Ways To Try Out Multiple Linux Distros On A Multiboot USB Drive?

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Guest

Guest
Hey guys, it's been a while since I posted on here and I wanted to know
how to put multiple linux distros on my flash drive? I got a 64GB flash
drive I want to put them on but I need some way to put them on besides
using multibooting software like YUMI, MultiBootUSB or SARDU for Linux, they're
either outdated & don't support the latest versions of those linux distros like
Linux Mint 17.2 or have some glitches in them like when I installed Linux Mint using
SARDU, & upon loading the desktop icons, I saw that the "Install Linux Mint" icon was
changed to "Install SARDU", & the same was for MultiBootUSB except it said "Install."
I tried YUMI for linux & it turned out that it was never updated at all, it's still on it's first
version and when I launched it, it only supported earlier versions of linux distros such
as Ubuntu 13.10, & I couldn't install linux mint 17.2 with it either. Is there another way
I can do this? Like have GRUB on my flash drive & put different OS'es through there?

P.S. What recommended filesystems should I use for my flash drive? FAT32? ext4?
 
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nayrnayr1

nayrnayr1

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Aug 8, 2015
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http://www.howtogeek.com/191054/how-to-create-bootable-usb-drives-and-sd-cards-for-every-operating-system/
 
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IONovasTech

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Nov 15, 2015
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Multiboot USBs especially with Linux distros is... weird, to say the least. What I mean is that you should really know what you're getting into before you do it. However, I'm not going to deter you from doing it, so here's how i would do it:

Get an ISO burning program like UNetBootin. This works on windows and linux, and i think mac too. However, for a much faster experience, I would use Rufus (but that is windows only, unless you want to compile from source.)

Use a partition manager like the win32 hard disk manager or GParted on linux to create separate partitions for each distro install. For linux distro install partitions, use ext3 or ext4 (FAT* and others will work, it just helps to be sure). Otherwise (Windows or MacOS install) IMHO it shouldn't matter.

Finally, burn the images to their respective partitions of choice to the USB and boot them from the machine. Assuming you selected partitions that the BIOS "agrees" with, it should go smoothly.

A word of warning: please, please, I cannot STRESS this enough, please: make sure you boot from the right partition. It may not immediately wreck everything you've ever known and loved about the computer, but you should always know exactly what you're booting into.
 
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skittle

skittle

Splendid
Dec 27, 2006
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Finally, burn the images to their respective partitions of choice to the USB and boot them from the machine. Assuming you selected partitions that the BIOS "agrees" with, it should go smoothly.
Click to expand...

This will not work unless you have a boot manager like grub or syslinux installed to point to the partitions. If you are already at the point where you have installed grub or syslinux then you can skip the extra partitions and just make an extra entry in the grub/syslinux config file that points to each iso
 
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G

Guest

Guest
Ok thank you. It might be a weird option. But it's a versatile option that I prefer compared to multiple flash drives or burning CD/DVDs since I'd have to always update the OS every time.
 
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G

Guest

Guest
Interesting. I might try that but if that doesn't work for me, then I'll just use multiple flash drives instead.
I don't think I'll go with multiple partitions, that sounds like a pain to always update the distros each time.
 
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