So over the years (decade?) I’ve used Ventoy a lot. For those not aware, it is basically a live USB that you can add other ISOs to to boot into those. Usually overkill but incredibly useful for those days when you need diagnostics, a simple terminal, and then to install something what you actually want.
But… it feels like I run into corner cases and issues with ventoy more often than not. Proxmox or Fedora or whatever decide to do something even slightly different and then I need to upgrade ventoy and blah blah blah. Also… I am not the most comfortable with downloading anything from Sourceforge these days. Let alone something that is going to have a LOT of power over whatever machines I provision.
So I suspect the real answer is to either set up a way to network boot (although, not all machines support that) or buy like five cheap USB drives and put them on a keychain and not over-complicate things.
But if I DID want to over-complicate them… is there anything better than Ventoy these days?
Thanks
Take a look at the IODD ST400.
It’s a hardware solution to your problem: you put multiple isos on an ssd, plug your ssd into the ST400, then plug the ST400 into the computer you want to live boot from (through USB).
From the ST400 you can quickly swap the active ISO, and it acts like a virtual DVD drive to the target computer, and you’re basically ejecting and inserting a new DVD every time you do so.
You can also mount it for RW operations (ie. for inserting new ISOs without having to remove the SSD), for which it acts like a regular usb disk - but I recommend using it usually in RO mode to avoid data corruption.
It’s not that user friendly, but once you get used to it, it’s a perfect multiboot tool to have in your belt.
Though I haven’t tried it, Yumi might be what you’re looking for.
Removed by mod
It’s a common problem of all universal iso bootloaders. They make some kind of magic to boot images the way they are not supposed to. It breaks very often.
If you need a live system for diagnostics, simply install your favorite distro and tools that you use to a USB stick. And buy a second one for an installation image.
I tried to solve these cross-distro compatibility problems in a generic way with this “standard”, more years ago than I’d like to think about:
https://www.supergrubdisk.org/wiki/Loopback.cfg
If someone wants to come up with a bootloader agnostic solution rather than one tied to grub, like an extension to Bootloader spec , https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/BootLoaderSpec/ , I’d be happy to evangelize it and add support to grub for using it.
I’m not aware of any other bootloader that supports reading a config file that exists within an iso though, and secure boot support may add additional complications.
Bottom line:
I feel like we could relatively easily get to a point where every Live iso that actually supports loop booting can just be added, as a file, to your USB drive (from Windows, or your android phone even) and be detected at boot in a nice little menu, no editing of config files needed.
I don’t have the time or spoons to get the Linux community there alone, but if people are interested in helping I’m more than happy to pick this up again.
(Note: Please don’t blindly suggest “Just chain load the iso!” Things aren’t that easy, unfortunately).
If you want to overcomplicate things once, but then simplify everything after (within reason), take a look at netboot.xyz
Set up PXE on your network and never need to mess about imaging a stick again. Here’s a video thatll get you rolling. https://youtu.be/4btW5x_clpg
Here is the project on github https://github.com/netbootxyz/netboot.xyz
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/4btW5x_clpg
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Also… I am not the most comfortable with downloading anything from Sourceforge these days.
Fair enough. You can download the iso from Github.
OOT, but why are people still using SF?
I think that’s just a link to the sourceforge.
You can try for yourself with wget or curl or your preferred download software :
Gut feeling: Nope.
Further reflection, for those who remember a certain video game in the CGA error (not V, C)
“Here’s tae us, who’s like us, damn few, and they’re all dead. “
It just freakin’ works, which is a real benefit in our world.
