Strange and strange, but for our old Atom Z550, we weren't able to get Unetbootin to put down a reliable image, but when we followed the Ubuntu directions for using DD, it did work. Go figure, utilities that don't actual make bootables. It would instead say the bootable image is corrupt:
- Download the ISO you want (can be Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Lubuntu) for the systems taht are small
- STart terminal and type
Now type these commands, the first converts from iso format to img format preferred by Apple
hdiutil convert -format UDRW -o ~/path/to/target.img ~/path/to/ubuntu.iso mv ~/path/to/target.img/dmg ~/path/to/target.img
Now figure out which disk is the flash drive with
diskutil list
For the disk N unmount it with this command:
diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskN
Now use the disk utility to copy it over to the flash drive
sudo dd if=/path/to/downloaded.img of=/dev/rdiskN bs=1m
