Hello All. Just downloaded Ubuntu-Mate and got it to run from a USB thumb drive on a Lenovo G500s laptop. After initial boot I’m getting a screen that asks for a login and password. What do I enter for the login and password? Thanks and happy holidays to all.
Is it the live session ISO or an actual full installation on the usb?
I believe it’s the live session ISO. That’s what I downloaded from the Ubuntu Mate website.
The option “Try Ubuntu Mate” will take you to a live session that will not require a password, or not suppose to. If you selected the option to install Mate, then you are being asked to choose a user name and password.
How did you install the iso to your flash drive?
If you installed it in “Persistence” mode on the USB stick, you will have to enter the username and password you selected when you set up your USB stick like you would do during a normal install!.
Do you remember seeing this screen?:
See also:
I’m not getting an option that says that. I’m not getting any type of graphic screen at all. All I get is a black screen with the following text on the top lines:
Ubuntu 15.10 ubuntu-mate tty1
ubuntu-mate login: _
I installed the iso file on the flash drive using Linux Live USB Creator running on Windows 8.1 on a Lenovo G500s laptop.
The more I read these posts the more I’m thinking the install didn’t go right and I’m not getting the graphics screens I should be getting. How can I check to make sure the download went correctly? Any thoughts? Thank you.
Yes, I installed the iso file on to the USB stick in Persistence mode using Linux Live USB Creator running Windows 8.1 on a Lenovo G500s laptop. I did not assign the USB stick a username and password when I created it.
No, the screen shot that you included in your post did not come up at all.
Hi Mike,
did you read through this section of the link I posted earlier?: "Setting Up Your USB Stick
"
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCD/Persistence
Another link:
Hello Wolfman,
Thanks for the links. Greatly appreciated.
I’ve spent the better part of the last 2 days trying to work thru the info on the PendrivePersistent webpage with only limited success. I used that info because I don’t have a LiveCD, all I have is an iso file. I finally got Ubuntu-MATE to run this morning but I was getting error messages about no memory left or something like that.
Please also understand that I’m not an IT professional so a lot of this info is equivalent to a foreign language for me.
Here’s what I did:
I went to section 6 on that page which is " Installing Ubuntu on USB drive using Windows". I started right at the top of the info and loaded up the UNetbootin software on my Lenovo G500s laptop. I plugged my thumbdrive into the laptop made my selections (clicked on “Disk Image”, browsed for the iso file, set the space used for reboots to 4 MB, made sure the type and drive were correct) then hit OK. After that was done, I loaded up the thumbdrive and Ubuntu-MATE ran. Then I started getting the messages about not enough memory and many of the Ubuntu functions weren’t working properly.
At this point I went back to reading the website and thought that perhaps the info about the partitioning was the issue. Not having any experience partitioning a USB drive into 750 MB as FAT32 and the rest of the drive as ext2, it took a while to find the software on-line to do that but there were a lot of selections that needed to be made that I’m not sure I did correctly. Bottom line is I’m now back to the drive not booting at all and the laptop bypassing the legacy boot up and going right to Windows 8.1.
I never installed Dapper or Edgy or did any of the making the drive bootable steps since the software ran I wasn’t sure I even needed it.
Any help you could provide from here would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
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Hi,
when running in persistent mode, allocating only 4 MB’s memory is the most likely cause of you getting the “out of memory message”!.
Start Unetbootin again but don’t set up the USB thumbdrive in persistence mode, set it up as a “Live CD” instead, see here for info about Unetbootin:
IT IS VERY IMPORTANT YOU PRE-FORMAT THE USB STICK TO FAT 32! BEFORE YOU RUN UNETBOOTIN.
Let us know how you get on. 
Hello Wolfman,
Happy New Year.
Thanks to your help, I got Ubuntu-Mate up an running with no problems. Thanks, again.
Next question…
I began playing with “customizing” my desktop only to realize that when I shut the laptop down all my changes were gone. Is there anyway to keep all of my changes and not do a full install onto the hard drive on my laptop? At this point, I’d still like to be able to keep Windows 8.1 on the laptop. Do you know of a way to either run Ubuntu with my customizations while keeping Windows or run Ubuntu with my changes from the thumb drive? Do you know of a way to “dual boot” the laptop so I can have both? Thanks again for all of your help. Greatly appreciated!
That requires “persistent”, the ability to use part of your usb stick to store modifications.
For persistent installation on a USB stick, please see here:
At the bottom of wolfman’s tutorial, see if that answers your questions 
Hello v3xx,
Thanks.
It doesn’t look like the link translated. Would you mind re-sending it? Thanks.
The bottom of the Tutorial, the part about:
For persistent installation on a USB stick
Hi @mikebri527,
if you want to do a full install; see here but pay attention to the info about UEFI as you have Windows 8!:
Hi wolfman,
No, not looking to do a full installation now as I’m not comfortable with a dual boot system as of now. What I’m trying to do is to set up the thumb drive as a “persistence” drive so the changes I make to Ubuntu-MATE are saved to the thumb drive. I just tried it and it didn’t work.
Here’s the steps I took. Please tell me what I did wrong:
1.) Located another USB drive (a 4GB Kingston Data Traveler) and used Unetbootin from within Windows 8.1 on the Lenovo G500s laptop to load Ubuntu-MATE onto that drive.
2.) Started Ubuntu-MATE from the 4GB Kingston drive.
2.) Went to this page from your earlier recommendation:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LiveUsbPendrivePersistent#Method_0:_Automatically_create_Live_USB_system
3.) I inserted a 32GB SanDisk Cruzer USB drive into another USB slot on the same laptop, went to the terminal and typed in just what the instructions told me to do.
4.) I selected the Ubuntu-MATE ISO file that I download, selected the SanDisk Cruzer USB drive, the software ran and stated it had completed the install.
5.) I shut the laptop down, plugged the 32GB drive into the same USB slot that the original 4GB Kingston was plugged into, turned on the laptop, and got a boot error:
Please let me know what I did wrong.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
Hi Mike,
give me until tomorrow and I will run a persistence install on a USB stick and check out what may be wrong for you!.
Hello wolfman
Thank you.
No need to do anything more, however.
I had a relative over for dinner tonite who was able to help me get the software up and running in persistence mode and everything’s fine. I’m now able to make changes to Ubuntu-MATE and they’re saved.
Thanks for all of you help.
My relative red thru all of the posts on this topic and said he would not have been able to do the install without all of the info you and the others on this forum sent me.
Again, thanks very much.
You guys are great!
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Hi Mike,
please mark “Best answer” so it helps others!. Glad to hear you are sorted!.