What is Reddit's opinion of
Ventoy?
From 3.5 billion Reddit comments
100 reviews of this app found across Reddit:
I have a USB v3 64gb stick with VenToy on it with MX, Mint, CentOS, Kali, and Clonezilla.
You put VenToy on like a live disk and it creates a directory, put your ISOs there with a common copy paste from your OS.
The linux GUI needs to be run as root and exposes an open network port. It's bad practice. Don't do this unless you understand the DK effect and really know what you're doing.
From https://www.ventoy.net/en/doc_linux_webui.html
> 1. run sudo sh VentoyWeb.sh in the terminal
> 2. open browser and visit http://127.0.0.1:24680
> (...)
> You can also specify the IP and port like this sudo sh VentoyWeb.sh -H 192.168.0.100 -P 8080
That is the BE efi. It isnt something to worry about. BE creates a linux partition for the iso and Winblows doesnt see linux partitions.
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On a side note while BE is good, if you like to try other distros or Distrohop you might want to look into Ventoy. I have a 128GB USB with 10 to 12 iso's from Manjaro to PoPOS and even Win7 and 10. I switched over to it and now use it exclusively unless I need persistence. Not to mention it keeps them all in an easy to find place without taking up storage on my systems.
> Just try several distros from a bootable USB drive
Ventoy is great for this. Copy image files to the USB stick and when you boot from the USB you get a menu of all the images. Doesn't work with everything, but anything that can boot from UEFI should work. Toss a bunch of Linux distro images onto one stick and try them out.
Make sure to use ISOs that has been tested. You can find those versions from here. If you are using a version that haven't been tested, they will ignore your questions😁
Why? Why make it so hard on yoruself? Just use Ventoy. You can build a Ventoy USB from anywhere... and then just drop whatever ISOs onto the data partition. You don't need a Windows PC, you don't need the Media Creation Tool, you don't need to fight with making bootable USB sticks, etc. https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html
You can either install Windows in a virtual environment like Virtualbox. Or you can use tools like Ventoy to create a USB stick with which you boot the Windows iso file and install Windows as a second operating system on the computer.
Wine is not a suitable tool for this purpose, as it allows you to use individual Windows applications under Linux but not an entire operating system.
Hard to say. I'd check kernel logs first, then update the driver's firmware t the latest version, before doing anything else.
Looks like LVFS doesn't have Samsung firmwares currently, but I've always been able to download bootable ISOs with a Samsung updater. I should probably check if there's a newer version, and if it boots from inside Ventoy.
I like Ventoy too and I really like the concept, however Ventoy with Secure Boot doesn't work well on many systems. As the developer says:
Secure Boot was supported from Ventoy 1.0.07, but the solution is not perfect enough. So, from ventoy 1.0.09, an option for secure boot is added in Ventoy2Disk.exe/Ventoy2Disk.sh and default is disabled. So, by default, you need to disable secure boot in BIOS before booting Ventoy in UEFI mode.
If you want, you can turn it on when installing or updating Ventoy. For Ventoy2Disk.exe in menu Option-->Secure Boot for Ventoy2Disk.sh it's -s option.
If you run into some error after turning it on (for example Linpus lite boot failed error), maybe the solution doesn't work with your machine, so you need to turn off the option, and disable secure boot in BIOS.
If it works well with your machine, that's good news. But you still need to do as follows for the first time.
It's easy to install Windows to an SD card, legally and without Windows2Go. The steps:
- Install Windows onto a VHD file using VirtualBox.
- Install Ventoy (https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html) onto your SD card.
- Format the Ventoy partition on your SD card as NTFS.
- Install Ventoy VHDBoot onto your SD card: https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_vhdboot.html
- Copy the VHD you made in step 1 onto your SD card
The benefits of using ventoy is you can even have multiple copies of Windows if you want that.
Also, the steps above may sound hard but I assure you they can be done in under half-an hour. I'm sure someone will make a video guide too.
And again, this is 100% legit and legal. Companies use this technique to test Windows installations when they release new products that use Windows, see: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/boot-to-vhd--native-boot--add-a-virtual-hard-disk-to-the-boot-menu
A software version that works almost as well as the hardware versions is Ventoy.
East2Boot has been around longer, but trying to figure out how to build one from Linux drove me to drink.
> said it didn't support some newer UEFI machines
No particular reason for that comes to mind. I'm interested in exactly why that would be.
I had a hell of a time trying to do it myself back in summer of 2020. couldn't even get online for months thanks in part to pandemic lockdowns.
this is what ultimately worked for me and has been working nearly without fail ever since and the few failures I had were because of usb failures.
A more modern version of that idea is Ventoy, which can boot both modern uefi and older bios based machines . Put the iso into the partition and it will show up on boot.
if you think you'll fuck up stuff, back up anything important first (on the laptop), to somewhere outside the computer (this doesn't have to be a cloud service, maybe just an external drive).
then, get a windows ISO and a linux distro of your choice. you can use ventoy to boot off of multiple ISOs (a minimum of 16GB may be needed. do note that all of the data on the USB flash drive will be lost, so make sure to make a back up of the USB flash drive you're going to put ventoy on).
why ventoy? you'll have to have a USB flash drive for each ISO you want to put. ventoy fixes the problem of having to have multiple USB flash drives for multiple ISOs, and instead, a single USB flash drive can hold up to as many ISOs it can fit.
Ventoy image burner just added a Linux GUI that supports both GTK and Qt.
https://www.ventoy.net/en/doc_linux_gui.html
I don't understand how this is possible and if it's indeed native as I never heard of any program being built with both toolkits at the same time
I just tried it on Kubuntu and it looks native as it follows my dark theme and custom window decorations, so it definitely looks like a native Qt program even though it's just one executable file.
If a project like this with just a handful of developers, probably only 1 or 2 active and really little funding or none at all, can do it, I'm sure a company with big resources like Valve can do it too.
I understand that Steam is much more complex than Ventoy, but seriously, with enough money and will, everything can be done.
Hey, It fairly simple. If you are using linux, here is the process:
Download the Linux package from HERE
Plug your desired USB in the computer
Run
VentoyWeb.shClick the address it prints out
Select the desired USB from the menu
Click on the proceed button
Click the new removable device it created
Throw as many ISOs as you want
Profit
​
This is the needed setup. If you want more docs, HERE is their official website. You can find more information about this tool and there is also extended documentation on customization and further settings.
its quite simple
Either use a weekly live iso with firmware or a weekly live iso without it if you want live USB use ventoy. Ventoy is nice because technically you never have to overwrite the USB again. Just update it once in a while and add/remove ISOs at your leasure.
Yes i know the debian installer is crap and debian devs should feel bad. Here's the thing i do not like arch but at least when something breaks during install (if I use an automated installer) i can simply fix it by killing it and doing it myself from the TTY, last i checked i just get busybox on debian. This is why i recommend a live system since those include use a live installer.
Also the debian installer for some reason cant detect your display in most cases, sometimes i have to set my display size and color depth. And this happens when even when 100% foss distros can detect the display size with no issues.
I would also like to know what the hell is debian smoking not adding the default user to wheel after all these years? A simple make this user an administrator button would be nice.
I know you like being the grand daddy of linux but at some point an old dog needs to learn new tricks.
use this new thing called VENTOY - https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html
It is like magic... basically it partitions the USB into two parts a small bit at the top with code and then the rest is just disk space. Once it is finished, you simply put in the disk and copy the iso file onto it. That is literally it. That is all you have to do. It eve n supports multiBoot and reads recursive directories. Forget boot usbs and having a draw of small of 4-16 gigers..... get a 128-256 and just put on every distro, windows install iso, recovery tool isos, disk cloner isos, even put in drivers and stuff you may need after install... all in one. It is a amazing bit of software. I found out about it in a blog by the guy that makes rufus where he was saying Ventoy has basically made evey boot maker in existence obsolete.
Anyway, give it a try. Just make sure the file name of the iso files have no spaces (looking at you windows10.iso)
I went a little crazy and I have Windows 11, Fedora (Gnome), Arch (KDE Plasma), and Void (Also KDE, but no systemd) all installed simultaneously.
I have a storage expansion card inserted that has Ventoy installed on it. This allows me to download a boot disc image for pretty much any OS, move it to the ventoy partition, and simply boot it from there. Nice for experimenting, is my point.
There's actually a better mousetrap in the last couple of years, when it comes to bootable media: Ventoy.
Once built, no special tool is required to boot most ISOs. It reliably does most of the things you used to need dedicated hardware to do.
If you think installing Tails to a USB was easy, check out Ventoy.
It's a program that sets up USB drives so that all you have to do to boot operating systems like Linux is copy a bootable ISO onto it, no reformatting necessary. When you boot it up, you get a menu with all of the Linux ISOs you added on it.
You can even update USB drives to newer versions of Ventoy without worrying about losing the ISO because they're on a separate partition from the Ventoy software.
It's super handy and I can confirm that it works with Tails.
You can temporary press F7 to switch to TEXT mode.
This most probably something about the screen resolution. By default Ventoy use 1024x768 resolution which maybe not fit your monitor.
You can try to set another default resolution in theme plugin.
So can you boot into the zorin live cd or this whole mess are showing when you try to boot ? instead of rufus, I may suggest you to use ventoy, https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html
This one is much easy to use and also support a lost of distro, including window as well(I haven't test with 11 but 10 is fine)
Speaking of Rufus, I have been using Ventoy for quite a while and it's been amazing.
You only have to format your USB drive once, then simply copy any ISO images into the drive as needed. You can even update ventoy on the drive without losing anything that is still on the drive.
Forget everything everyone else has told you. Get ventoy. You put this on a USB stick and just dump ISOs into a folder. It makes all those bootable through a very easy to use list. It's revolutionary
Some light googling brought me to this post on the Ubuntu forums which is basically the same thing. Granted the question then is...
"How do I access the files?"
Well if you still have the boot USB to install Pop_OS! that's an easy solution (or if you're able to re-flash one or use Ventoy), and I think some (but not all) installations of Pop_OS! include a recovery environment. I'm not telling you to re-install the operating system. These are just tools for accessing files on the disk.
There's also dropping into a terminal with Ctrl+Alt+F2 that should work, granted I don't have much experience dealing with systemd-boot.
When the system is fixed, look into Timeshift for backups. You might need a second/external system drive, but it saves so many headaches down the line.
- sh Ventoy2Disk.sh { -i | -I | -u } /dev/XXX
- Then copy the desired iso files to the larger of the two partitions on the USB stick.
This has always worked for me (various Linux distributions as well as different versions of Windows 10).
A list of tested iso files and distributions can be found at https://www.ventoy.net/en/isolist.html and https://www.ventoy.net/en/distrowatch.html. And if a file really does not work, you can ask for help in the official forum or on Github.
But everyone as they like. Nobody has to use Ventoy. Just as no one has to use Etcher. :-)
So if I understand this correctly, you want to create a live USB with multiple images? Check out Ventoy. You can install it to a USB drive, and after that you can use the first partition for file storage as normal, but if you boot from it it will offer you a list of ISO files on it and allow you to boot them.
Check out Ventoy. The best way to flash USBs is to not flash them at all. Ventoy will allow you to boot any ISO on the first partition, so you can keep using your flash drive with the added benefit of being able to boot anything on it.
Start with iso mode and if that doesn't work try dd mode.
A really nice tool here is ventoy. Once you set up the USB you can just copy the ISO over normally.
use Microsoft tools to create USB stick
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10
If you want to simply copy an ISO over to usb you need to prepare the usb stick with special ISO installer tool like Ventoy
There's this software I use and it's also open source. Currently I have an usb with windows 10 fedora and opensuse on it thanks to this software and it just works
Can I assume you want to use flashcards so you can boot a library or other public PC ? If so you may run into challenges with BIOS settings (secure boot etc) you need to change to get it to work. Certainly worth a try though.
If it's because it's a shared PC then you should be fine. You can post here or /r/linux4noobs to work out how to get going.
If internet is slow (tethered to a mobile ?) then you may find using bit torrent to download the iso can be a good choice as it is resilient to outages - all of the major distros can be directly downloaded, but if you drop out halfway through the download you have to start again, if you're torrenting it will pickup where it left off.
I always recommend Mint for beginners, it's user friendly and "app store" (software respository) is very large thanks to being part of the Debian tree.
Lastly, depending on the size of the usb flash drive you get, you may be well advised to install ventoy on it - it makes it very simple to setup bootable flash drives. You install ventoy and then just copy each distro you wish to try onto the drive - and you can have multiple on one drive - even a little 8gb drive will hold 2 or 3 distros
There's a tool named "Ventoy" that you might want to check out. It allows you to use one USB stick for several ISOs at the same time.
After you've prepared a USB stick with this Ventoy tool, you can then just copy the .iso files onto the stick like normal files. When you boot from the stick, you will get a menu to choose which ISO to boot. You can also put a Windows installation media ISO onto the stick, not just Linux distros.
The tool's home is here:
https://github.com/ventoy/Ventoy
and here:
I have a portable m.2 SATA SSD with ventoy on it. I can use it to boot various ISO images by dropping them into a folder and still use the rest of the space on the SSD as fast storage.
You can use this with a 32GB USB drive easily
Edit:
It can even boot disk images and virtualbox images.
ubaci neki USB sa linuxom, butuj sa njega, pa probaj, preporučujem prvo https://www.ventoy.net/ na USB, dosta olakšava posle samo turiš ISO koji želiš u folder i butuješ, ne moraš da svaki put formatiraš USB za novi OS
You burn your Ventoy USB image once, then all you need to do is drag bootable iso files onto the disk and when you boot it, you're presented with a boot menu with all of your isos.
As good as Rufus is, it doesn't always work the first time, ventoy has been 100% foolproof in my experience, and I can have a relatively large 64GB USB stick that has a ton of different isos on it instead of having to dedicate a large stick to a single image and re-burn images over and over again.
Also, no affiliation to ventoy, but here's a link to their site: https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html
I wouldn't call it a bug. Wine simply does not offer 100 per cent compatibility.
I would try it with Ventoy. You can use it to prepare a USB stick so that two partitions are created. You boot from the first and copy the iso files you want to run onto the second.
But you don't need an extra tool to overwrite a complete hard drive. SATA Secure Erase (https://www.thomas-krenn.com/en/wiki/Perform_a_SSD_Secure_Erase) works under every distribution.
https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html
You install this on the USB stick. During this process two partitions are created. Copy the desired ISO files to the larger of the two partitions. When you boot with the USB stick a selection menu should be displayed with which you can boot the respective ISO files. It could not be simpler.
as someone who went from lili to yumi to rufus, i want to shoutout Ventoy, which creates a multiboot menu for any ISO's you throw onto the drive, without having to keep reformatting the drive each time
A new program called Ventoy. All of the utilities I've used in the past to make a multiboot USB require you to add them all through a utility and when you want to upgrade them you have to run the utility again. Didn't work all of the time. With Ventoy you prep the USB, then copy the ISO's to the drive. Nothing else. I do use Hiren's Windows 10PE with this.
https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html Not exactly what you were asking for, but awesome.
To the best of my knowledge.....
Etcher - will NOT make a usable windows 10 Install USB from the windows10 iso you download from Microsoft.
Neither will dd. Or any of the other 'straight image' type USB maker tools. Such as various 'image writer' tools.
The following tools i know of can work.
Woeusb - but can be problematic.
Ventoy - My current favorite. It makes a Ventoy bootable USB, you then copy the windows.iso file to the data partition, and it can boot the iso file. Which allows you to have a Multi-ISO usb.,
https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html
Unetbootin - Not used this in ages.
There are also guides out on how to do it 'by hand'
Sooo.. I suggest trying VenToy.
The windows iso - is some odd format/missing something (i had links to this details ages ago) and makes dd and so forth Not work to image it. You Must use some specialized tools. This is sadly a VERY common support question.
PS: ages ago i recall that you COULD use dd, (perhaps it was earlier windows 7,8?) but MS is constantly changing the downloadable .iso to include updated and so forth. And it is possible i have heard to 'convert' the iso file - where it can be imaged with dd. But i have not seen any details on how to convert it. it has something to do with being a 'hybrid' iso.
Further reading...
>> Hybrid ISOs is something that many Linux distributions have done to make life easier for their users. It's not something Microsoft has bothered to do.
https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html
What is ventoy Ventoy is an open source tool to create bootable USB drive for ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI files. With ventoy, you don't need to format the disk over and over, you just need to copy the ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI files to the USB drive and boot them directly. You can copy many files at a time and ventoy will give you a boot menu to select them (screenshot)
https://www.ventoy.net/en/screenshot.html
x86 Legacy BIOS, IA32 UEFI, x86_64 UEFI, ARM64 UEFI and MIPS64EL UEFI are supported in the same way. Most type of OS supported (Windows/WinPE/Linux/ChromeOS/Unix/VMware/Xen...) 770+ image files are tested (list), 90%+ distros in distrowatch.com supported (details),
Well whatever guide you were following is outdated if it is instructing you to use Fat32.
If you still have trouble, I've had good luck using Ventoy to make installers from Linux: https://www.ventoy.net/en/download.html. (Not sure if it can run on Puppy though.) Ventoy will install a small boot partition on your drive, then format the remaining space as an exFAT partition. Then you "install" the .iso to the drive by simply copying it into the root of the exFAT 'Ventoy' partition.
Yes, there are several tools to do that exact purpose with. Not 100% sure about W11 though.
I have used a program called "Ventoy" for the last few years. Pretty simple setup, and then just dropping the ISO files into the right folder after it's formatted. https://www.ventoy.net/
I see. If I use xfs on my usb flash drive for ventoy, do you think it will work ?
Because they said on the site
- FAT32/exFAT/NTFS/UDF/XFS/Ext2(3)(4) supported for main partition
- Native boot menu style for Legacy & UEFI
- USB drive write-protected support
- USB normal use unaffected
I'd recommend going with ventoy - that way, you can have multiple ISOs on on USB stick, and choose which one to use at boot time -> https://www.ventoy.net/en/download.html
Might be missing the point of your question, but why not have a look at https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html ?
I think it should take care of everything you want, including EFI (with secure boot) and BIOS boot on one USB key.
Firstly, it would help if you could share your computer's specs, so people here could see if you might have potential issues with some specific hardware (e.g if you have an nvidia graphics card, you might want to give PopOS a try, as it has nvidia drivers already installed and pretty well integrated)
Second, it would help if you'd share a bit about your typical usage and flow of work.
Best advice I can give you is try and run the systems in live-usb mode. To do that, you can use Ventoy, you only need a usb thumb drive that you can spare.
I think there are a few options in the linux world that might suit you. If you like Windows more, you can take a look at Zorin OS, Linux Mint, or MXLinux. For MacOS style distros you can take a look at elementaryOS, deepin, PopOS. It's worth mentioning that Deepin does not work in live-usb mode. All the others do.
I personally have been a linux user for the last 11 years, and I have tested all these distros for some time. Linux desktop is usable right now without any issue... It all depends on your preference.
Also worth noting is that the application distribution system on linux is fundamentally different from the one on windows (meaning that you have a package manager instead of downloading apps from developer's sites), and it might be worth reading a bit about it...
Well someone from the older thread told me about Ventoy https://www.ventoy.net/
It’s a open source software you install on a usb drive that allows you to store multiple operating systems and boot of whichever one you select from its built in menu.
The nice thing is you can test drive just about any distribution before you install it. I've found a great way to do this is to use Ventoy to create a bootable USB stick and jam as many distro ISO files onto the USB as you can fit.
When you boot from the USB, you can then pick whatever distro you want to try and boot in to a live environment to kick the tires. When you find one you like (or two, three, etc - they can peacefully coexist), just run the install from the live environment to install it onto the hard drive.
Next boot, run from your installed system and customize things how you'd like them to be. Also - have fun and explore a bit!
try this - it is a great alternative to rufus, because you format the usb device once and then all ISOs copied onto it will be available to boot from :)
https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html
- 100% open source (license)
- Very simple to use (Get started)
- Fast (limited only by the speed of copying iso file)
- Can be installed in USB/Local Disk/SSD/NVMe/SD Card
- Directly boot from ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI files, no extraction needed
- No need to be continuous in disk for ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI files
- Both MBR and GPT partition style are supported
- x86 Legacy BIOS, IA32 UEFI, x86_64 UEFI, ARM64 UEFI, MIPS64EL UEFI supported
- IA32/x86_64 UEFI Secure Boot supported Notes
- Persistence supported Notes
- Windows auto installation supported Notes
- RHEL7/8/CentOS7/8/SUSE/Ubuntu Server ... auto installation supported Notes
- FAT32/exFAT/NTFS/UDF/XFS/Ext2(3)(4) supported for main partition
- ISO files larger than 4GB supported
- Native boot menu style for Legacy & UEFI
- Most type of OS supported, 730+ iso files tested
- Linux vDisk(vhd/vdi/raw...) boot solution Notes
- Not only boot but also complete installation process
- Menu dynamically switchable between ListView and TreeView mode Notes
- "Ventoy Compatible" concept
- Plugin Framework
- Injection files to runtime enviroment
- Boot configuration file dynamically replacement
- Highly customizable theme and menu style
- USB drive write-protected support
- USB normal use unaffected
- Data nondestructive during version upgrade
- No need to update Ventoy when a new distro is released
There isn't a consistent standard for persistence partitions, and Rufus should warn you very loudly about that fact if you give it anything that's not an Ubuntu ISO.
Labels used are documented here, relabel your disk:
https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_persistence.html
You also need to disable selinux.
You can also use a rooted Android phone with usb mountr or a flash drive with Ventoy. I've never had an issue with either.
You need the windows.zip version but I really recommend you to read their official documentation regarding the use of the software since it's quite a bit technical and advanced. It's kinda not recommended for new to Linux users but see if it works for you.
Documentation: https://www.ventoy.net/en/doc_start.html
I have had good luck with copying the ISO image generated by MDT ( %DEPLOYMENT_FOLDER%\Boot ) to a bootable USB stick ( Ventoy ). If they can still access the deployment share on the network and just don't like to PXE boot, that's the way to go.
Etcher is a decent alternative that works on both Windows, Linux and Mac. There are other options but I think Etcher is the most similar to Rufus.
I moved on to using Ventoy. If you haven't tried it, you absolutely should. It works a bit differently. Rather than "burning" an ISO image to your USB, you install Ventoy on it then simply put on the ISO images you want in your USB storage. Main benefit is that you can put multiple ISO images on one USB device, and you get to choose which one to boot in the Ventoy boot menu. It's also much faster than Rufus, no doubt it will save you a lot of time if you deal with this often. And you can keep using your USB drive for other stuff while Ventoy is installed.
You could also try ventoy, which creates a bootable flash drive which can chain boot into other image files placed onto the flash drive (selected via a menu).
Have you tried mounting the bios update ISO and see if you're able to get at the files that way?
I have no real issue booting from external hard drive but USB thumb drives can be a bit slow, it's better than a VM though. Good thing with a thumb drive is that using Ventoy you can boot as many OS as your thumb drive can hold. I've got Windows 10 and three flavours of Linux at the moment. It's been really handy lately.
You can boot quite a few distros into a "live" version to try them out before installing.
If you want to trial a few, then the easiest way is to make a bootable usb stick with Ventoy. Then copy across the iso files for the distros you want to try. Then select the distro to boot from when you boot from the usb stick.
Then it’s likely something is wrong with the partition table of the drive. You’re gonna need another computer to do these next steps:
Download Ventoy
Download Rufus
Flash Ventoy onto any USB stick (8GB min.) using Rufus.
Download Pop!_OS
Copy the downloaded iso to the Ventoy drive. You can also copy the Windows iso into that drive.
Plug in the USB drive into your PC with the HDD problem. Boot into this USB stick.
Open gparted, find your drive, and in the top bar, click Partition > Create New Partition Table. Select MBR. This will completely erase your drive.
Reboot into the Ventoy drive again, then select the Windows iso. Try and see if the drive shows up then.
Honestly though, if you don’t need any special Windows-only software, I’d suggest installing Pop as your main OS. Steam Proton translates all Windows games to Linux seamlessly. If you need Office, you can use alternatives like Libre Office or go with a compatibility layer like WinApps. Linux is just plain better than Windows; faster, smoother, more responsive, and best of all - completely free.
Hope this helps!
Ventoy persistence feature depends on that the distro supports persistence itself. If the distro doesn't support persistence, then the persistence feature will not take effect.
Good luck! Manjaro I know includes NVidia drivers in the isos (just select 'boot with proprietary drivers). Mint it is a little more annoying. Probably the only other trouble you might run in to is wifi drivers - if they don't work out of the box unfortunately it is probably a lost cause (or at least, takes more effort to solve than a new user could be expected to have) but that probably isn't likely. Luckily you don't have to install Linux in order to boot into it, so you can test everything to make sure first.
Also, it might be a bit overwhelming but I would recommend getting Ventoy to create your installation medium if you have a flashdrive larger than 4Gb (as a linux iso is about 3 gigs usually, so you can only fit one if its that small). It lets you continue using the flashdrive normally and try a new distro by just copying the iso to the flashdrive (usually you would need to use another program to overwrite the partition table).
I recommend using Ventoy to test out some multiple iso Linux distribution without installing them using the live mode so you can get a feel of the distro. make sure you do you're researching about that distro and not just feeling the appearance of the desktop environment.
here's a video tutorial from someone on YT in case you need visual instructions.
How do you log into your machine? With a Microsoft-Account or a 'normal' account?
Like the others say already, try to boot Windows in Safe Mode --> Hold down the Shift-Key and restart your computer. Then it should lead you automatically to a selection menu - there you probably should see a menu "Safe Mode"
If this doesn't work for you. Go and get you a USB-Stick with at least 4GB
- go to Ventoy - Turn you stick into a boot Medium
- download it and install it on your USB-Stick (Waring: Everything will be deleted!!)
- Download a Windows 10 RescureIso like Hiern's BootCD
- Boot your PC from the USB-Stick and wait till the rescue-Windows-10 is booted up
- Search for "remove password" and click through the GUI
- Reboot è voila
Suggestion:
https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html
With this you format your stick once and then you can simply drop isos on it and boot these. Very handy tool.
One of the first things they teach in IT is question the obvious, and don't throw out theories until you test them.
I've had USB sticks that were hit by an office chair's wheels, bending the internals. The sticks appeared to boot up fine but were actually the source of a bunch of problems and replacing was the only option.
Quick side note: If you do look into using a different USB stick, check out Ventoy. It lets you have a bunch of ISO's on a single stick instead of needing a bunch of individual flash drives.
Sandybridge! This isn't very old for Linux. It probably isn't even very old for Windows 10 either (for light work). The CPU is decently powerful enough most lightweight computing (browsing modern sites, chat/Zoom, etc). 8 GB is actually decent for Linux, not so much for Windows 10. If you can upgrade memory to 16 GB, this thing will be good for a while.
Is the 250 GB HDD an actual spinning HDD? If so, I'd say that's a good place to upgrade to feel the most performance enhancement. If not, it'll be just okay.
Almost any Linux distro will do, even with 8 GB of RAM. Try different distros. I'd download a bunch of ISOs and put them on a Ventoy USB drive (https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html). Then just boot into each one to try them out to see which one you like.
Then install your top 3 or 4 to see how it runs and feels as a daily, reinstalling with another once you get a good feel of each of your top picks.
For daily driving, I love Pop!_OS. For experimentation and messing around, I love Arch.
I heard very good things about Fedora 34, and I would probably try that too. The release is very forward looking: Gnome 40 with Wayland, Pipewire instead of pulseaudio, and btrfs instead of ext4. It's the only distro right now that has all this forward looking tech under the hood which other distros will eventually adopt.
The only thing is you still have a Nvidia GPU so it may fall back to Xorg unless you use the open source driver (I think). If you're not gaming, may be a good idea to stick with the open source driver.
>it worth it to just have both on the same usb stick on 2 different partitions?
Yes. Keep both separated.
First, use Ventoy to make bootable your USB, then put both ISO's there simply by copy-pasting. You don't have to worry about anything else. Both can be persistent.
From what my quick googling finds.. Manjaro will not work with persistence.
https://forums.ventoy.net/showthread.php?tid=1590
Quote:
Ventoy persistence feature depends on that the distro supports persistence itself. If the distro doesn't support persistence, then the persistence feature will not take effect.
As I known, manjaro ISO doen't support persistence itself.
Only the distros in the list are tested and guaranteed to work now. https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_persistence.html
I suggest you use vhd/vdi for manjaro https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_vtoyboot.html
It's a real manjaro enviroment like installed in a physical disk.
>i tries woeusb
Currently, it is better to use https://github.com/WoeUSB/WoeUSB-ng.
But the easiest way is to use Ventoy. This creates 2 partitions on a USB stick. You boot from the smaller one. On the larger one you simply copy the desired iso files which you can then choose from a selection menu after booting.
Isn't it doable to use Ventoy?? It can install with secure boot and have used it to install both windows and linux distro's. Such a nice tool to use, got a 32gb usb with several OS images and can pick one during boot.
But you are aware that Windows 7 is no longer supported since mid-January 2020? I hope you don't use the internet with it. Otherwise it's grossly negligent.
USB installers for Windows can be created with https://github.com/WoeUSB/WoeUSB-ng.
Or you can use Ventoy. After you have prepared the USB stick with it, you only have to copy the iso file to the larger partition of the stick and can then boot with it.
Ventoy might be the easiest. The tool creates two partitions on a USB stick. The smaller one is used for booting. On the larger one, you simply copy the desired iso file.
And why simply copying the content is not enough? Because this does not transfer the necessary data for booting.
If you like Pop, keep using it. Test other distros using a live USB if you want to, but be absolutely sure of your decision before installing anything new. I have found that Ventoy is ideal for testing distros, since instead of overwriting the whole drive you can just copy the ISO.
Debian, Parrot (Home Edition), Garuda Linux, and Solus fit your description to various degrees. Test them out with the live USB and see what you like.
Dude, you need to look into using Ventoy ( https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html ) to create a multi-boot USB. It changed my life when I found it. Now I can keep a single multi-purpose USB drive on my keychain and have all the different OS flavors I need.
You can put dozens of distros and even different Windows and BSD ISO's onto a single USB key and choose which one you wish to boot from using software such as Ventoy. It'll work with the great majority of newer PC's so personally I no longer think about choosing just one.
I can't imagine this helping much, buy you could try making a Ventoy USB and just booting the ISO directly from there (maybe it'll get around some weird issue with the BIOS not recognising the FreeNAS USB). It supports both UEFI as well as traditional BIOS
Another useful tool I found is Ventoy, which aloud you having multiple bootable ISOs. And another useful thing is you don't need to 'burn' images once you create bootable disk, you can just copy ISO images on USB.
Ventoy. Just drop the ISO on the USB key you created and you're able to boot from it.
Edit: I read your issue wrong. This probably won't work, but a simple USB CD/DVD drive might just do the trick.
https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html - Tool to make a Bootable Windows 10 USB.
First google hit for 'woeusb ubuntu 20.04' which has guides and downloads for installing woeusb on Ubuntu 20.04 (assuming that is what you are using)
https://github.com/slacka/WoeUSB/issues/311
as for that rant.. we dont really care.
You REALLY should have made a Windows 10 Full reinstall USB before you installed Linux.
Ventoy allows you to have a single USB with Win10,7,8, Several Linux Distros and other live-usb setups on the same flash drive.
you MIGHT be able to use the ventoy tool, to setup the HDD to be able to boot .iso files, and download the win10 iso file to the ventoy partition, reboot and see if it lets you boot the ISO from the hdd.
https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html
alternative method. the 'grml' tool on linux, can setup grub options to boot an ISO file (so it works about the same way as the ventoy tool does, only on your own distro.)
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/grml-rescueboot/
I have no idea if grml can boot a windows 10 iso. (never tried to do that with it)
Good Luck.
The only method I've had any success with for making a bootable Windows USB installer natively in Linux is Ventoy. There were many different ways that worked with older versions of Windows 10, but with the current version (1909) this was the only way I could get it to work.
You should be using the one-time boot menu. Make sure you're selecting a UEFI option.
They all can be personalized, and are fairly easy to use.
Figure out what Desktop Enviroment you want by default, and pick the Distro that comes with whatever one you decide.
I perfer KDE, so i use Kubuntu, if you want XFCE, then go with Xubuntu, The default Ubuntu is Gnome. There are several other variations.
Mint - has its own Mint Desktop - and i forget what its called. But i dont recall it having that many stand out features thats not also availiable in other Window managers.
mint Wiki page says -> Linux Mint is available with a number of desktop environments to choose from, including the default Cinnamon desktop, MATE and Xfce.
https://ubuntu.com/download/flavours
I see a Ubuntu Mate, but no Ubuntu Cinnamon, so I guess if you really wanted the Best Cinnamon experience - go with Mint.
You can install several DE's on the same install after you get the initial install going, but that can cause confusion to beginners. So its not the best idea when starting out....
So... Test out the various Live USBs - see what DE you like, go for it.
I found this tool the other day - that makes it easy to make a USB that can boot several ISO files so you can test them out Live. There are alternatives tools to allow this as well, but this one is fairly easy to setup.
There are plenty of linux distrubtions like Ubuntu, Mint and many others that aim to be user-friendly, these offer tools to be completely used through the GUI.
There are some limitations though, not every app is available in the app store, so you might have to compromise and use different applications than you're used to. Second it is not Windows, you might have years of experience on Windows and be a power user, but you are going to have to relearn everything except the most basic things on Linux. The GUI offers basic control, most of us want access to advanced features and configuration options, and therefore we require the terminal.
If all you need is a web browser, office (compatible) tools and a mail client, you can probably get started by booting into the Live image and clicking around for a bit. If you can setup a smartphone, you can use Ubuntu.
If you have specific applications/requirements, you will have to check what is available. You can research this beforehand or again try the live image and see what is available in the app store, you can even install these apps and try them out.
If you are still getting started and haven't installed a Linux version yet, try the live version first and try to setup the tools you need. The live version won't keep changes between reboots so feel free to mess around.
As for creating a bootable USB device, try ventoy. Ventoy will delete everything on your USB/flash drive and split it into 2 drives. You can drop iso files on to the drive labeled ventoy and when you boot the drive it will give you a menu to choose which iso to boot. So you can drop an ubuntu.iso, mint.iso or whatever flavor you want on the ventoy drive and switch by rebooting and selecting a different image. (I would have killed for this back in my distro hoping days.)
Another thing to try out is Ventoy
It's software that makes your usb drive bootable - then it offers a menu with a list of all ISO files on that USB drive to boot off.
So you could have Win10, Win11, a WinPE, a recovery software, various tool ISOs from utilitiy software and AV companies, Linux LiveCD and installer images etc.
All whilst able to use the USB as a normal storage drive too.
>Make a Windows Full Reinstall usb BEFORE you try to remove windows totally. Its easier to make one now using the MS Media Creation Tool, and keep it safe.
Don;t worry about this. It's very easy to make a bootable windows usb stick in GNU/Linux using ventoy
few of them, because they fail frequently no matter the brand. A custom distro, NixOS in my case since it's very easy to make custom images, with a full "personal" environment, sshd with proper users and keys and config in place, your shell config, your Emacs/Vim config, ... etc.
BUT to be really useful an M.2 SSD in a usb cabinet (usb-a and usb-c) is far more reliable and can have more images + ventoy [1], at least for remote sites where there is no tftp server with images and config and good reliable bandwidth that's can be life-saving and it's faster to copy new iso instead of flash them...
Personally in that last case I keep:
the "live troubleshooting" iso
a generic iso with relevant configs to deploy site-specific target system, at least few of them added and kept "a bit" up to date as they might be needed
That's however work rarely and mostly only you you deal with not really diverse systems, you can't have tons of iso up-to-date always with you...
Using a flash drive too much can make it not work anymore, but that takes a whole lot of writing. Writing over the same sectors in flash drive 10k+ times. ~~If you haven't used it in a while, or have updated Windows recently, it's likely that could be the cause.~~ Had to google what Ventoy was, drivers shouldn't affect booting much, if at all.
Did you read Ventoy's FAQ? https://www.ventoy.net/en/faq.html
First of all you need an USB-device and download Ventoy Ventoy
After DL Ventoy you have to install it on your usb-device.
Then for the last step, you only need a Windows.iso (if you say what Windows-Version you need, I will search it for you).
Then the only thing you have to do is to copy the windows.iso onto the usb-device and put it into your computer. The computer will boot now from the USB --> you can choose which Windows you want to install.. and GG :)
With OpenSuSE? Not really.
Lazy I know, but I hardly need to do make Windows USBs anymore, and I managed to get what I wanted to be done over and done with using Ventoy.
I suggest you give it a try as well. As good as WoeUSB was at making Windows USBs, this is just better.
https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html On Linux Download the installation package, like ventoy-x.x.xx-linux.tar.gz and decompress it. sudo sh Ventoy2Disk.sh -i /dev/xxx For gpt sudo sh Ventoy2Disk.sh -i -g /dev/xxx
I have a USB adapter for the SD card and it works fine, just like any other USB stick.
If you have a high capacity card consider using Ventoy. With Ventoy instead of using the whole card for one distro, you can fill it up with a whole bunch of different ISOs and choose which one to boot.
No worries. Unfortunately there isn't a real Nvidia diagnostic tool available for Windows, afaict. It might help to boot up Linux from a flash drive and try out some of these tools as well, nvidia-smi being the most powerful, although the only use I've had for it in the past was that I found out screen corruption was being caused by Electron apps (Chrome/Chromium-based) interfering with JetBrains software, as they reserved GPU hw acceleration slots and interfered with each other.
For booting Linux from a flash drive, I recommend Ventoy and in terms of live Linux distros to try, I recommend Kubuntu, the latest version being 21.10.
You should also check your Windows event logs, notably the System and Application sections, and see if there are other hardware failures which might be putting you on the wrong track, such e.g. hard disk failure.
Yes, unless you like managing secure boot settings. Ventoy does support secure boot when enabled during setup, but that requires you to enroll a custom crypto key as described here. I didn't test it, and it sounds like the author himself doesn't like it either. The easier option is to just disable secure boot when booting from USB (not just for Ventoy, many live OS don't support secure boot).
I can recommend https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html for this. With this you only need to copy the iso of a distribution to the larger of the two partitions. When you boot with the USB stick, you can select the respective iso file. It doesn't get much easier than this.
I don't have an answer to your "copy all settings to every distro"-problem, though I'm sure there's a solution to something like that. However, if you want to machinegun your distrohopping try out Ventoy. Basically you format a USB with the application, and then you can just drop iso-files in there to try out and boot from. It'll help rough-sorting through a lot of distros when you can point your thumbs down just by trying them out for a couple of minutes for whatever reason.
Boot from it. It won't format your existing OS until you tell it to. Next time, you should use something like Ventoy that can bundle in your ISO files, so you can boot from all of them from 1 USB drive.
I would like to recommend Ventoy for making bootable flash drives. It's pretty simple to format a drive with it, and you can add or remove .iso files without reformatting every time.