Software >

(on Wikipedia)
https://github.com/ventoy/Ventoy
https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html

Used for booting multiple distributions from a USB stick.

Reportedly does not support pre-UEFI distributions such as Puppy Linux‘s Legacy Builds. For those, use MultiBootUSB.

See also:

• Making a USB stick bootable

---

• 2023-10-24 – 1.0.96 on Windows 11
• 2022-07-31 – 1.0.79 on Windows 11
• 2022-04-08 – 1.0.73 on Windows 10
• 2021-10-29 – 1.0.57 on Windows 10
• 2021-07-16 – 1.0.46 on Windows 10
• 2021-06-05 – 1.0.45 on Windows 10
• 2021-02-12+ – 1.0.35 on Windows 10
• 2021-02-12 – 1.0.34

• I used to use MultiBootUSB

2021-02-12+ – 1.0.35 ∞

Some other notes..

• Blue background “Just a moment” seems to take forever!
• Tried from scratch, noticed there were four partitions that ended up being created, and yet I saw three were scheduled.

• This second time worked!

—

• .. from here on I’ll only add links to places which have notes that appear to be specific to Ventoy.

• 2021-02-15 – devuan_beowulf_3.1.0_amd64_desktop-live

  • Persistence works.

• 2021-02-14 – lubuntu-18.10-desktop-amd64

  • Persistence works.
• Using a Windows 10 ISO seems to work, although I have not attempted an install.

• 2021-02-14 – ubuntu-20.04.2.0-desktop-amd64

  • Persistence works.

The developers say an older version of Ubuntu worked with persistence, so I tested it with a newer version.

Usage and troubleshooting ∞

Persistence ∞

https://ventoy.net/en/plugin_persistence.html

Simplified instructions TODO

• use plugson
• 127.0.0.1:24681/index.html#plugson_conf_replace
• Absolute path X:\path\to\lubuntu-24.04-desktop-amd64.iso
• org /boot/grub/grub.cfg

• new X:\path\to\lubuntu-24.04-desktop-amd64.grub.cfg

Now edit X:\path\to\lubuntu-24.04-desktop-amd64.grub.cfg and add this example content:

set default=0
set timeout=-1

menuentry "Try Lubuntu without installing" {
    set gfxpayload=keep
    linux /casper/vmlinuz boot=casper noprompt quiet splash persistent ---
    initrd /casper/initrd
}

menuentry "Install Lubuntu" {
    set gfxpayload=keep
    linux /casper/vmlinuz boot=casper only-ubiquity quiet ---
    initrd /casper/initrd
}

Boot into Lubuntu

control-alt-t to open a terminal

sudo featherpad /etc/sddm.conf

Delete [autologin] and the content under it. A fresh install will only have a few lines that you should comment-out.

[Autologin]
#User=Lubuntun
#Session=Lubuntu

Logout

• At the top-left, Session: [Lubuntu]

• At the login box, click and just press enter. You’ll have to set a password at the commandline with passwd

right-click the desktop > Open in Terminal

# Set a password. The default is empty, when prompted for your password, just press enter.
passwd

At the taskbar at the bottom, on the right, click to specify your wireless network.

Extending the persistence file ∞

https://ventoy.net/en/plugin_persistence.html#extend_persistet_file

sudo bash ExtendPersistentImg.sh  datfile extend_size_mb

For example:

sudo bash ExtendPersistentImg.sh  persistent.dat 2048

• That means extend persistent.dat by 2048MB (+2GB), if the old size is 4GB (4,294,967,296 bytes), then it will grow to 6GB after you extend it.

• 4GB (4,294,967,296 bytes) + 61440 = 64GB

[Cannot] – Mounting the Ventoy partition ∞

https://forums.ventoy.net/showthread.php?tid=130

You can’t mount /dev/sdx1 rw because a device mapper is created based on the ISO files in sdx1, and this will make /dev/sdx1 readonly and busy.

The semi-workaround is that during install you have Ventoy create a spare/blank partition which you can work with from within a booted ISO.