It runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. You can either let UNetbootin download one of the many distributions supported out-of-the-box for you, or supply your own Linux .iso file if you've already downloaded one or your preferred distribution isn't on the list.
UNetbootin can create a bootable Live USB drive, or it can make a "frugal install" on your local hard disk if you don't have a USB drive. It loads distributions either by downloading a ISO (CD image) files for you, or by using an ISO file you've already downloaded.
UNetbootin can also be used to load various system utilities, including:
- Parted Magic, a partition manager that can resize, repair, backup, and restore partitions.
- SystemRescueCD, a system repair, backup and recovery tool.
- Super Grub Disk, a boot utility that can restore and repair overwritten and misconfigured GRUB installs or directly boot various operating systems
- Dr.Web Antivirus, F-Secure Rescue CD, and Kaspersky Rescue Disk, which remove malware from Windows installs.
- Backtrack, a utility used for network analysis and penetration testing.
- Ophcrack, a utility which can recover Windows passwords.
- NTPasswd, a utility which can reset Windows passwords and edit the registry.
- Gujin, a graphical bootloader that can also be used to boot various operating systems and media.
- Smart Boot Manager (SBM), which can boot off CD-ROM and floppy drives on computers with a faulty BIOS.
- FreeDOS, which can run BIOS flash and other legacy DOS utilities.
The current version has built-in support for automatically downloading and loading the following distributions, though installing other distributions is also supported:
- Ubuntu (and official derivatives)
- 12.04 LTS
- 12.10
- 13.04
- Daily CD Images
- Debian
- Stable/Wheezy
- Testing/Jessie
- Unstable/Sid
- Linux Mint
- 13
- 14
- 15
- openSUSE
- 10.2
- 10.3
- 11.0
- 11.1
- Factory
- Arch Linux
- 2010.05
- Damn Small Linux
- 4.4
- SliTaz
- Stable
- Cooking
- Puppy Linux
- 4.00
- gNewSense
- deltah-2.1
- FreeBSD
- 6.3
- 7.0
- 7.2
- 8.0
- NetBSD
- 4.0
- Fedora
- 17
- 18
- Rawhide
- PCLinuxOS
- 2010
- Sabayon Linux
- 5.1
- 5.2
- Gentoo
- 2007.0
- 2008.0
- MEPIS
- SimplyMEPIS 8
- AntiX 8
- Zenwalk
- 5.2
- Slax
- 6
- Dreamlinux
- 3.2
- Elive
- Development
- CentOS
- 4
- 5
- 6
- Mandriva
- 2007.1
- 2008.0
- 2008.1
- LinuxConsole
- 1.0.2009
- Frugalware Linux
- Stable
- Testing
- Current
- xPUD
- 0.9.2