13 ms·

Ventoy

594 points by matthberg 3y ago

bcye 3y ago
So you can boot from a USB that already has other files on it or just other isos?
- vorticalbox 3y ago
  You can put other files on it too. It is basically a bootloader that lists all the Isos on the drive and let's you boot them. I have a handful of Isos and it's a good send
  - rocky_raccoon 3y ago
    I like "good send" -- it's a bit less hyperbolic than "Godsend".
  - bcye 3y ago
    This is absolutely amazing. Having to clear out a usb just to boot a live image is really annoying (still need to format the usbs with it at the beginning though)
- drewzero1 3y ago
  Yes- it formats the USB when you install Ventoy (to add an EFI partition) but after that you can put other files on it in addition to the ISOs. It will only show the ISOs in the boot menu and ignore the other files.
  - jtriangle 3y ago
    And those other files can include bios files, drivers, etc
    - drewzero1 3y ago
      If your files include non-bootable ISOs, they will also show up in the boot menu. I haven't tried selecting one to see what happens.
      - 77pt77 3y ago
        You can say that only a specific folder has ISOs. It's configurable via a simple json file.
        drewzero1 3y ago
        Good to know! I haven't looked into the configuration at all, just been using it as-installed since hearing about it a little over a year ago. (Thanks, Late Night Linux!)
        77pt77 3y ago
        https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_imagelist.html https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_imagelist.html Example config: { "image_list": [ "/ISO/Linux/archlinux-2020.10.01-x86_64.iso", "/ISO/cn_windows_10_enterprise_ltsc_2019_x64_dvd_9c09ff24.iso", "/ISO/Win10PE.iso" ] } or: https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_control.html https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_control.html And something like: { "VTOY_DEFAULT_SEARCH_ROOT": "/ISO" }
  - girishso 3y ago
    Is there any option to set a default ISO to boot? Without having to select a file manually. I keep juggling between different OSes on raspberry pies and it’s a pain to reformat drive again and again. But sometimes i do want it to boot headless.
    - c-hendricks 3y ago
      See `VTOY_DEFAULT_IMAGE`, which also allows for some special values: https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_control.html#vtoy_default_image https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_control.html#vtoy_default_i...
  - HankB99 3y ago
    You can also have it leave extra space at the end of the device. I create a new partition there and format it with ab EXT4 filesystem. At one time (I think) Windows could not deal with the extra partition but Linux does just fine.
- riskable 3y ago
  You can put whatever you want on the VENTOY drive: I made one for a friend a that had Kubuntu and Tails ISOs along with Yuzu (Nintendo Switch emulator) and a bunch of Switch games. I didn't test Tails much (I was just trying to encourage learning linux through fun... tools) but I could boot into Kubuntu and play the included Switch games. It even worked with a cheap/generic Switch Pro-like controller without any extra setup required other than to tell Yuzu to use it. Essentially it was an instant boot-on-anything Nintendo Switch emulator thumb drive (it was one of the tinier varieties too). Tape that drive to the back of a $20 Switch Pro-like controller and it's a fantastic Christmas gift
  - walteweiss 3y ago
    Sounds really cool! Thanks for the idea!
thaumaturgy 3y ago
I recently needed to install Linux onto two new systems, and the process has somehow gotten even more infuriating since I last purchased hardware about five years ago. Between Secure Boot, UEFI, the Windows Boot Loader, "self-healing BIOS" (aka, "huh, you tried to boot something other than Windows, lemme just revert all those BIOS settings for you..."), and either crippled or inscrutably complex BIOS, I was dead in the water with the install process for several hours on each device. Ventoy saved my bacon. One of the problems I was encountering turned out to be that one of the BIOSes wasn't recognizing the standard Debian ISO (any of them) as bootable, but it did recognize Ventoy. The other device ultimately refused to boot anything other than either Windows or Ubuntu (hard-locking on kernel load), but Ventoy at least made it easier to trial-and-error my way to that conclusion. I flatly refuse to purchase a mass-market computer ever again. Everything from this point forward is either going to be custom built or purchased from a vendor with explicit Linux support.
- vbezhenar 3y ago
  That's surprising. I never experienced that. All I do is format USB stick with FAT32, copy files from ISO and it just works.
  - thaumaturgy 3y ago
    I invite you to give that a shot on either an LG 16Z90R or a Dell Inspiron 7710.
    - tripflag 3y ago
      while I don't have any of those machines readily available, i am curious if this USB image [1] would work. It's a lightly customized Alpine which can be written to a flashdrive using either Rufus, usbimager, or this command: xz -dkc <asm.usb.xz >/dev/sdi the image was built using this repo [2] and this command: ./build.sh -i dl/alpine-standard-3.19.0-x86_64.iso -p min -s 0.3 [1] https://ocv.me/asm.usb.xz https://ocv.me/asm.usb.xz [2] https://github.com/9001/asm https://github.com/9001/asm
lproven 3y ago
Fantastic tool. Works with Linux, Windows, FreeBSD, some forms of DOS -- most things. I wrote about it here: https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/10/friday_foss_fest/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/10/friday_foss_fest/ Now there's a PXE network-boot version too. https://www.iventoy.com/en/index.html https://www.iventoy.com/en/index.html
- chem83 3y ago
  Knew about http://netboot.xyz http://netboot.xyz, but had no idea iVentoy existed. Good to know.
  - transpute 3y ago
    Ventoy developer longpanda offers tools for injection into Linux and Windows ISOs, which work with the Ventoy injection plugin, https://github.com/ventoy/WinInjection https://github.com/ventoy/WinInjection & https://github.com/ventoy/LiveInjection https://github.com/ventoy/LiveInjection https://www.linux-magazine.com/Issues/2022/257/deepin https://www.linux-magazine.com/Issues/2022/257/deepin > Deepin is a distribution developed in Wuhan, China by Deepin Technology. Its homepage proclaims it "the top Linux distribution from China" ... The extensive EULA is uncommon for the Linux space, and the privacy policy goes into some detail about the types of information they collect – not just browser history, but information on when you use your computer and the applications installed on your system. https://cntechpost.com/2019/12/31/union-tech-acquires-deepin-a-well-known-linux-based-os-maker-in-china/ https://cntechpost.com/2019/12/31/union-tech-acquires-deepin... > Deepin Technology said today it is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Union Tech ... developed a new UOS product ... The UOS preparatory group was voluntarily initiated by a number of domestic operating system core companies. Its members include China Electronics Group (CEC), Wuhan Shenzhidu Technology Co., Ltd., Nanjing Chengmai Technology, and ZTE New Fulcrum ... It has set up a headquarters in Beijing and established branches in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Nanjing, Xi'an, Chengdu and other places.
    - lproven 3y ago
      What does the stuff about Deepin have to do with Ventoy?
pyrophane 3y ago
This is a great tool for those of us who might have a bit of a distro hopping problem. You no longer need to do the whole song and dance with `dd` and can just copy a bunch of ISOs to a single USB drive
- Redster 3y ago
  I recently started getting into Linux, I was able to load up four or five ISOs and cycle through them so painlessly. Very fun.
timetraveller26 3y ago
This is the best tool I have used for my linux installs, it also is handy to have some recovery/maintenance ISO's quickly available. It works with BIOS and UEFI and even lets you keep using your usb for other files.
toastercat 3y ago
Gonna echo everyone here and say this is a great tool, but I was sad to find out that it does not work with the Steam Deck Recovery image.
pityJuke 3y ago
I know Ventoy has been around for a while, but I'm still glad we have a good FOSS solution for this. Back in the day, I used to run a proprietary (I think) tool called SARDU for the job, which worked fine, but wasn't terrific.
popey 3y ago
It may have evolved since I last used it. But when I tried, it was a bit of a "bag of spanners", thrown together shell scripts which made some incorrect assumptions. Back then it didn't even make a bootable device. Everyone seems to rave about it now though, so may be worth another look.
- Perz1val 3y ago
  I had an old version of ventoy and it worked flawlessly for a long time. Recently it had some problems with booting an EndeavourOS iso, I updated it and that fixed the issue. Updating was just downloading fresh installer and clicking a button. For me it has always been solid, the UX of just copying over the iso and still being able to store random crap is perfect.
csdvrx 3y ago
Key limitation: can't be installed to run standalone (in a partition on your nvme boot drive) if you care about partitions alignment. Variants without this limitation were discussed yesterday. Usecase: a rescue distribution to start from the UEFI menu manually, or automatically if your normal boot fails
- walteweiss 3y ago
  Why not dual boot any Linux for that? If you use Windows. Coz if it run Linux, you’re fine, you can just load another kernel of your is happened to break after the update.
  - csdvrx 3y ago
    The goal is to have full ISOs, for Ubuntu, Windows 11 etc with the minimal number of partitions and files, for easy maintenance and imaging to other computers A few ISO + a UEFI entry to select them is much simpler: the ISO file will never change. It can not be rended unbootable by mistake I tried to explain that yesterday in a reply to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38668260 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38668260 and on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38668809 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38668809
    - walteweiss 3y ago
      Sounds like not a bad idea for the tool, but very niche. Theoretically, something similar can be achieved with a read-only partition, or a read-only installation (e.g. Fedora Silverblue). I won’t argue that may include more competency than just throwing some ISOs at the partition. But for me, that feels like a more comfortable way of having a rescue system at hand. I have an Arch installation USB for the same reasons, to save my Arch installation if anything happens. I had been thinking of creating a separate USB with Arch installed, but I’m not sure it’s needed. As in reality all of my maintenances were to boot, chroot and update or downgrade some things. In case I need a GUI, I use a Fedora installation. I assume your scenario is more like that.
      - 3y ago
leeoniya 3y ago
the persistence feature is cool: https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_persistence.html https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_persistence.html especially if you want to customize or keep your bootable recovery disk usb updated without rolling your own ISOs.
- 77pt77 3y ago
  Unfortunately that works by creating a FS on a loop image file, you can't use the FS in the actual USB stick. It's still great, but if you run into space issues you'll have to extend the loop file.
phyzome 3y ago
Fantastic tool. Having a single thumb drive with multiple ISOs on it means you don't have to keep juggling thumb drives ("now where did I put my Debian 12 XFCE installer") or overwriting them over and over ("oh no, this has the 64-bit ISO, but now I need the 32-bit installer").
- jtriangle 3y ago
  I have an external nvme with many iso's running ventoy and it's become an absolute staple. I even engraved 'ventoy' on it with a hand engraver so there's never any doubt. Useful for more than installs too, I have live distros with things like memtest, gparted and clonezilla, which really simplifies little one-off fixes.
  - stavros 3y ago
    How does the external NVMe work? Is there a USB enclosure for it? How does it fare against a USB thumb drive?
    - wtallis 3y ago
      There are Thunderbolt based drive enclosures, but the reasonably priced ones are all based on one of a handful of USB to NVMe bridge chips. You usually get a 10Gbps link, so nowhere near the speed the NVMe drive inside is capable of, but about twice the performance of SATA-based USB drives or the fastest that use a USB-native SSD controller. Compared to a typical USB thumb drive, performance is night and day, especially for writes and random access.
      - stavros 3y ago
        Interesting, thank you, though I guess I'd have to go USB 3 or USB-C, as I don't have Thunderbolt.
    - Modified3019 3y ago
      Nvme to usb enclosures can work great, but can also be dodgy to work with. I personally find SATA enclosures more reliable overall, as they are less demanding There are a few issues at play: 1. Power supply issues: the power demands of your mix of enclosure and drive may not be satisfied by your USB port(s), which can vary wildly in capability, and over time. 2. The controller within the enclosure can overheat under load. This seems to happen across many enclosures I’ve tried. Larger enclosures may allow for attaching a tiny heatsink. 3. NVMe drives may not gracefully handle sudden disconnections. USB connections are inherently unreliable interfaces prone to physical disruption and loss of power, which will multiply against any normally hidden non-resiliance in the nvme drive. If your drive decides to stop showing up, first try loading up the boot device selection screen in the UEFI, and then insert the drive. It may take several seconds to show up. If trying that a few times doesn’t work, the drive may be stuck in some kind of bad state. You may be able to recover from this with the unfortunately poorly known power cycle technique https://dfarq.homeip.net/fix-dead-ssd/ https://dfarq.homeip.net/fix-dead-ssd/ The technique summarized is: 1. Connect to power (not data) only. Alternatively letting the drive sit at bios setup screen also seems to work. Turn on the power and leave the power on for 30 minutes. 2. After 30 minutes, power down or pull the power cable. 3. Wait 30 seconds, then restore power. 4. Let the drive sit powered on for another 30 minutes. 5. Power down again, then wait 30 seconds. Always set up automatic backups if you actually have non-replaceable data on the drive. They can and will just suddenly die forever with loss of all data, just like thumb drives. You have been warned. All that said, there are generally less issues if you are simply putting ventoy on it to just install an OS from an iso. I have a dual raid1 sata enclosure that I use to boot a windows to go install created with Rufus (https://github.com/pbatard/rufus https://github.com/pbatard/rufus), which makes testing and benchmarking so much nicer to deal with. I’ve even stuck games on it, and other than relative filesystem slowness it works pretty great, once I added a heatsink to the enclosure controller.
WallyFunk 3y ago
I have the Gandalf rescue ISO[0] on this, among many other ISOs I use incase I need to repair/rescue or install stuff. My Ventoy setup is a veritable 'Swiss army knife' for general IT related things. The Gandalf Windows preinstalled environment has all this bundled with it, if anyone's interested: Tools/Utilities included on this Windows PE: AoMei Partition Assistant: Partitioning solution WinRAR: Powerful archiver and archive manager 7-Zip: Archiver and archive manager Defraggler: Disk Defragmenter MS Paint and Wordpad: Microsoft’s basic image and text editors Macrium Reflect: Backup and disk imaging solution CCleaner: System optimization, privacy and cleaning tool Media Player Classic: Classic Windows media player HWiNFO: Hardware information and diagnostic tool Snipping Tool: Screen capture application. Windows Defender: Microsoft’s excellent antivirus app TeamViewer: Remote control solution Double Drive: Driver backup application Winmerge: File comparison tool Opera: Web Browser, Fast, simple and safe way to get around on the web GetRight: Download manager Ntpwedit: Change or remove passwords for local system accounts Partition Wizard Virtual Keyboard Virtual Magnifying Glass DiskCryptor: Disk encryption application similar to Bitlocker Bitlocker: Microsoft’s disk encryption application Powershell: Powerful automation tool is both a shell and a scripting language UltraISO: Directly edit ISO files, make images from CD/DVD-ROM Unlocker: Unlocker helps delete locked files with error messages Gimagex: A graphical user interface for the ImageX tool SuperAntiSpyWare: Free Malware Remover Magic Jelly Bean Key Finder: A utility that retrieves your Product Keys HiJackThis: Spot home page hijackers and startup programs Ghost: The classic imaging tool Skype: Provides video chat and voice calls VNC Viewer: Remote Control Software Sysinternal Suite Troubleshooting Utilities VLC Media Player: Open-source cross-platform multimedia player IrfanView Image Viewer FastStone Image Viewer: User-friendly image browser, converter and editor Mozilla FireFox: Another great browser Easy BCD: Boot management tool and bcd editor Snipping Tool: Take snapshots Drive Snapshot: Disk imaging solution MyLan Viewer: Network/IP Scanner Rufus: Utility to format and create bootable USB flash drives Wise Data Recovery: Recovery program to get back deleted photos, documents, etc. WinToolkit: Customize Your Windows Installation ImgBurn: CD burning tool Treesize: Quickly Scan Directory Sizes and Find Space Hogs Klite Codec Pack Basic RecoverKeys: Retrieves your Product Keys Remote Desktop: Latest version of Windows remote desktop DismGui: Dism with a graphical interface Klite Codec Pack Basic Google Chrome: Great Browser Powershell: Automation scripting [0] https://www.fcportables.com/gandalf-boot-iso/ https://www.fcportables.com/gandalf-boot-iso/
kup0 3y ago
This is what I use most often these days for loading any system with a Linux install (or to test drive distros it's an awesome tool). I have found some hardware seems to have weird issues with drives of a certain size (I tried using a 256GB external SSD and have encountered a laptop that will not boot from it, and will only boot from USB storage if it's like 32GB or lower or something weird like that). But that appears to be a particular quirk of that laptop and nothing to do with Ventoy in particular.
b8 3y ago
Very useful and neat. Beats using Rufus to image something.
golergka 3y ago
Never heard of it before. Don't really have a use for it. But still love the fact that HN frontpage brings these kinds of projects up sometimes.
DrNosferatu 3y ago
What about FreeDOS? FreeDOS with SBEmu is really nice for an instant DOS machine on real hardware: https://github.com/crazii/SBEMU/releases https://github.com/crazii/SBEMU/releases
- xen2xen1 3y ago
  I'm sure it can do that too.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
tarruda 3y ago
I'm blown away by how easy this makes having a boot drive for multiple operating systems while also letting the thumb drive work normally as a data storage medium
jakebasile 3y ago
Echoing the praise here. I just install this on all the USB storage devices I have. If I have ISOs on it, now I can boot. Otherwise I can use them as regular USB storage.
plagiat0r 3y ago
There are hardware disk enclosures that emulate an optical drive over USB and booting works on hardware level with "physical" optical drive. But how ventoy achieve systems booting and detecting the iso programmatically? I know that initially, there seems to be grub2 reading usb file list and then it reads iso eltorito boot image and boots from it, but how exactly the OS itself know about the virtual drive? Is there an interface in uefi or bios that allow emulate optical drive, or some other standard is at play and operating systems just happens to support it? Window 10/11 pe / installer, for example, reports the iso in diskpart as virtual disk. Not an optical drive. Windows kernel actually mounts the iso somehow automatically. Can someone point me on how this actually works, please.
- dist-epoch 3y ago
  I don't know the answer, but it's not required to emulate an optical drive. Modern UEFI BIOSes can natively boot from USB sticks, they can save settings and screenshots to the USB stick (thus they are not mounted read-only).
- isr 3y ago
  grub2 has a builtin scripting language (very much like bash/bourne), which allows you to dynamically do all sorts of stuff. I did a deep dive into grub2 years ago, and ended up creating my own sort-of-ventoy-like Swiss army knife, boot anything, grub config. In some ways, you can treat grub2 as a mini os, with a scripting language. So ... I'm sure that's how Ventoy does it (but I haven't really checked)
notimpotent 3y ago
I've used similar tools like imageUSB and Rufus in the past. But it looks like Ventoy is better in every aspect. Excellent!
latchkey 3y ago
Discussions on similar submissions: A New Bootable USB Solution https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28889392 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28889392 (October 16, 2021 — 182 points, 47 comments) Ventoy makes making bootable USB drives easy https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24273289 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24273289 (August 25, 2020 — 66 points, 11 comments) Ventoy: A new bootable USB solution https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24241485 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24241485 (August 21, 2020 — 394 points, 106 comments) Ventoy – A New Bootable USB Solution https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23394714 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23394714 (June 2, 2020 — 70 points, 6 comments)
proxysna 3y ago
Love the tool, been using it for a long time. But one thing that it can't do is illumos based iso's.
mmgutz 3y ago
Another plus is Ventoy can install Windows 11 without secure boot, TPM from an official MS ISO. Some Linux distros cannot install with those features enabled.
breakds 3y ago
The only thing that I carry all day besides my laptop is a flash disk with ventoy in it.
drzzhan 3y ago
This piece of software literally solves all of my problems. Great tool!
jantypas2 3y ago
Also, look at iVentoy. It's not free but it's not expensive, and it is "Ventoy over PXE boot". It takes a bit to set up, but I have it running on a Linux box and I can boot any machine from any image.
- djha-skin 3y ago
  I miss pxe. Feels like all of our tools got more complicated for managing servers but for very little gain. Pxe is one of those good simple tools that we need to get back to.
m0d0nne11 3y ago
Is source code available yet? I ask because I suggested using Ventoy at $WORK and the Security folks shot me down because it's apparently from an a$ian country so we wanna be able to convince ourselves it's not gonna end up just being an extremely flexible trojan...
- Underphil 3y ago
  Let me Google that for you. https://github.com/ventoy/Ventoy https://github.com/ventoy/Ventoy That was hard.
xen2xen1 3y ago
1. Even better as part of Easy2boot. 1. I have servers in the basement with a KVM switch and Idrac. I always keep a usb stick with Easy2boot and Ventoy on it plugged into my servers, and often my desktops, so I can fix stuff offline, or even totally wipe the OS. Plop a live CD (Sergei Strelec) on there, and you can copy isos on there from the network. It's awesome.
Cadwhisker 3y ago
As an alternative, I've been using an IODD 2541 for making virtual ISOs and USB sticks bootable. Put any SSD into the box, copy ISOs or other formats to the drive. Selection is from a small LCD panel on the front. I'd say it's one of my most essential pieces of kit that I take with me.
- 1letterunixname 3y ago
  Unsure about the model 2541 which seems overly complicated. I have been using an iODD 2531 for 10+ years for bare metal & physical boxes. It's a USB hardware based virtual optical media drive enclosure for a 2.5" SATA drive that just works. Also, iodd's website isn't reachable by me so I can't see if there have been any recent firmware updates.[0] 0. http://iodd.kr http://iodd.kr
chemmail 3y ago
Filled up even a 256GB drive now will all the ISOs i can put on it.
orblivion 3y ago
Can you put a Ventoy iso on it?
rldjbpin 3y ago
switched to using only one large pen drive with all my ISO with ventoy and never looked back. worked well even with windows. there were some challenges, especiall with UEFI with some devices. but there are workarounds documented in the tool's website. it is like a one-time thing per device, but you do have to trust random keys off the internet. it is well worth the hassle of extra keystrokes to get to the boot menu. i just wish there was a way to bypass grub menu for every iso where it applies.
1letterunixname 3y ago
Beware that a related project, iventoy, is crippled commercial pseudo-FOSS.
minroot 3y ago
A life saver for hopping
mikeponders 3y ago
Very practical for IT work or if you just want to put all of your useful ISOs somewhere like a large USB stick. You can have your Win/AV/Rescue/Linux/Memory testing and other tools together and just boot whatever you need without struggling with writing images and repeating the boot process while smashing your keys. The only machines that this didn't work for me were from the Windows XP era. Didn't have any compatibility issues with ISOs!

Ventoy

594 points by matthberg 3y ago

bcye 3y ago

So you can boot from a USB that already has other files on it or just other isos?

vorticalbox 3y ago
You can put other files on it too. It is basically a bootloader that lists all the Isos on the drive and let's you boot them. I have a handful of Isos and it's a good send
- rocky_raccoon 3y ago
  I like "good send" -- it's a bit less hyperbolic than "Godsend".
- bcye 3y ago
  This is absolutely amazing. Having to clear out a usb just to boot a live image is really annoying (still need to format the usbs with it at the beginning though)
drewzero1 3y ago
Yes- it formats the USB when you install Ventoy (to add an EFI partition) but after that you can put other files on it in addition to the ISOs. It will only show the ISOs in the boot menu and ignore the other files.
- jtriangle 3y ago
  And those other files can include bios files, drivers, etc
  - drewzero1 3y ago
    If your files include non-bootable ISOs, they will also show up in the boot menu. I haven't tried selecting one to see what happens.
    - 77pt77 3y ago
      You can say that only a specific folder has ISOs. It's configurable via a simple json file.
      - drewzero1 3y ago
        Good to know! I haven't looked into the configuration at all, just been using it as-installed since hearing about it a little over a year ago. (Thanks, Late Night Linux!)
        77pt77 3y ago
        https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_imagelist.html https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_imagelist.html Example config: { "image_list": [ "/ISO/Linux/archlinux-2020.10.01-x86_64.iso", "/ISO/cn_windows_10_enterprise_ltsc_2019_x64_dvd_9c09ff24.iso", "/ISO/Win10PE.iso" ] } or: https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_control.html https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_control.html And something like: { "VTOY_DEFAULT_SEARCH_ROOT": "/ISO" }
- girishso 3y ago
  Is there any option to set a default ISO to boot? Without having to select a file manually. I keep juggling between different OSes on raspberry pies and it’s a pain to reformat drive again and again. But sometimes i do want it to boot headless.
  - c-hendricks 3y ago
    See `VTOY_DEFAULT_IMAGE`, which also allows for some special values: https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_control.html#vtoy_default_image https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_control.html#vtoy_default_i...
- HankB99 3y ago
  You can also have it leave extra space at the end of the device. I create a new partition there and format it with ab EXT4 filesystem. At one time (I think) Windows could not deal with the extra partition but Linux does just fine.
riskable 3y ago
You can put whatever you want on the VENTOY drive: I made one for a friend a that had Kubuntu and Tails ISOs along with Yuzu (Nintendo Switch emulator) and a bunch of Switch games. I didn't test Tails much (I was just trying to encourage learning linux through fun... tools) but I could boot into Kubuntu and play the included Switch games. It even worked with a cheap/generic Switch Pro-like controller without any extra setup required other than to tell Yuzu to use it. Essentially it was an instant boot-on-anything Nintendo Switch emulator thumb drive (it was one of the tinier varieties too). Tape that drive to the back of a $20 Switch Pro-like controller and it's a fantastic Christmas gift
- walteweiss 3y ago
  Sounds really cool! Thanks for the idea!

thaumaturgy 3y ago

I recently needed to install Linux onto two new systems, and the process has somehow gotten even more infuriating since I last purchased hardware about five years ago. Between Secure Boot, UEFI, the Windows Boot Loader, "self-healing BIOS" (aka, "huh, you tried to boot something other than Windows, lemme just revert all those BIOS settings for you..."), and either crippled or inscrutably complex BIOS, I was dead in the water with the install process for several hours on each device. Ventoy saved my bacon. One of the problems I was encountering turned out to be that one of the BIOSes wasn't recognizing the standard Debian ISO (any of them) as bootable, but it did recognize Ventoy. The other device ultimately refused to boot anything other than either Windows or Ubuntu (hard-locking on kernel load), but Ventoy at least made it easier to trial-and-error my way to that conclusion. I flatly refuse to purchase a mass-market computer ever again. Everything from this point forward is either going to be custom built or purchased from a vendor with explicit Linux support.

vbezhenar 3y ago
That's surprising. I never experienced that. All I do is format USB stick with FAT32, copy files from ISO and it just works.
- thaumaturgy 3y ago
  I invite you to give that a shot on either an LG 16Z90R or a Dell Inspiron 7710.
  - tripflag 3y ago
    while I don't have any of those machines readily available, i am curious if this USB image [1] would work. It's a lightly customized Alpine which can be written to a flashdrive using either Rufus, usbimager, or this command: xz -dkc <asm.usb.xz >/dev/sdi the image was built using this repo [2] and this command: ./build.sh -i dl/alpine-standard-3.19.0-x86_64.iso -p min -s 0.3 [1] https://ocv.me/asm.usb.xz https://ocv.me/asm.usb.xz [2] https://github.com/9001/asm https://github.com/9001/asm

lproven 3y ago

Fantastic tool. Works with Linux, Windows, FreeBSD, some forms of DOS -- most things. I wrote about it here: https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/10/friday_foss_fest/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/10/friday_foss_fest/ Now there's a PXE network-boot version too. https://www.iventoy.com/en/index.html https://www.iventoy.com/en/index.html

chem83 3y ago
Knew about http://netboot.xyz http://netboot.xyz, but had no idea iVentoy existed. Good to know.
- transpute 3y ago
  Ventoy developer longpanda offers tools for injection into Linux and Windows ISOs, which work with the Ventoy injection plugin, https://github.com/ventoy/WinInjection https://github.com/ventoy/WinInjection & https://github.com/ventoy/LiveInjection https://github.com/ventoy/LiveInjection https://www.linux-magazine.com/Issues/2022/257/deepin https://www.linux-magazine.com/Issues/2022/257/deepin > Deepin is a distribution developed in Wuhan, China by Deepin Technology. Its homepage proclaims it "the top Linux distribution from China" ... The extensive EULA is uncommon for the Linux space, and the privacy policy goes into some detail about the types of information they collect – not just browser history, but information on when you use your computer and the applications installed on your system. https://cntechpost.com/2019/12/31/union-tech-acquires-deepin-a-well-known-linux-based-os-maker-in-china/ https://cntechpost.com/2019/12/31/union-tech-acquires-deepin... > Deepin Technology said today it is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Union Tech ... developed a new UOS product ... The UOS preparatory group was voluntarily initiated by a number of domestic operating system core companies. Its members include China Electronics Group (CEC), Wuhan Shenzhidu Technology Co., Ltd., Nanjing Chengmai Technology, and ZTE New Fulcrum ... It has set up a headquarters in Beijing and established branches in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Nanjing, Xi'an, Chengdu and other places.
  - lproven 3y ago
    What does the stuff about Deepin have to do with Ventoy?

pyrophane 3y ago

This is a great tool for those of us who might have a bit of a distro hopping problem. You no longer need to do the whole song and dance with `dd` and can just copy a bunch of ISOs to a single USB drive

Redster 3y ago
I recently started getting into Linux, I was able to load up four or five ISOs and cycle through them so painlessly. Very fun.

timetraveller26 3y ago

This is the best tool I have used for my linux installs, it also is handy to have some recovery/maintenance ISO's quickly available. It works with BIOS and UEFI and even lets you keep using your usb for other files.

toastercat 3y ago

Gonna echo everyone here and say this is a great tool, but I was sad to find out that it does not work with the Steam Deck Recovery image.

pityJuke 3y ago

I know Ventoy has been around for a while, but I'm still glad we have a good FOSS solution for this. Back in the day, I used to run a proprietary (I think) tool called SARDU for the job, which worked fine, but wasn't terrific.

popey 3y ago

It may have evolved since I last used it. But when I tried, it was a bit of a "bag of spanners", thrown together shell scripts which made some incorrect assumptions. Back then it didn't even make a bootable device. Everyone seems to rave about it now though, so may be worth another look.

Perz1val 3y ago
I had an old version of ventoy and it worked flawlessly for a long time. Recently it had some problems with booting an EndeavourOS iso, I updated it and that fixed the issue. Updating was just downloading fresh installer and clicking a button. For me it has always been solid, the UX of just copying over the iso and still being able to store random crap is perfect.

csdvrx 3y ago

Key limitation: can't be installed to run standalone (in a partition on your nvme boot drive) if you care about partitions alignment. Variants without this limitation were discussed yesterday. Usecase: a rescue distribution to start from the UEFI menu manually, or automatically if your normal boot fails

walteweiss 3y ago
Why not dual boot any Linux for that? If you use Windows. Coz if it run Linux, you’re fine, you can just load another kernel of your is happened to break after the update.
- csdvrx 3y ago
  The goal is to have full ISOs, for Ubuntu, Windows 11 etc with the minimal number of partitions and files, for easy maintenance and imaging to other computers A few ISO + a UEFI entry to select them is much simpler: the ISO file will never change. It can not be rended unbootable by mistake I tried to explain that yesterday in a reply to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38668260 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38668260 and on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38668809 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38668809
  - walteweiss 3y ago
    Sounds like not a bad idea for the tool, but very niche. Theoretically, something similar can be achieved with a read-only partition, or a read-only installation (e.g. Fedora Silverblue). I won’t argue that may include more competency than just throwing some ISOs at the partition. But for me, that feels like a more comfortable way of having a rescue system at hand. I have an Arch installation USB for the same reasons, to save my Arch installation if anything happens. I had been thinking of creating a separate USB with Arch installed, but I’m not sure it’s needed. As in reality all of my maintenances were to boot, chroot and update or downgrade some things. In case I need a GUI, I use a Fedora installation. I assume your scenario is more like that.
    - 3y ago

leeoniya 3y ago

the persistence feature is cool: https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_persistence.html https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_persistence.html especially if you want to customize or keep your bootable recovery disk usb updated without rolling your own ISOs.

77pt77 3y ago
Unfortunately that works by creating a FS on a loop image file, you can't use the FS in the actual USB stick. It's still great, but if you run into space issues you'll have to extend the loop file.

phyzome 3y ago

Fantastic tool. Having a single thumb drive with multiple ISOs on it means you don't have to keep juggling thumb drives ("now where did I put my Debian 12 XFCE installer") or overwriting them over and over ("oh no, this has the 64-bit ISO, but now I need the 32-bit installer").

jtriangle 3y ago
I have an external nvme with many iso's running ventoy and it's become an absolute staple. I even engraved 'ventoy' on it with a hand engraver so there's never any doubt. Useful for more than installs too, I have live distros with things like memtest, gparted and clonezilla, which really simplifies little one-off fixes.
- stavros 3y ago
  How does the external NVMe work? Is there a USB enclosure for it? How does it fare against a USB thumb drive?
  - wtallis 3y ago
    There are Thunderbolt based drive enclosures, but the reasonably priced ones are all based on one of a handful of USB to NVMe bridge chips. You usually get a 10Gbps link, so nowhere near the speed the NVMe drive inside is capable of, but about twice the performance of SATA-based USB drives or the fastest that use a USB-native SSD controller. Compared to a typical USB thumb drive, performance is night and day, especially for writes and random access.
    - stavros 3y ago
      Interesting, thank you, though I guess I'd have to go USB 3 or USB-C, as I don't have Thunderbolt.
  - Modified3019 3y ago
    Nvme to usb enclosures can work great, but can also be dodgy to work with. I personally find SATA enclosures more reliable overall, as they are less demanding There are a few issues at play: 1. Power supply issues: the power demands of your mix of enclosure and drive may not be satisfied by your USB port(s), which can vary wildly in capability, and over time. 2. The controller within the enclosure can overheat under load. This seems to happen across many enclosures I’ve tried. Larger enclosures may allow for attaching a tiny heatsink. 3. NVMe drives may not gracefully handle sudden disconnections. USB connections are inherently unreliable interfaces prone to physical disruption and loss of power, which will multiply against any normally hidden non-resiliance in the nvme drive. If your drive decides to stop showing up, first try loading up the boot device selection screen in the UEFI, and then insert the drive. It may take several seconds to show up. If trying that a few times doesn’t work, the drive may be stuck in some kind of bad state. You may be able to recover from this with the unfortunately poorly known power cycle technique https://dfarq.homeip.net/fix-dead-ssd/ https://dfarq.homeip.net/fix-dead-ssd/ The technique summarized is: 1. Connect to power (not data) only. Alternatively letting the drive sit at bios setup screen also seems to work. Turn on the power and leave the power on for 30 minutes. 2. After 30 minutes, power down or pull the power cable. 3. Wait 30 seconds, then restore power. 4. Let the drive sit powered on for another 30 minutes. 5. Power down again, then wait 30 seconds. Always set up automatic backups if you actually have non-replaceable data on the drive. They can and will just suddenly die forever with loss of all data, just like thumb drives. You have been warned. All that said, there are generally less issues if you are simply putting ventoy on it to just install an OS from an iso. I have a dual raid1 sata enclosure that I use to boot a windows to go install created with Rufus (https://github.com/pbatard/rufus https://github.com/pbatard/rufus), which makes testing and benchmarking so much nicer to deal with. I’ve even stuck games on it, and other than relative filesystem slowness it works pretty great, once I added a heatsink to the enclosure controller.

WallyFunk 3y ago

I have the Gandalf rescue ISO[0] on this, among many other ISOs I use incase I need to repair/rescue or install stuff. My Ventoy setup is a veritable 'Swiss army knife' for general IT related things. The Gandalf Windows preinstalled environment has all this bundled with it, if anyone's interested: Tools/Utilities included on this Windows PE: AoMei Partition Assistant: Partitioning solution WinRAR: Powerful archiver and archive manager 7-Zip: Archiver and archive manager Defraggler: Disk Defragmenter MS Paint and Wordpad: Microsoft’s basic image and text editors Macrium Reflect: Backup and disk imaging solution CCleaner: System optimization, privacy and cleaning tool Media Player Classic: Classic Windows media player HWiNFO: Hardware information and diagnostic tool Snipping Tool: Screen capture application. Windows Defender: Microsoft’s excellent antivirus app TeamViewer: Remote control solution Double Drive: Driver backup application Winmerge: File comparison tool Opera: Web Browser, Fast, simple and safe way to get around on the web GetRight: Download manager Ntpwedit: Change or remove passwords for local system accounts Partition Wizard Virtual Keyboard Virtual Magnifying Glass DiskCryptor: Disk encryption application similar to Bitlocker Bitlocker: Microsoft’s disk encryption application Powershell: Powerful automation tool is both a shell and a scripting language UltraISO: Directly edit ISO files, make images from CD/DVD-ROM Unlocker: Unlocker helps delete locked files with error messages Gimagex: A graphical user interface for the ImageX tool SuperAntiSpyWare: Free Malware Remover Magic Jelly Bean Key Finder: A utility that retrieves your Product Keys HiJackThis: Spot home page hijackers and startup programs Ghost: The classic imaging tool Skype: Provides video chat and voice calls VNC Viewer: Remote Control Software Sysinternal Suite Troubleshooting Utilities VLC Media Player: Open-source cross-platform multimedia player IrfanView Image Viewer FastStone Image Viewer: User-friendly image browser, converter and editor Mozilla FireFox: Another great browser Easy BCD: Boot management tool and bcd editor Snipping Tool: Take snapshots Drive Snapshot: Disk imaging solution MyLan Viewer: Network/IP Scanner Rufus: Utility to format and create bootable USB flash drives Wise Data Recovery: Recovery program to get back deleted photos, documents, etc. WinToolkit: Customize Your Windows Installation ImgBurn: CD burning tool Treesize: Quickly Scan Directory Sizes and Find Space Hogs Klite Codec Pack Basic RecoverKeys: Retrieves your Product Keys Remote Desktop: Latest version of Windows remote desktop DismGui: Dism with a graphical interface Klite Codec Pack Basic Google Chrome: Great Browser Powershell: Automation scripting [0] https://www.fcportables.com/gandalf-boot-iso/ https://www.fcportables.com/gandalf-boot-iso/

kup0 3y ago

This is what I use most often these days for loading any system with a Linux install (or to test drive distros it's an awesome tool). I have found some hardware seems to have weird issues with drives of a certain size (I tried using a 256GB external SSD and have encountered a laptop that will not boot from it, and will only boot from USB storage if it's like 32GB or lower or something weird like that). But that appears to be a particular quirk of that laptop and nothing to do with Ventoy in particular.

b8 3y ago

Very useful and neat. Beats using Rufus to image something.

golergka 3y ago

Never heard of it before. Don't really have a use for it. But still love the fact that HN frontpage brings these kinds of projects up sometimes.

DrNosferatu 3y ago

What about FreeDOS? FreeDOS with SBEmu is really nice for an instant DOS machine on real hardware: https://github.com/crazii/SBEMU/releases https://github.com/crazii/SBEMU/releases

xen2xen1 3y ago
I'm sure it can do that too.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

tarruda 3y ago

I'm blown away by how easy this makes having a boot drive for multiple operating systems while also letting the thumb drive work normally as a data storage medium

jakebasile 3y ago

Echoing the praise here. I just install this on all the USB storage devices I have. If I have ISOs on it, now I can boot. Otherwise I can use them as regular USB storage.

plagiat0r 3y ago

There are hardware disk enclosures that emulate an optical drive over USB and booting works on hardware level with "physical" optical drive. But how ventoy achieve systems booting and detecting the iso programmatically? I know that initially, there seems to be grub2 reading usb file list and then it reads iso eltorito boot image and boots from it, but how exactly the OS itself know about the virtual drive? Is there an interface in uefi or bios that allow emulate optical drive, or some other standard is at play and operating systems just happens to support it? Window 10/11 pe / installer, for example, reports the iso in diskpart as virtual disk. Not an optical drive. Windows kernel actually mounts the iso somehow automatically. Can someone point me on how this actually works, please.

dist-epoch 3y ago
I don't know the answer, but it's not required to emulate an optical drive. Modern UEFI BIOSes can natively boot from USB sticks, they can save settings and screenshots to the USB stick (thus they are not mounted read-only).
isr 3y ago
grub2 has a builtin scripting language (very much like bash/bourne), which allows you to dynamically do all sorts of stuff. I did a deep dive into grub2 years ago, and ended up creating my own sort-of-ventoy-like Swiss army knife, boot anything, grub config. In some ways, you can treat grub2 as a mini os, with a scripting language. So ... I'm sure that's how Ventoy does it (but I haven't really checked)

notimpotent 3y ago

I've used similar tools like imageUSB and Rufus in the past. But it looks like Ventoy is better in every aspect. Excellent!

latchkey 3y ago

Discussions on similar submissions: A New Bootable USB Solution https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28889392 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28889392 (October 16, 2021 — 182 points, 47 comments) Ventoy makes making bootable USB drives easy https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24273289 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24273289 (August 25, 2020 — 66 points, 11 comments) Ventoy: A new bootable USB solution https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24241485 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24241485 (August 21, 2020 — 394 points, 106 comments) Ventoy – A New Bootable USB Solution https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23394714 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23394714 (June 2, 2020 — 70 points, 6 comments)

proxysna 3y ago

Love the tool, been using it for a long time. But one thing that it can't do is illumos based iso's.

mmgutz 3y ago

Another plus is Ventoy can install Windows 11 without secure boot, TPM from an official MS ISO. Some Linux distros cannot install with those features enabled.

breakds 3y ago

The only thing that I carry all day besides my laptop is a flash disk with ventoy in it.

drzzhan 3y ago

This piece of software literally solves all of my problems. Great tool!

jantypas2 3y ago

Also, look at iVentoy. It's not free but it's not expensive, and it is "Ventoy over PXE boot". It takes a bit to set up, but I have it running on a Linux box and I can boot any machine from any image.

djha-skin 3y ago
I miss pxe. Feels like all of our tools got more complicated for managing servers but for very little gain. Pxe is one of those good simple tools that we need to get back to.

m0d0nne11 3y ago

Is source code available yet? I ask because I suggested using Ventoy at $WORK and the Security folks shot me down because it's apparently from an a$ian country so we wanna be able to convince ourselves it's not gonna end up just being an extremely flexible trojan...

Underphil 3y ago
Let me Google that for you. https://github.com/ventoy/Ventoy https://github.com/ventoy/Ventoy That was hard.

xen2xen1 3y ago

1. Even better as part of Easy2boot. 1. I have servers in the basement with a KVM switch and Idrac. I always keep a usb stick with Easy2boot and Ventoy on it plugged into my servers, and often my desktops, so I can fix stuff offline, or even totally wipe the OS. Plop a live CD (Sergei Strelec) on there, and you can copy isos on there from the network. It's awesome.

Cadwhisker 3y ago

As an alternative, I've been using an IODD 2541 for making virtual ISOs and USB sticks bootable. Put any SSD into the box, copy ISOs or other formats to the drive. Selection is from a small LCD panel on the front. I'd say it's one of my most essential pieces of kit that I take with me.

1letterunixname 3y ago
Unsure about the model 2541 which seems overly complicated. I have been using an iODD 2531 for 10+ years for bare metal & physical boxes. It's a USB hardware based virtual optical media drive enclosure for a 2.5" SATA drive that just works. Also, iodd's website isn't reachable by me so I can't see if there have been any recent firmware updates.[0] 0. http://iodd.kr http://iodd.kr

chemmail 3y ago

Filled up even a 256GB drive now will all the ISOs i can put on it.

orblivion 3y ago

Can you put a Ventoy iso on it?

rldjbpin 3y ago

switched to using only one large pen drive with all my ISO with ventoy and never looked back. worked well even with windows. there were some challenges, especiall with UEFI with some devices. but there are workarounds documented in the tool's website. it is like a one-time thing per device, but you do have to trust random keys off the internet. it is well worth the hassle of extra keystrokes to get to the boot menu. i just wish there was a way to bypass grub menu for every iso where it applies.

1letterunixname 3y ago

Beware that a related project, iventoy, is crippled commercial pseudo-FOSS.

minroot 3y ago

A life saver for hopping

mikeponders 3y ago

Very practical for IT work or if you just want to put all of your useful ISOs somewhere like a large USB stick. You can have your Win/AV/Rescue/Linux/Memory testing and other tools together and just boot whatever you need without struggling with writing images and repeating the boot process while smashing your keys. The only machines that this didn't work for me were from the Windows XP era. Didn't have any compatibility issues with ISOs!