Check out Ventoy! Unless you need a single ISO on the drive, it’s just something you install to it and then copy and paste ISOs to the folder on it. No flashing needed, it runs them for you. I’ve got 128GB drives almost filled with every ISO I could possibly want.
Also worth mentioning you can copy more files on it afterwards and it works as normal storage too.
Also worth noting, you should create file named
.ventoyignorein the directories with other files. Otherwise Ventoy searches everything which slows it down.
I have a durable metal ventoy usb on my keys with portable apps basically a walking IT dept, I mean I am a solo IT/Dev and I’m pretty basic so…hmmm
I need this, my local dollar store sells 32GB USB2 key for $5, I have one for MX, MX-AHS, MX32bits, antix, etc I have multiple 32GB keys with just 1 or 2 GB used, I will check this ventoy!
Wow this seems amazing, I could test so many things lol! Thanks for solving my problem :)
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It still works for installing the OS though, at least in the case of Nix. I’ve not tried Guix so far, but I’ve installed NixOS on two machines in the past year using Ventoy.
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Thought that said “Kalt” for a moment lmao
Yeah, look at image before title, wondered if it was a salt shaker and what language uses kalt for salt.
Hrm, USB stick salt shaker…
Why is everyone suggesting ventoy and stuff and no one is telling you to just reformat drives you no longer need? Or are they all live OSs in use? Am I missing something?
I mean, they clearly already know how to do a fresh image of a live OS on a USB key. But the number of keys involved sounds like they don’t know you only need one.
I’ve not tried netboot yet but that might also be a cool option for people who like to install new ISOs often. Ventoy gang for life, tho
What’s a use of USB sticks anyway outside of booting operating systems? They perform worse (or on par at best) than modern wifi adapters
I’m not sure about others but none of my computers support PXE boot over wifi.
That’s what I’m saying - booting OSes is the only legitimate use now unless you want to put stuff on an offline machine (eg installed Linux and need to put broadcom proprietary driver packages on it to be able to connect, cuz no access to an ethernet cable)
It’s a shame these never took off. I’d love for my various USB drives to have displays that show their labels and maybe even contents.
That’d make it highly file system dependent with no way of updating the firmware. All these drives stopped working after the FAT32->ExFAT switch.
Ventroy
Ventoy with 20% trojan possibility
