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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Personally I use Ventoy
Basically I can just throw a whole bunch of ISOs on a USB drive and when I boot it it brings me to a menu to pick which one I want to boot
It's freaking great
I've got various windows ISOs and Linux distros just living on a 64GB flash drive
Ventoy is great. It was a bit confusing when I first ran into it. It installed, but I didn't know what happened. Lmao. I think I installed it like 10 times because it wasn't telling me what it did, but then the light bulb went off. Aaaaaah. I was trying to install windows on a laptop and it was being a bitch on the USB stick, and Ventoy made it work.
It must have gotten better than the last time I tried to use Ventoy. Maybe 5 years ago? It kept complaining that the USB drive I was using was bad when it worked completely fine with other tools.
It has gotten a lot better over the years
That was basically my first experience with it as well also about 5 years ago
Nowadays it works like a dream come true for every OS I've thrown on the drive
~~I tried a couple of months ago on my Windows PC and something went wrong somewhere and my USB was stuck in a permanent read-only state.~~
~~I definitely will give it another try though, it's super handy to have.~~
I'm an idiot and got Ventoy confused with another program I was testing at the time. Please ignore me.
Was it VampBoy? I accidentally ordered one and opened the crate to find a sexy, undead Twink. ☹️ I wanted to nerd-out with Linux!!!
Best way to have a bootable USB
Huh, never tried it. It has persistent storage? Updates? Security?
I'm currently using MX Linux for my Persistent, Live USB of choice, but apparently I need to check out Ventoy?
Any "How To" that doesn't just use Rufus isn't worth the page its text is rendered on. Rufus can do Linux boot disks, but is indispensable for Windows boot disk utilities. It's one of the only ways I know of to make a Windows ToGo installation (equivalent of a Linux Live USB), which I used to install Windows on a friends SD card for their Steam Deck so they can dual-boot.
If you're looking to make a Linux boot USB from Linux itself, BalenaEtcher is probably a better bet since Rufus is Windows-only.
https://github.com/balena-io/etcher
I've noticed there's tons of how-to's for making a bootable disk on Windows, hardly any for Linux. Perhaps we ought to remedy that?
Ventoy for life
Arch currently doesn't work with it :c
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/USB_flash_installation_medium#Using_ventoy
Note: archlinux-2024.05.01-x86_64.iso should be run in GRUB2 mode to work. See Ventoy issue #2825.
I thought I tried that too, but I'll try again then lol
For Linux you don't need a GUI tool, most how tos just dd the ISO onto the USB medium, e.g.
sudo dd if= of= bs=16M status=progress oflag=sync
like described in the Debian FAQs
Man, Google really does suck now. It feels nearly impossible to get something like a how-to deep in the Debian FAQs to come up, as it mostly surfaces this auto-generated SEO crap for How To's.
Very cool, I'd assumed there was a simple command line set of commands, just was failing to find it. Thanks.
I don't remember where, but i read that this method only works because linux distributors "abuse" the ISO format to allow this. If I remember right, it's not possible to use this ISOs on regular disks
Of course the command you provided is right and it's what I use, it's just a fun fact
Yes and no, it's the other way round. The ISOs often are hybrid images which you can burn onto a CD/DVD or dd onto a USB pen drive. Until approximately 10-15 years ago, if I remember correctly, the distributed Linux ISOs where standard not hybrid images, thus you always needed some other program to create bootable USB media.
some distros have it built into it like Mint I was able to create a bookable drive of also mint
Neat, I wasn't aware of that for Mint.
I think I destroyed a USB stick back in the day doing this shit. be careful they don't lock the stick and if they do make sure you use the program to wipe the stick ASAP before you forget what program you used to make it.
I have a ventoy stick for this exact reason, just copy iso to stick, no need to burn a new one every time.
It's one of the only ways I know of to make a Windows ToGo installation (equivalent of a Linux Live USB),
You can also use WinToUSB for that btw. Yet another option is to install Windows to a VHD file (using a virtual machine, or using Disk2VHD to convert an existing install), then copy it to your USB, and make it bootable using Ventoy. The latter option is more useful, since with Ventoy you could have multiple other Linux ISOs (or other OS/rescue images) all on a single, portable drive.
Yet another option is to install Windows to a VHD file (using a virtual machine, or using Disk2VHD to convert an existing install), then copy it to your USB, and make it bootable using Ventoy
Neat, I saw Ventoy in here, but wasn't entirely sure about it until you mentioned this. Initially, I assumed it was what it said on the tin but just for Linux ISOs. Very cool you can finagle a Windows live install on there as well.
the only piece of software i really miss on linux is rufus, by far.
Gnome Disks Util. select mounted drive, go to top right and choose restore image
I tried Windows ToGo on a few USB keys (including two high-speed ones), never managed to get something I could actually use that was not laggy AF, to the point it's not usable (dozens of minutes to boot, lags of entire minutes and so on). Did I do something wrong?
Uh yeah OK, I doubt anyone in c/linux didn't know how to do this already
I will say, as someone who has been looking for a simple way to install Linux on my Windows desktop at home, this is incredibly useful. Doubly so as I'm not very experienced with installing OS's and Linux can look very intimidating to an outsider looking in!
I stand corrected then - welcome aboard! Linux is much easier to get into now than even just 5 years ago.
ZDNet content is 100% worthless these days.
Has been for a few years now.
If you're already on linux there is no need to install special tools. Simply copy the iso directly to the USB device.
dd if=distribution.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=1M && sync
You can do the same with cp too. Also safer.
But I use Ventoy nowadays.
oflag=sync also works instead of && sync. Might as well drop a status=progress in there too
I use Rufus. It just works.
I kept seeing so many different ones recommended and I kept getting weird issues I didn't understand with most of them. I don't often need to make a bootable Linux USB, but every time, Rufus did the job quick and easy.
No shit I think flashing ISOs is now fine that we have Impression, Fedora Media writer und the KDE Usb flash tool.
But how the hell do you install Tails? May have to do that again, but last times it was never bootable.
I would like to install a distro on a USB stick, without it doing something stupid to my internal drive's EFI.
I use Balena Etcher.
Popsicle for me, not a fan of electron.