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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

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?
    - transpute 3y ago
      The Ventoy homepage links to Deepin as a "Friendly Link" and Deepin is a boot target in Ventoy screenshots.
      - lproven 3y ago
        ... So? I don't get it. It supports hundreds of distros and dozens of OSes. What do you feel is relevant about Deepin?
        transpute 3y ago
        > It supports hundreds of distros and dozens of OSes. Indeed, so why is Deepin the only distro worthy of a "Friendly Link" on the Ventoy home page? Are they a sponsor of the project? Code contributor? Preferred demo platform?
        lproven 3y ago
        Does it matter? It's not the only link: there's also some Chinese forum. Maybe it's Longpanda's favourite distro? It is a very good one. I've reviewed it: https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/01/deepin_205_surfaces/ https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/01/deepin_205_surfaces/ https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/25/deepin_206_23/ https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/25/deepin_206_23/ It is one of the major distros, with millions of users, and yet there is very little knowledge of it in the West. Its commercial upstream claims to have over 3 million paid users: https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/20/3_million_deepin_users/ https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/20/3_million_deepin_user... I suspect that in plain old user numbers it is up there with Debian, Ubuntu and CentOS, and yet you rarely even hear it mentioned in the same breath. Nor is its desktop, DDE, which is FOSS and is supported in Fedora, openSUSE and has its own Ubuntu remix.
gosub100 3y ago
I've never tried ventoy, but if the PXE/netboot features work, I want to strongly urge anyone thinking of experimenting with PXE/netboot to use ventoy or any other similar helper instead of trying to set up PXE/netboot yourself. I can confidently say that PXE was the single most difficult project/aspect of computing I've ever worked on in the 20 years of working with Linux machines as a hobby and a job. 3-4 times I attempted to mess with it, got it working about 2. Wasted/spent an absolutely enormous amount of time.
- yonatan8070 3y ago
  I tried iVnetoy on both Windows and Linux, on Windows I couldn't get it working (don't know why, maybe a firewall issue?), but on Linux it worked flawlessly, and the injection features are also great
- tripflag 3y ago
  iPXE makes the client-side part of it manageable; the only drawback is having to walk through the open pull-requests on github for the patches you need to get it working, and possibly having to fight some buggy uefi drivers (usually solved with snponly). Also has the advantage of making it possible to do everything secureboot + over TLS with your own certificates, rather than classical PXE which is all plaintext. For the serverside, there are several python projects on github which provide everything you need in one package, for example pybootd.
- jandrese 3y ago
  PXE is one of those things that used to be dead simple to set up. Just add an entry to the DHCP record and set up a TFTP server for the kernel and NFS root drive and you were golden. UEFI threw a huge moneywrench in the process, and SystemD doesn't help. Last time I made it work I had to track down a mailing list entry where someone discussed an otherwise undocumented kernel option that needed to be set to make it work. One of the key glue techs that made it work last time (rom-o-matic) went out of development and is gone.
  - gertlex 3y ago
    Just commenting an adjacent UEFI problem solved: My workaround at work with some old test robots that I still use, but don't have UEFI... Put iPXE on a flash drive, and use that to chain-boot into the uefi-only PXE setup. (there's still a few that this doesn't work for, but it's a minority and I'm going to scrap those...)

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?
  - transpute 3y ago
    The Ventoy homepage links to Deepin as a "Friendly Link" and Deepin is a boot target in Ventoy screenshots.
    - lproven 3y ago
      ... So? I don't get it. It supports hundreds of distros and dozens of OSes. What do you feel is relevant about Deepin?
      - transpute 3y ago
        > It supports hundreds of distros and dozens of OSes. Indeed, so why is Deepin the only distro worthy of a "Friendly Link" on the Ventoy home page? Are they a sponsor of the project? Code contributor? Preferred demo platform?
        lproven 3y ago
        Does it matter? It's not the only link: there's also some Chinese forum. Maybe it's Longpanda's favourite distro? It is a very good one. I've reviewed it: https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/01/deepin_205_surfaces/ https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/01/deepin_205_surfaces/ https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/25/deepin_206_23/ https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/25/deepin_206_23/ It is one of the major distros, with millions of users, and yet there is very little knowledge of it in the West. Its commercial upstream claims to have over 3 million paid users: https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/20/3_million_deepin_users/ https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/20/3_million_deepin_user... I suspect that in plain old user numbers it is up there with Debian, Ubuntu and CentOS, and yet you rarely even hear it mentioned in the same breath. Nor is its desktop, DDE, which is FOSS and is supported in Fedora, openSUSE and has its own Ubuntu remix.

gosub100 3y ago

I've never tried ventoy, but if the PXE/netboot features work, I want to strongly urge anyone thinking of experimenting with PXE/netboot to use ventoy or any other similar helper instead of trying to set up PXE/netboot yourself. I can confidently say that PXE was the single most difficult project/aspect of computing I've ever worked on in the 20 years of working with Linux machines as a hobby and a job. 3-4 times I attempted to mess with it, got it working about 2. Wasted/spent an absolutely enormous amount of time.

yonatan8070 3y ago
I tried iVnetoy on both Windows and Linux, on Windows I couldn't get it working (don't know why, maybe a firewall issue?), but on Linux it worked flawlessly, and the injection features are also great
tripflag 3y ago
iPXE makes the client-side part of it manageable; the only drawback is having to walk through the open pull-requests on github for the patches you need to get it working, and possibly having to fight some buggy uefi drivers (usually solved with snponly). Also has the advantage of making it possible to do everything secureboot + over TLS with your own certificates, rather than classical PXE which is all plaintext. For the serverside, there are several python projects on github which provide everything you need in one package, for example pybootd.
jandrese 3y ago
PXE is one of those things that used to be dead simple to set up. Just add an entry to the DHCP record and set up a TFTP server for the kernel and NFS root drive and you were golden. UEFI threw a huge moneywrench in the process, and SystemD doesn't help. Last time I made it work I had to track down a mailing list entry where someone discussed an otherwise undocumented kernel option that needed to be set to make it work. One of the key glue techs that made it work last time (rom-o-matic) went out of development and is gone.
- gertlex 3y ago
  Just commenting an adjacent UEFI problem solved: My workaround at work with some old test robots that I still use, but don't have UEFI... Put iPXE on a flash drive, and use that to chain-boot into the uefi-only PXE setup. (there's still a few that this doesn't work for, but it's a minority and I'm going to scrap those...)