Making a microSDHC

The image can be directly written to a microSDHC using a utility like dd, but we prefer ddrescue (from the gddrescue, for example:

sudo apt-get install gddrescue xz-utils
unxz ubuntu-mate-16.04.2-desktop-armhf-raspberry-pi.img.xz
sudo ddrescue -D --force ubuntu-mate-16.04.2-desktop-armhf-raspberry-pi.img /dev/sdx

The microSDHC may be presented on any /dev/sdX so use the command lsblk to check.

If you prefer a graphical tool we recommend using GNOME Disks and the Restore Disk Image… option, which natively supports XZ compressed images.

sudo apt-get install gnome-disk-utility