You can load up your USB stick with all the Linux distributions you want to try and then boot to them in sequence, without having to rewrite your stick each time or prepare multiple sticks. This all makes actually using Ventoy very easy, once it is installed on the stick. The ISO files are not unpacked or written to the stick, just stored there and opened by Ventoy on boot-up. When you boot to the USB, a selection screen allows you to choose the one you want to try out. Yes, that is plural: more than one ISO file can be added depending on the size of your USB stick. The exFAT partition is open so you can cut and paste ISO files into it using your file browser. In configuring the stick, it creates two partitions, one in exFAT format for the ISO files and one in FAT16 for Ventoy itself. This opens a graphical interface which allows you to install Ventoy on your chosen USB stick, not on your computer. You run the script it provides for your computer architecture, like x86. You download the program as a tar.gz compressed archive and then unpack it.
Then, you reboot your computer, select the USB drive and it loads, presenting a desktop when done. You install the application on your computer, then you download the ISO file for the distribution you want to try and use the application to unpack and write a single ISO file to a USB stick. Most ISO writers, like Ubuntu’s Startup Disk Creator and UNetbootin, work in the same basic way. Basically all of them are designed to take a downloaded Linux distribution ISO file and put it onto a USB drive, in a bootable form, so it can be tested out in a “live session” and optionally installed. Ventoy works quite differently from other USB writers.
It runs on Linux and Windows, but you won’t find it in the Ubuntu repositories. Ventoy is free software, released under the GPL 3+ license and is developed by Hailong Sun. You can support the site directly via Paypal donations ☕.
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