Trying to Create Bootable USB X3 Partitions With Testing Distros
 

Can I have 3 different bootable Linux distro each on their own partitions on 1 USB thumbdrive, but what would happen when you insert the thumbdrive? Would a boot menu load first asking the user which partition you would like to start from?

I would like to eliminate any extra steps so that I can just plug in the thumbdrive and it goes into an autoloader mode to install the Linux distro, but a simple boot menu as described above is fine besides anything else further. Will this be possible and how much space would I need for this per partition, per Linux distro?

And with a new USB - (SanDisk Ultra Luxe 32GB USB 3.1 SDCZ74-032G-G46) after reformatting to EXT4 for these partitions will I be wiping away any vital Linux drivers or kernels that would prevent me from doing the set up what I’ve described above? thanks in advance for your advice.

I haven't tried it myself but you might want to consider Pendrive Linux which allows you to add multiple distro isos to the stick then boot to a menu allowing you to select which to run. Probably worth reading some of there blurb to familiarise yourself with what it actually does.

Play Bonny!

:hattip:

Hello Bondppq,

Welcome to linuxquestions.

I second Soadyheid's suggestion : pendrivelinux.com has a utility called "Your Universal Multiboot Installer" ("YUMI" for short). It enables you to load up a USB drive with multiple live and / or installable linux distros. Works with a simple menu system at boot.

I still use it regularly.

Cheers,

Rick

A 32GB usb wouldn't be big enough for a full install of three distros. would have to use something like pendrive that has already been mentioned or ventoy https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html to boot multiple isos.

ok thanks for all these good suggestions, I'm looking into Ventoy and Pendrive now and lastly @colorpurple - how big of a USB stick do I need if 32gb's isn't big enough for 3 partitions holding a distro install each?

Bondppq,

If you actually mean installing full, working versions of distros on a USB drive, the answer would depend in part on the distros, but if I understand correctly, you would then be using the USB drive as a kind of external hard drive .... Each install would be configured to the computer on which it was executed, so it would not be a portable solution.

Most folks simply choose to install bootable live versions of distros on removeable media. YUMI from Pendrivelinux (and perhaps Ventoy, with which I am unfamiliar) lets you do this easily. With a 32GB USB drive, you could easily set up more than 3 distros to boot live from. I remember having 5 or 6 on a 16GB USB drive several years ago ...

Cheers,

Rick

It mostly depends on what you are going to do with the distros. For testing purposes, the minimum size partition would be about 30GB for each distro, for more than just testing I would shoot for at least 40-50GB, plus a swap partition.

Just to be clear - I don’t want to run a Linux distro off of the USB thumb drive as a daily workstation, I want to just plug the USB into many different computers to autoload install full versions of different Linux distros into different computers.

Will Ventoy or PenDrive do what I have just described? …or does it act as “only” a portable Linux op system working off of a USB drive? I’m trying to understand the true purpose of it, or maybe it acts as both?

And with Ventoy I don’t actually need to have 3 different partitions with 1 distort in each to load into other computers, I can have just 1 partition and have multiple Linux distro autoloaders on it right?

Yes, Ventoy or PenDrive is what you want to use and the 32gb usb is plenty big enough.

Ventoy will create two partitions on the usb, first partition for file storage of the isos, the second for boot files needed to boot on different computer systems.

Again, I won't comment on Ventoy - never used it. But YUMI from pendrivelinux configures the USB drive to boot any of the distros you've set up on it on any computer. You can then just run the booted distro "live" (usually to test or perform simple tasks not requiring saving any information) or install it on the hard drive of the computer you've booted on. As colorpurple mentioned, this sounds like what you're looking for.

Cheers,

Rick

I'm using Windows at the moment (hate it) reformatted my new USB to EXT4 using Eassos DiskGenius. Then installed Ventoy on it which reformatted the USB back to FAT (I guess that's why I had to download the Windows version of Ventoy) but Ventoy did not create 2 partitions. I'm missing the smaller boot menu drive and not sure why that happened. I have copy-pasted 2 distros on to the main drive but now still can't boot from it. What happened and what to do now?

On a windows system you won't see the second partition, only the partition that isos go in. What steps are you using to boot the usb and what happens.

but shouldn't I be able to see the 2nd created boot disk when I search for it under My PC which should show all disk drives on the computer? I don't see it there.

I found a good video on YouTube which I followed through step-by-step and when I came to 5:59 min in the video, I don't see this Grub-created Ventoy boot menu, my Windows 10 just reboots.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuonyS3xdwg

I need to force the computer to boot from the USB but I don't think the boot menu is there to do it?

I've not used Ventoy but some of this software requires(prefers) vfat on the USB drive. It doesn't matter if you are using windows or another OS. A Linux iso can be booted from a drive with any filesystem on it because you are booting an iso9660 so it's not the iso but what the developers of the software(Ventoy) did.

As mentioned above, with flash drives windows will only show one partition which should be the first partition on the USB. Again, as suggested, more details on what happens when you try to boot. Do you see a black screen? A screen with a blinking cursor, any error messages?

Not sure what you mean by 'autoload'? If you set the USB to first boot priority in your BIOS firmware, when it boots you may see an option to either Try/Test or to install. When you(the user) makes a selection to install, you will get different options. Should alway be an Erase and install option and a manual install option and if other OS's are detected, you will see an install alongside option.

okay so I was finally able to just now successfully install Ubuntu 22.04.2 Linux Lite 6.4.iso onto this small Asus TS10 VivoStick which has only 32 gb's HD on it. The Deepin' says it needed 64 gb's for an install, not sure why so much, it's crazy so I wasn't able to install my preferred distro.

I could not have done this install without this YouTube tutorial - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuonyS3xdwg which gives a good and "real" step-by-step through the BIOS menus and blue screens. You can't just plug-in a USB and expect it to load up and its as simple as that. It doesn't work that way despite what people or YouTube says, there are these blue screen menu steps involved.

I am more than thrilled that I now have a viable route to get away from Windows forever. And now for some reason the 2nd boot menu loader E drive was showing up in Windows when it wasn't before.

Does anybody know how to permanently shutoff any and all automatic updates of all programs in Ubuntu? Does anybody here use Ubuntu and know how? I am a staunch non-believer in updates, I shut them off in all computers and PDA's I have. Windows auto-updates is what got me into this flooding of these small hard drives to begin with.

I don't know which final (or combo-of) distro(s) I will choose to put on these 4 mini-PC systems. I have 9 distros loaded onto this 1 USB partition now with Ventoy to explore. But my choices will be barebones, superlight systems with zero bloatware as I only use these mini-PC's to run a stock trading platform called Think or Swim and I don't use them for anything else. I use a Mac for my workhorse.