Ventoy Bootable Usb
Heather Mitchell
With Ventoy, you don't need to format the disk again and again, you just need to copy the iso file to the USB drive and boot it. You can copy many iso files at a time and ventoy will give you a boot menu to select them. Both Legacy BIOS and UEFI are supported in the same way. 420+ ISO files are tested. A "Ventoy Compatible" concept is introduced by ventoy, which can help to support any ISO file.
Typically when we want to install a new OS we use an ISO to create a bootable USB drive. We can then plug this intoour device, say laptop, and boot from that USB and install our OS. However, typically you can only put a single ISO ona USB. So what if wanted a USB with say Window, Arch Linux, TailsOS and NixOS how could we do that?
I think I may have mentioned this in the past, but cannot find it in my profile, so here goes: If you're looking to place multiple iso's on a flash drive and boot from them, checkout: This screenshot shows only a few that I have on my 32GB flash. Using "drag and drop" you can place almost ANY iso, in Ventoy and boot
from it. There is even an option for "persistence".
While in Mint20.0, I dl'd the ventoy1053 iso, installed it, then opened a terminal inside that folder, and ran: "Ventoy 2Disk.sh",(from that folder). Followed the simple
instructions, and in a few minutes, it was done. Once you have placed whatever iso's you'd like to have on it, properly eject the flash drive. When you boot from
the flash drive, the iso's are arranged alphabetically, and you click on whichever you want to. Removing an iso from the drive is as simple as "delete", or "drag
and drop". ( If more required, I can continue tomorrow, however, the website is very well documented.)
This set of steps should be reasonably feature complete. Please advise if anything found missing so that users wont have problems using the app opened by this thread's OP. It is here to add information in the use of the solution.
Having been an Ventoy user for over a year (since v1.0.13), I have a simple Ventoy deploy that provides booting on ALL PC platforms no matter BIOS or UEFI while it doesn't matter if they are Secure boot enabled or not.
It involves a very simple structure which includes NOT ONLY a Ventoy USB, but also a necessary folder that completes booting on ALL platforms for almost EVERY bootable ISO file. Also the addition of the SG2D ISO file will insure compatibility with PUPs & DOGs, no matter the platform. This means ALL PUPs, whether they are old PUPs or modern PUPs will be capable of being booted via their ISO file directly as if they are a Frugal installed PUP.
Warning: If you DO NOT FOLLOW the folder requirement, there are some PUP related issues that will surface. (too numerous to discuss) Advice: Strongly urged to insure the folder is created and contain ALL your ISO files.
Select any ISO file from the list presented. When the ISO presents its Menu, edit the 1st line to add a PSAVE parameter telling the PUP where you want your save-session to be stored. This assures PUPPY knows and YOU know where to find it when you happen to reboot. I, personally, keep ALL of my PUP-DOG sessions saved in a folder on my system drive. This step ALSO assures you have no issues and no lack of understanding when your session is saved at the end....should you choose so. Here's an example of telling Puppy where to save by adding it to the PUP's Linux line:
If the PUP hangs for fail for any reason, then reboot the Ventoy USB to select the SG2D ISO file listed. Using SG2D, SG2D will successfully list and boot modern PUP ISO files successfully as well as any other OS(s) you have installed on your system.
Hope this is helpful to ALL PUP users who choose to use Ventoy to directly boot PUPs/DOGs ISO files to the desktop. Using the requirements I outline, will insure success no matter the platform, the BIOS, the UEFI, the PC, etc.
Please understand that using my instructions to boot to any PUP-DOG desktop does NOT require ANY boot-time manipulation for a PUP to get to its desktop. THAT MEANS "no boot-loader efforts are needed!"
The SG2D process works for almost every PUP-DOG that has been created since December 2019. There is only 1 modern WoofCE forum distros, since, that is not found and cannot be presented for boot by SG2D.
The modern PUPs is all cases should behave as if it is a Frugal that all of us users are accustomed.
Reason: You are using all the same files that the Frugal process uses...without modification. You are booting native PUPPY LInux.
I downloaded the Ventoy package ventoy-1.0.56-linux.tar.gz from their download location.
Used UExtract to UN-compress it.
Opened the UN-compressed location in Rox file manager to see it's contents.
Followed the directions here:www.ventoy.net/en/doc_linux_gui.html to install it to a USB flash drive.
I was running a 64bit Puppy version.
Clicked on the VentoyGUI.x86_64 file.
Made the correct location entries in the GUI.
The reason for my suggestion to add the SG2D ISO file to the /BOOTISOS folder is that on some of my older PCs, booting some modern PUPs did not boot to desktop when booting directly from the Ventoy menu.
If a boot problem occurs when attempting to boot directly from the Ventoy menu list, one can click the SG2D ISO file from the list and be assured that the PUP will boot to desktop from the list SG2D will give.
I read that to mean "options" which you wouldn't need any more than circumstances require; i.e. gpt for a very large USB-Stick with more partitions than ms-dos can handle; or UEFI if your Puppy didn't have it and you wanted to add it?
I boot from a USB connected hard drive.
It is a portable hard drive setup to connect to a USB port.
I set it up like you would for an internal drive.
Have several Puppy frugal installs.
A boot loader installed to boot them. Using Grub4dos boot loader. Have used Grub2 for the boot loader.
I do have secure boot disabled in the computers UEFI setup, so do not need the Puppy security key.
Having secure boot enabled in the UEFI setup, could be your booting issue, with external USB hard drive booting.
If the UEFI has legacy boot or CSM enable/disable settings. May need those enabled.
Lastly, I include the above list as "an example" of a working solution that works for me on several PCs. (One day, I will take a moment to upgrade Ventoy to its current version. Yes, it has a non-destructive upgrade feature in the Ventoy2Disk script.)
See this quote:
"SG2D ISO file will insure compatibility with PUPs & DOGs, no matter the platform. This means ALL PUPs, whether they are old PUPs or modern PUPs will be capable of being booted via their ISO file directly as if they are a Frugal installed PUP."
You are trying to hard to focus on the past. I do not recommend using older PUPs before Dec 2019 for SG2D. I hope you focus on where PUPs are today as they continue to add support for new files system, new hardware while maintaining compatibility with as much older as is possible.
@bigpup(function(script) script.previousElementSibling.href = script.dataset.baseurl + 'memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&un=' + encodeURIComponent(script.dataset.username); script.remove(); )(document.scripts[document.scripts.length - 1]); recommendation, I wholeheartedly agree with as once the PUP-DOG is booted to desktop, it may not have that Linux subsystem support built-in the PUP-DOG. ... FACT!. And @bigpup is clear that the exFAT support might not be built-into the PUP. That fact does not, though, interfere with the PUP's operation, nor does it introduce stability or system performance issues of any sort. He does NOT indicate that, either. PUP operations are exactly as the PUP developer produces.
These booter services do work and work well to boot ISO files, directly, while eliminating MANY of the issues newcomers and less experience users run into with USBs and the issues needed to build Frugals or FULL setup.
What evidence can you produce that support that claim by you? In my several years of observation, I find no such occurrence. If you have something please produce as there may be something that is deficient in a PUP. Let us examine what you have expressed, please.
Please be aware that these attempts at reducing boot issues across the board intend to allow any of us to go directly from ISO file downloaded, to booting to the ISO's desktop with no effort. The USB that a user builds, he does so ONLY ONCE in the USB's lifetime while he adds/deletes ISO file forever in the USB's future. No more issues related to creating media from an ISO/IMG download.
As mentioned in the forum, both of these boot services provide their own support, costing NO development time for PUP-DOG developers. Yes they provides simple solutions for seeing and booting the PUP-DOGs downloaded but at no expense to the community, at large.
AS is the case with everything, nothing is perfect. If you like what they offer, I'm sure you will take advantage for your needs. If its not a perfect match for you, as you mentioned, there are other ways to manage how and what you use to get your modern PUPs/DOGs to desktop. These are only 2 of them with little to no effort to boot a modern PUP-DOG.
What I learned:
-On slower (dual core) computers there is a substantial increase in boot time, probably due to the overhead of unpacking the .iso files
-The 1.5gb of portable Windows programs added several minutes to the boot time since Ventoy was
searching them for ISO's. This was fixed by putting a file named: .ventoyignore
in the directory containing the programs (blocks the directory and all sub-directories)
-If linux is booted by Ventoy, sdb1 cannot be mounted so no linux portable or .sfs files in that
partition can be used. Also, no save file can be saved there unless the Ventoy program
CreatePersistentImg.sh is run to create the persistence container file.
-The puppy savefile programs don't offer any alternate drive/partition locations for the savefile.
This can be changed, but it requires editing (one time edit) the file /etc/rc.d/PUPSTATE so PMEDIA='' before saving and then
requires editing the boot parameters to add psave=sdb3 on every boot to use the file.
-If Windows is booted by Ventoy, sdb1 is mounted and the portable programs can be accessed
-For my use I needed another partition with r/w capability for linux portable/.sfs programs or simply
a place to store or transport files.