Ventoy VS netboot.xyz

Ventoy is an open-source tool to create a bootable USB drive for ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI files. Using Ventoy, we can create live USB for multiple distros in one flash disk. This is a revolutionary feature compared to other tools, e.g., Etcher, Rufus, etc, that can only create one live USB at a time. This tool is so important. Don't call yourself a distro hopper if you don't know this tool.

I'm thinking you mean Ventoy? They say they can load vhd and img files, though I've only tried ISO's myself.

https://www.ventoy.net/

View on GitHub

I faced it too. There is a PR on the ventoy GitHub repository that fixes Proxmox boot.

https://github.com/ventoy/Ventoy/actions/runs/7088423200

> While this works, I find this method a bit tedious to use, at least compared to Ventoy [0].

I find ventoy more tedious, because you can't use it on your hard drive with a sane partitioning scheme.

The only reason is because of how the ventoy detection hardcode the partition boundaries in its checks, and it means Ventoy can only run with the partitions set in a way that may lead to alignment issues like write-amplification: I've detailed that in https://github.com/ventoy/Ventoy/issues/1342

Ideally I'd have a 10G partition after the EFI (or it could even be the EFI itself) with a few ISOs for rescue purposes + a UEFI entry to avoid having to use a bootable USB, but that's not possible with Ventoy unless I accept Ventoy choices of partition boundaries:

                (pMBR->PartTbl[0].StartSectorId != 2048 ||

I downloaded and made a bootable USB Ventoy (https://www.ventoy.net) with its Windows GUI app in my updated 64-bit W10 Pro PC. However, I couldn't seem to get VirtualBox v7.0.12 to boot it. I read VirtualBox can boot from bootable USB flash sticks so it should work. Am I missing something?

So, yes. The installer will need to install grub to that first partition. You can install ventoy to a usb drive, put a windows iso there and your q4os iso. In case you mess up big time, you can reinstall windows.

I learned about https://netboot.xyz/ the other day. Worked fantastic when I didn't have a big enough thumb drive. Not exactly the same though.

I replied to a reply of yours with this same info, but since you’re both sorta asking the same thing, I’ll post it here for you also.

https://netboot.xyz/

https://github.com/netbootxyz/netboot.xyz

Knew about http://netboot.xyz, but had no idea iVentoy existed. Good to know.

Set the computer to PXE boot, or use a boot image with iPXE (such as netboot.xyz). That would quickly rule out a problem with Debian or the Linux kernel (at least until you download and boot one). I don't know anything about your network setup, but making sure DHCP is enabled on your router and there are enough unreserved IP addresses would probably help.

Hey thanks for the detailed response. You're saying you boot FCOS on bare metal over PXE, correct? I've thought about trying that approach, but have little experience with PXE and TFTP. I just checked out netboot.xyz and it looks surprisingly easy to get going. Last time I played around with PXE I used Synology's TFTP server and, while I got it working, I was more confused by the end than when I started. I think actually learning PXE end-to-end and understanding what I am doing there would be a solid foundation for building my environment the right way.

For netbooting we rely on a netboot.xyz inspired ipxe based setup.

[[UPDATE]]: The fix was as 'simple' as going into the 'bios', and selecting 'add a boot option', which automatically came up with the correct EFI file/path, then putting it at the top of the boot order. 'Simple' it wasn't, many new and temporary instances brought online while digging my way through it all, and finally just going with a brand new Debian Bookworm and migrating my data over from the old disk file. At least I learned a lot about recovering from this weird circumstance. The incorrect EFI file/path must be an artifact of using netboot.xyz to install Deb Bookworm over a previously provisioned Ubuntu instance. Makes sense I guess. Still loving netboot.xyz as a super fast way to spin up an unsupported OS.

I learned about GRML only a few years ago. Absolutely love the mixture of power and minimalism. Here is the only ISO which increases my mileage even more: https://netboot.xyz