
to format a SD card or USB key in Ubuntu.
Step 1:
Install GParted. It is a free and open source partition editor for Linux. You can install it in terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T):
sudo apt-get install gparted
Step 2:
Insert the SD Card or USB key. Now launch GParted. To do that go to
Unity dash and search for GParted. It takes some time to search for all
the disks present on the system. Have some patience. When it has
recognized the drives, you will see a screen like below. By default it
goes to the hard drive of your computer. To access the removable media,
go to the top-right corner of the application and choose
the removable media. You can see the size of the removable media to
identify the right one :
Now you will see a screen like the one below. This shows the partition of removable disk. Before you go for formatting, unmount the disk by right-clicking on the partition in the following manner:
Step 4:
Once you have it unmounted, right-clicking on it will show you the Format To
option. You can choose whatever type of file system you want on the
disk. Once you have selected the drive to format , click on the Tick
sign on the top to start the format:
Step 5:
Nothing more needs to be done now. You will see couple of warnings and the format procedure will be commenced.
Voila! You are done. Was the tutorial helpful to you and were you able to format USB key in Ubuntu? Have questions? Feel free to go to the comment section of the page.
About Abhishek Prakash
I am a professional software developer, and founder of It's FOSS.
I am an avid Linux lover and open source enthusiast. I use Ubuntu and
believe in sharing knowledge. Apart from Linux, I love classic detective
mysteries. I'm a huge fan of Agatha Christie's work.
As a user of an Ubuntu distro Xubuntu, I often wonder how long I can continue using version 16.04 LTS. End of life for 16.04 LTS is April 2021. Extended Security maintenance releases will continue through April 2024. So we have lots of years before that occurs. See below details by release from Ubuntu.
LTS or ‘Long Term Support’ releases are published every two years in April. LTS releases are the ‘enterprise grade’ releases of Ubuntu and are utilised the most. An estimated 95% of all Ubuntu installations are LTS releases, with more than 60% of large-scale production clouds running on the most popular OS images - Ubuntu 18.04, 16.04 and 14.04 LTS.
Every six months between LTS versions, Canonical publishes an interim release of Ubuntu, with18.10 being the latest example. These are production-quality releases and are supported for their lifespan, with sufficient time provided for users to update, but these releases do not receive the long-term commitment of LTS releases.
Interim releases will introduce new capabilities from Canonical and upstream open source projects, they serve as a proving ground for these new capabilities. Many developers run interim releases because they provide newer compilers or access to newer kernels and newer libraries, and they are often used inside rapid devops processes like CI/CD pipelines where the lifespan of an artifact is likely to be less than the support period of the interim release. Interim releases receive full security maintenance for ‘main’ during their lifespan.
Ubuntu kernel release cycle:
Canonical maintains multiple kernel packages for each LTS version of Ubuntu, which serve different purposes. Several of the kernel packages address the need for kernels with specific performance priorities, for example the low-latency kernel package. Others are focused on optimisation for a particular hypervisor, for example the kernel packages which are named after public clouds. You are recommended to use the detailed Ubuntu kernel guide to select the best Ubuntu kernel for your application.
In general, all of the LTS kernel packages will use the same base version of the Linux kernel, for example Ubuntu 18.04 LTS kernels typically used the 4.15 upstream Linux kernel as a base. Some cloud-specific kernels may use a newer version in order to benefit from improved mechanisms in performance or security that are material to that cloud. These kernels are all supported for the full life of their underlying LTS release.
In addition, the kernel versions from the subsequent four releases are made available on the latest LTS release of Ubuntu. So Ubuntu 16.04 LTS received the kernels from Ubuntu 16.10, 17.04, 17.10 and 18.04 LTS. These kernels use newer upstream versions and as a result offer an easy path to newer features and newer classes of hardware for many users of Ubuntu. Note however that these kernels ‘roll’ which means that they jump every six months until the next LTS. Large scale deployments that adopt these ‘hardware enablement’ or HWE kernels should manage those transitions explicitly. These newer HWE kernels are accompanied by a collection of userspace tools closely tied to the kernel and hardware, specifically X display enablement on newer graphics cards.
The Ubuntu kernel support lifecycle is as follows:
Because searching all three stores separately is a heck of a hassle! Ubuntu, for instance, only shows repo apps and snaps in Ubuntu Software on the desktop, whereas the GNOME Software app on Fedora only shows repo apps and Flathub results.
This online store cuts through that to show all apps, from any source.
Linux App Store Website
Everyone and their pet budgie could’ve predicted that that the competition between these new-fangled, catch-all “distro agnostic” app package n’ distribution formats would result in head-scratching for users, and tough decisions for app maintainers.
“Find the app you want, regardless of which app store it’s distributed on”
Some well-known apps are available as Snap, but not Flatpak or AppImage; some only as a Flatpak and a Snap; others packaged exclusively in AppImage.
Others, like VS Code, are “officially” maintained on one store, but not another.
While I suspect the broad majority care more about the app than the distribution method — I certainly do — there’s a growing sense of tribalism; you feel like you have to pick a camp and stick with it.
Well I say baloney to that.
The “Linux App Store” website makes it easier to care less about the distribution method, and more about what is simply available. It lets you find the app you want, regardless of which store hosts on.
Easy to use, centralised hub
Using Google’s “Material Design” style gives the Linux App Store a familiar, if unoriginal, look. I personally find the official web fronts to Flathub and the Snapcraft Store a tad more engaging, especially because of their well-proportioned layouts.
From the site you can search for apps by name, filter results based on packaging format, browse a selection of “recently updated” apps, or “discover” new apps from a featured section.
Search results are badged by the icon of their respective app store. This makes it easier for you to know app is available where:
