Brainstorm needed - beginning Linux - experimenting with distros

Hi,
Next year I want to start playing with Linux. The idea is to install multiple Linux distros on one drive (think all Fedora labs distros and more).
The problem is too much redundant data.
So I was thinking virtual machines, incremental images,...
I want also to play with some containers to understand what they are about.
The problem is that I don’t know exactly about what I’m thinking.
My background is - software (think Turbo Pascal/Delphi), big 20 years break, now try to get again to speed as a hobby.

So probably there is already a solution about what I want to achieve. Any ideas, pros and cons?

Start with building a ventoy USB thumb drive (easy, follow the signature link), and copying your live ISO images onto it. Then you can boot into any distribution you have on that thumb drive without installing on your hard drive. With that you can do testing and refine your options before even installing anything to your hard drive.

Not all distributions lend themselves equally to containerization, but most do. They need to be able to use a compatible kernel, since containers all have the same kernel in common. Any kernel since late version 3 should suffice.

You might consider using a conatainer based Linux as a base or hypervisor host, and installing other distributions under that as guest containers. Reviews of a few here https://www.infoworld.com/article/32...ontainers.html.

I hope that helps get you started, or at least provides some interesting reading material.

I already have a 256 Gb usb with YUMI (I assume ventoy is similar). The issues are slow boot (solvable) and not remembering what was done in a previous session (could allocate some non-volatile space for each distribution but it has to be done in advance and is kind of final).

From USB3 (or even most USB2) devices and small distribution images I do not find the boot speed to be a problem. It is certainly slower than booting form an SSD drive, but faster than some hard drives. (USB1 will work, but I HOPE you are not limited to those speeds!)

VENTOY and E2B are different from YUMI and SARDU, in that they do not require installation to the USB device. They do serve a similar function in a different way. Once the VENTOY USB device is set up you just COPY the ISO into place. You can then configure persistence if you wish. When you boot from the device you are presented with a menu, and can select which one you want to boot into.

it looks similar to docker, not VMs.

I find virtualbox (and osboxes.org) SUPER easy.
Takes only a few minutes to bring up any of dozens of popular distributions.

Let me know if this works for you.
Have you looked at distrowatch.com?

Anyways, welcome to LQ!!!