this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2025
185 points (98.4% liked)

Linux

53840 readers
1340 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
nooter692@lemmy.ml
AgreeableLandscape@lemmy.ml
MarcellusDrum@lemmy.ml
cypherpunks@lemmy.ml
cyclohexane@lemmy.ml
d3Xt3r@lemmy.nz
185
Progress update on the Ventoy blob problem (github.com)
submitted 3 days ago by fnrir@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/linux@lemmy.ml
39 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Posting this since quite a bit has changed since I last posted about this on !technology@lemmy.world.

Here's a rough breakdown of the current status:

  • shared Ventoy components: build and seem to work, needs more testing
    • grub / menu - builds
    • EDK II apps / UEFI chainloader and more - builds
    • iPXE / BIOS chainloader - builds, with fixes for newer toolchains
    • ISO9660 and UDF drivers - TODO
  • Ventoy CPIO / Linux ramdisk: builds; I deemed musl xzcat unneeded, so I skipped it; needs more testing
  • wimboot / Windows chainloader (?) - stalled, I lack the necessary knowledge to work on it
  • geom-ventoy / FreeBSD disk mapping kernel module - is being worked on, slowly; not ready for testing
  • anything else is a TODO

This should be enough to boot Linux with just what's built manually, but I haven't tried that yet.

Secure Boot is just done by using a pre-built bypass package. I'll deal with that later.

Having more people testing this would be nice. :)

Cheers

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] arsCynic@beehaw.org -4 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Got over my laziness
dd will do
stopped using Ventoy
suggesting others to do so too.

[–] mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 day ago

Well you can ditch etcher or rufus with dd, but not ventoy since i carry around like 5 distros in a usb

[–] electric_nan@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Can you use dd to create multiboot USB drives? Even the link you shared lists Ventoy as an option.

[–] arsCynic@beehaw.org 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

"Can you use dd to create multiboot USB drives?"

No. But in my case that's just a minor inconvenience considering the infrequency of having to use a live USB. And at work I just use separate USBs for wiping drives and OS installs. I much prefer the peace of mind that comes with knowing there's no Ventoy blob that could potentially infect all its installed operating systems with malware.

In any case, it seems it is possible to manually make a multiboot USB drive manually. Haven't tried it yet though.

"Even the link you shared lists Ventoy as an option."

I know. I simply linked that website because it's where I learned dd from and because for novices it might be less overwhelming than the Arch Wiki.

[–] demunted@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago

Clearly you are not the target audience. For IT pros and tech enthusiasts regularly rebuilding machines and running numerous diagnostic tools from boot, the ability to quickly bootstrap a machines is a massive timesaver. dd is slower and may mean carrying around a lot of usb sticks, something these people all graduated from.