9 ms·

Nice that the community is addressing this. I was never able to trust Ventoy in the past, and as such still have a wide array of USB sticks to install Linux fla

Nice that the community is addressing this. I was never able to trust Ventoy in the past, and as such still have a wide array of USB sticks to install Linux flavors with.

mkesper 1y ago
NB mainly iVentoy seems to be suspicious, relying on Windows exploits to bypass certification needs.
- ForOldHack 1y ago
  That was both it's charm,and it's notoriousness. I was using it, but when the blob thing became a concern, me and the guy who recommended it, stopped using it,and now it's more of a curiosity, but no longer used. EFI is basically crippleware now,and two dev friends of mine just bought macs, leaving me their Lenovo collections. Two X1 carbons and three T590s.
dspillett 1y ago
For installation I have had to drop back to a normal single-image USB stick before now because the installer became confused by the EFI partition presented by the unpacked ISO and anything found/not on the target drives. Ventoy is very handy for running things live though, and not all installers/situations are affected by this (and there they are, it isn't really ventoy's fault).
alphager 1y ago
I just use an enclosure that emulates a dvd-drive. Put a cheap SATA ssd in there and you can stop worrying about incompatibilities.
- metadat 1y ago
  How do you image the SSD? Isn't it kind of the same issue as with imaging a USB stick?
  - doubled112 1y ago
    You don't image it. You drag and drop ISOs into a directory on the SSD, and the USB device emulates a DVD ROM drive with the contents. You choose the ISO through a small screen and button on the device.
    - beagle3 1y ago
      Can you give the model name of the one you use?
      - green-salt 1y ago
        not the OP but I use the IODD ST400 for this purpose and wish I had gotten something like this long ago
        sigio 1y ago
        Can confirm, also have 2 IODD devices for this purpose, though I usually grab my (simplest) USB stick that has netboot.xyz flashed to it, and just boot off that, and select whatever netboot image I want and have it get everything from the interwebs. No need to ever update this workflow.
        doubled112 1y ago
        Will netboot.xyz boot from a WiFi connection? I've always assumed no, and most of my machines do not have Ethernet jacks anymore.
        burnt-resistor 1y ago
        Way too many unnecessary features and too expensive. The 2531 is perfect. I've had this since about 2014.
        nulld3v 1y ago
        I think both of them have been at the same price for at least 2 years now.
- burnt-resistor 1y ago
  iODD 2531 is the cheapest and simplest such example.
- m463 1y ago
  doesn't it have firmware? :)
Aaargh20318 1y ago
I have a bunch of network-bootable installers set up on my DHCP server. If I want to install a new machine I simply set it to boot from the network. From there I can just select whichever distro I want. I also added some utils like Memtest86
- jraph 1y ago
  Do you have this documented somewhere? I tried to set up netboot a few times, it seems like this should be very easy to do, especially that I self host many things, but I get lost in the technical details every time. I think I succeeded once, with the dhcp server running on a laptop running Debian… Turns out doing some speleology to find a USB key and burning an ISO on it using cat or pv ends up being radically easier… (OTOH it's been a while since I last tried and now I have root on my router running OpenWrt so I guess it would be a tad easier…)
  - toast0 1y ago
    I'm sure there's howto's around, maybe this one from ipxe is a good place to start [1], but if you're running isc-dhcpd (which is discontinued, but still works, so....) you add something like this into your subnet config: next-server 192.0.2.11; if exists user-class and option user-class = "iPXE" { option ipxe.no-pxedhcp 1; filename "http://192.0.2.11/tftpboot/menu.ipxe"; } else { if option client-arch = 00:06 { filename "ipxe.efi-i386"; } else if option client-arch = 00:07 { filename "ipxe.efi-x86_64"; } else { filename "undionly.kpxe"; } } (use your addresses instead of rfc 5737 addresses). Note that the client-arch for amd64/x86_64 matches what PXE clients actually use instead of what the rfc 4578 says (there's an errata, but rfc policy is not to incorporate corrections sigh ). If you've got other archs, you can probably figure it out. You've got to run a tftp server on the next server address; and just FYI some PXE clients won't reach outside their subnet to get to the tftp server. Grab the ipxe binaries from wherever is convenient and they live in the root of the tftpserver. You can follow the ipxe docs for what to put in your menu file. I've got a menu of weird things, which includes item --key n netboot netboot.xyz [n] :netboot chain --autofree http://boot.netboot.xyz/ goto main_menu You could probably just use the boot.netboot.xyz in your dhcpd config and then you don't have to write a menu at all. Depending on your client machines, expect to have to fiddle around a bit. I've got some machines where PXE works, but the keyboard won't work in PXE, so that's not super useful. Others where PXE doesn't really work in UEFI mode, only in BIOS mode; there's probably some vice versa. Also, I've never figured out a good way to load ISOs in UEFI mode ... in BIOS mode you can use MEMDISK and if the OS supports it, it can find the disk image in memory and mount it when it boots. The netboot people do a good job of finding ways to make things work, but don't expect everything to work. I originally started from some version of this document [2], but I've moved on since then. IMHO, netbooting is a nice way to run hobby OSes... no need to worry about a boot loader and all that, just build for multiboot and ipxe will work (and grub will work, too, if you ever do want to run off a disk) It's possible to get Windows ISOs to boot with PXE, but it takes a lot more patience than I've got to make it work well ... if I use iscsi, the OS loads, but takes several minutes to get the disk image mounted after the installer starts; it would probably be faster to write the image to a usb disk and run from there. I was able to install to an iscsi drive, but then the same problem with mounting happened when I tried to boot from there, and then you just end up at a stop error screen because the OS really does want a mounted filesystem when it starts. (there's something about tweaking the driver setup, but that's too much work for me, I found a drive to run off of, and did what I needed to do) [1] https://ipxe.org/howto/dhcpd https://ipxe.org/howto/dhcpd [2] https://wiki.debian.org/PXEBootInstall?action=show&redirect=DebianInstaller%2FNetbootPXE https://wiki.debian.org/PXEBootInstall?action=show&redirect=...

Nice that the community is addressing this. I was never able to trust Ventoy in the past, and as such still have a wide array of USB sticks to install Linux flavors with.

mkesper 1y ago

NB mainly iVentoy seems to be suspicious, relying on Windows exploits to bypass certification needs.

ForOldHack 1y ago
That was both it's charm,and it's notoriousness. I was using it, but when the blob thing became a concern, me and the guy who recommended it, stopped using it,and now it's more of a curiosity, but no longer used. EFI is basically crippleware now,and two dev friends of mine just bought macs, leaving me their Lenovo collections. Two X1 carbons and three T590s.

dspillett 1y ago

For installation I have had to drop back to a normal single-image USB stick before now because the installer became confused by the EFI partition presented by the unpacked ISO and anything found/not on the target drives. Ventoy is very handy for running things live though, and not all installers/situations are affected by this (and there they are, it isn't really ventoy's fault).

alphager 1y ago

I just use an enclosure that emulates a dvd-drive. Put a cheap SATA ssd in there and you can stop worrying about incompatibilities.

metadat 1y ago
How do you image the SSD? Isn't it kind of the same issue as with imaging a USB stick?
- doubled112 1y ago
  You don't image it. You drag and drop ISOs into a directory on the SSD, and the USB device emulates a DVD ROM drive with the contents. You choose the ISO through a small screen and button on the device.
  - beagle3 1y ago
    Can you give the model name of the one you use?
    - green-salt 1y ago
      not the OP but I use the IODD ST400 for this purpose and wish I had gotten something like this long ago
      - sigio 1y ago
        Can confirm, also have 2 IODD devices for this purpose, though I usually grab my (simplest) USB stick that has netboot.xyz flashed to it, and just boot off that, and select whatever netboot image I want and have it get everything from the interwebs. No need to ever update this workflow.
        doubled112 1y ago
        Will netboot.xyz boot from a WiFi connection? I've always assumed no, and most of my machines do not have Ethernet jacks anymore.
      - burnt-resistor 1y ago
        Way too many unnecessary features and too expensive. The 2531 is perfect. I've had this since about 2014.
        nulld3v 1y ago
        I think both of them have been at the same price for at least 2 years now.
burnt-resistor 1y ago
iODD 2531 is the cheapest and simplest such example.
m463 1y ago
doesn't it have firmware? :)

Aaargh20318 1y ago

I have a bunch of network-bootable installers set up on my DHCP server. If I want to install a new machine I simply set it to boot from the network. From there I can just select whichever distro I want. I also added some utils like Memtest86

jraph 1y ago
Do you have this documented somewhere? I tried to set up netboot a few times, it seems like this should be very easy to do, especially that I self host many things, but I get lost in the technical details every time. I think I succeeded once, with the dhcp server running on a laptop running Debian… Turns out doing some speleology to find a USB key and burning an ISO on it using cat or pv ends up being radically easier… (OTOH it's been a while since I last tried and now I have root on my router running OpenWrt so I guess it would be a tad easier…)
- toast0 1y ago
  I'm sure there's howto's around, maybe this one from ipxe is a good place to start [1], but if you're running isc-dhcpd (which is discontinued, but still works, so....) you add something like this into your subnet config: next-server 192.0.2.11; if exists user-class and option user-class = "iPXE" { option ipxe.no-pxedhcp 1; filename "http://192.0.2.11/tftpboot/menu.ipxe"; } else { if option client-arch = 00:06 { filename "ipxe.efi-i386"; } else if option client-arch = 00:07 { filename "ipxe.efi-x86_64"; } else { filename "undionly.kpxe"; } } (use your addresses instead of rfc 5737 addresses). Note that the client-arch for amd64/x86_64 matches what PXE clients actually use instead of what the rfc 4578 says (there's an errata, but rfc policy is not to incorporate corrections sigh ). If you've got other archs, you can probably figure it out. You've got to run a tftp server on the next server address; and just FYI some PXE clients won't reach outside their subnet to get to the tftp server. Grab the ipxe binaries from wherever is convenient and they live in the root of the tftpserver. You can follow the ipxe docs for what to put in your menu file. I've got a menu of weird things, which includes item --key n netboot netboot.xyz [n] :netboot chain --autofree http://boot.netboot.xyz/ goto main_menu You could probably just use the boot.netboot.xyz in your dhcpd config and then you don't have to write a menu at all. Depending on your client machines, expect to have to fiddle around a bit. I've got some machines where PXE works, but the keyboard won't work in PXE, so that's not super useful. Others where PXE doesn't really work in UEFI mode, only in BIOS mode; there's probably some vice versa. Also, I've never figured out a good way to load ISOs in UEFI mode ... in BIOS mode you can use MEMDISK and if the OS supports it, it can find the disk image in memory and mount it when it boots. The netboot people do a good job of finding ways to make things work, but don't expect everything to work. I originally started from some version of this document [2], but I've moved on since then. IMHO, netbooting is a nice way to run hobby OSes... no need to worry about a boot loader and all that, just build for multiboot and ipxe will work (and grub will work, too, if you ever do want to run off a disk) It's possible to get Windows ISOs to boot with PXE, but it takes a lot more patience than I've got to make it work well ... if I use iscsi, the OS loads, but takes several minutes to get the disk image mounted after the installer starts; it would probably be faster to write the image to a usb disk and run from there. I was able to install to an iscsi drive, but then the same problem with mounting happened when I tried to boot from there, and then you just end up at a stop error screen because the OS really does want a mounted filesystem when it starts. (there's something about tweaking the driver setup, but that's too much work for me, I found a drive to run off of, and did what I needed to do) [1] https://ipxe.org/howto/dhcpd https://ipxe.org/howto/dhcpd [2] https://wiki.debian.org/PXEBootInstall?action=show&redirect=DebianInstaller%2FNetbootPXE https://wiki.debian.org/PXEBootInstall?action=show&redirect=...