Do you distro-hop on Linux often? Ventoy might be the tool you're looking for and it's quite possibly my new best friend.
What is it? Ventoy is a free and open source application that you can stick on a USB drive, which allows you to create a reusable system for booting ISO/WIM/IMG/EFI files. Instead of wiping your USB drives over and over with new distributions, Ventoy lets you just dump the files onto the drive, reboot and get an easy list of distributions to boot.
It's a tool that I'm definitely going to be getting plenty of use from. Could end up saving quite a bit of time, all you need to do to test something out directly once setup is just dump the file onto a drive and reboot. During my own testing, it works exactly as described.
However, it doesn't work with everything. It does have a pretty huge set of compatible files but some don't show up or have other issues. It's an evolving project under constantly development and improvements, so over time more and more will be supported it with it, even so it's a wonderful bit of software that's worth highlighting. So next time you're feeling a little of this, perhaps give Ventoy a try.
See the official site here and on GitHub.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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14 comments
Tried it, great idea but alot of distros fail to boot or is buggy when using it.
1 Likes, Who?
Mohandevir Aug 27, 2020
Nice tool. It seems similar to Multisystem. Am I wrong?
https://www.unixmen.com/create-multiboot-usb-ubuntu-using-multisystem/
Last edited by Mohandevir on 27 August 2020 at 12:55 pm UTC
https://www.unixmen.com/create-multiboot-usb-ubuntu-using-multisystem/
Last edited by Mohandevir on 27 August 2020 at 12:55 pm UTC
3 Likes, Who?
Looks like an alternative to Easy2Boot which is what I'm currently using because although it requires windows for the initial setup, the process of adding other OS's is the same, just drop the ISO into the pen and you're done.
https://www.easy2boot.com/
https://www.easy2boot.com/
1 Likes, Who?
Can't say I've ever found writing ISOs to USB much of a hardship (heck, I still like to keep a copy of SystemRescueCD handy... on CD; you never know when it might turn out to be your only option), but anything that makes life easier is always welcome.
2 Likes, Who?
Looks like an alternative to Easy2Boot which is what I'm currently using because although it requires windows for the initial setup, the process of adding other OS's is the same, just drop the ISO into the pen and you're done.
https://www.easy2boot.com/
It does not require Windows. It does for creating UEFI capable images. You can create E2B stick without using Windows at all.
0 Likes
Can't say I've ever found writing ISOs to USB much of a hardship (heck, I still like to keep a copy of SystemRescueCD handy... on CD; you never know when it might turn out to be your only option), but anything that makes life easier is always welcome.
It's just a question of convenience, saves time and space, not to mention you can still use it as a normal drive for storing other stuff. That said it doesn't work with every image so some still have to be written to USB anyway, case in point ROSA hybrid ISOs fail to mount correctly during boot if not written directly to USB.
1 Likes, Who?
Nice.Maybe I could try this. It seems to be a better solution than YUMI which I use
0 Likes
I've been doing this for years with a GRUB menu but anything that makes this more convenient is always welcome
Not that I distro hop as I've been using the same Arch install since 2009! It's come in handy for new installs elsewhere though.
Not that I distro hop as I've been using the same Arch install since 2009! It's come in handy for new installs elsewhere though.
0 Likes
I installed my current system ten years ago, and am still using it exclusively
So, I do not think I qualify as a distro-hopper… I guess I distro-settled a looong time ago.
Thought the same... I had my system over 15 years, until I couldn't figure out a problem... created by 15 years old config files nobody tested against anymore. :-) Reinstalled the same distribution.
So, why distro-hopping when there's [insert your favourite distribution here]? ;-)
1 Likes, Who?
https://netboot.xyz/ wants you to hold it's beer :)
1 Likes, Who?
I installed my current system ten years ago, and am still using it exclusively
So, I do not think I qualify as a distro-hopper… I guess I distro-settled a looong time ago.
Thought the same... I had my system over 15 years, until I couldn't figure out a problem... created by 15 years old config files nobody tested against anymore. :-) Reinstalled the same distribution.
So, why distro-hopping when there's [insert your favourite distribution here]? ;-)
This is much more invaluable if you do any kind of support as you only need a single usb drive to recover data, resize partitions, install any version of windows, wipe windows account password, etc.
0 Likes
wvstolzing Sep 1, 2020
https://netboot.xyz/ wants you to hold it's beer :)
I was about to say that Ventoy sounds like an offline PXE boot server.
I see now that netboot.xyz has a self-hosting option which is very interesting -- because manually setting up PXE or iPXE, a TFTP server, etc. can be a pain in the butt; and some distros don't play nice with it at all (e.g. I've yet to figure out how to make an entry for Debian *alongside* other distros; while Debian does provide a ready made setup, it demands to work alone). If this makes that procedure easy, with the added peace of mind of local hosting, then it could be really useful. Having a couple of live cds that live inside your router is quite useful in case of emergencies.
0 Likes
Its updated and now works very well with most distros, I am using ventoy on an external ssd now for fast installs. Its great since I try new distros all the time atleast a couple of installs a week.
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After creating a USB bootable drive using ventoy, I plug the USB drive into a Linux machine and try to mount it, there is an error saying "special device /dev/sdb does not exist.
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