hello and welcome to bite my pie in the
beginning there was the live cd
and it was good then the distros said
let there be a live dvd
and it too was good thence came the live
usb
and it was very good enough with the
history lesson
but that brings us nicely to the
multi-boot usb drive
no doubt you've heard of this thing
called linux and if not perhaps it's
time to change that
just as windows and mac os are computer
operating systems
so too is linux but unlike its two more
mainstream peers
linux doesn't just come in a single form
instead it has many different versions
known as distributions or distros for
short
while this provides plenty of variety it
can also cause confusion amongst those
new to this open source operating system
what if there was an easy way to try
these linux distros on your current
computer
or without having to disturb its
existing os
that's where a multi-boot usb stick
comes in in this video we'll be setting
up
a single flash drive with a free and
open source program called ventoy
with nothing more than a simple copy and
paste this will enable us to add
multiple operating systems
and then try each one in turn so if this
sounds of interest to you
stick around
in order to start this project we're
going to need a usb
stick and a computer obviously once the
software is set up we'll be able to add
and remove operating systems at will
so when it comes to size within reason
the bigger the better
i'd also suggest using a usb 3 stick
as providing your computer supports it
this will run much faster
let's hop onto a computer and begin here
i am on windows 10
and i'm going to open the web browser
and search for ventoy
and it's this one we want ventoy.net
if we head to the downloads i'm going to
select the windows version
then scroll down a little bit to the
download link
and save that to my computer we're also
going to grab another program
this one's called gtk hash
it can be downloaded from sourceforge
but why use a third party when we can go
directly to the developers github
releases page
at the time of this recording the latest
version is 1.4
and i'm going to download the 64-bit
windows installer
once you've got that close the browser
tab but leave the ventoy download page
open
the reason for this is because gtk hash
is a file integrity checker
in other words it will allow us to check
that our downloads are not corrupted and
haven't been tampered with
so let's open file explorer and install
gtk hash
yes i do want to proceed click on next
and then click on install
once the installation is completed we
can close the setup wizard
then by typing gtk in the search box we
can launch the program
the way this works is when you've
downloaded a file from the internet
you click on file and browse for it so
here we've got the ventoy software
select it and click open and then click
the hash button
if we make the window a bit bigger so
that we can see all of the text
and then move it so that we can see
what's behind
we need to compare the windows hash
which is this long line of text here
with the equivalent line in gtk hash
we know it's the equivalent because both
of them are using the sha256 algorithm
so let's close the program and the web
page
okay we're ready to set up ventoy open
file explorer and browse to wherever you
saved the software
since it's a compressed zip file we need
to extract it first
right click and choose extract all and
then click on extract
from there double click on the ventoy
folder and then launch the ventoy to
disk application
yes i do want to do that if you haven't
already you need to connect your usb
stick to your computer
and if it's not showing up in the device
box click the refresh button
you can see that i've got a 64 gigabyte
kingston usb 3 stick
so plenty of room for multiple operating
systems
and with that selected let's click on
install
so be aware that this will wipe any
existing data on the flash drive
and if you're happy to continue click
yes
and because you can obviously never be
too cautious
click yes again to make sure
and that's it we've successfully set up
our usb
stick if we open up file explorer and
head to this pc
you can see that our usb stick now shows
up as ventoy
this will be the drive that we copy and
paste our operating systems onto
now that we're ready for action let's go
get the first distro
i'm going to start with ubuntu mate as
this is a great choice for a wide range
of systems
including computers with slightly older
hardware
if we go to the download section we need
to choose our type of hardware
for most of us this will be 64-bit pc or
mac
i'd recommend the latest long-term
support release
which is 2004 as this is supported until
2023
i'm going to go with the direct download
and save that to my downloads directory
i'll pause the video as at two and a
half gigabytes this may take a little
while
when that's completed scrolling down the
page we can find the verify you download
section
and here we have another sha256 checksum
let's open file explorer and check our
download
here's ubuntu mate which is a disk image
file
otherwise known as an iso you can think
of this
as a copy of everything that might
otherwise be stored on an optical disk
like a dvd
and it's these iso files that we need to
acquire
to copy to our usb stick but let's first
verify the integrity of the download
and we can do that by opening gtk hash
and then browsing for the ubuntu mate
iso file
once that's loaded click the hash button
the larger the file the longer this
process will take
once we have the generated algorithm we
can compare the two
and as you can see we have a perfect
match right let's return to file
explorer
and copy ubuntu mate then we can paste
it into the ventoy drive
even with usb3 this will still take a
while so again i'll pause the video and
come back when it's complete
now that i've got ubuntu mate on there
i'm going to close file explorer
and restart the computer
as your computer restarts you need to
tap the relevant key to enter its boot
menu
if it doesn't have a boot menu tap the
key to enter the uefi or bios instead
once you've found where to choose the
boot device select your usb
stick from the list if you get this
message
don't worry it just means that we need
to disable secure boot
which is primarily a windows component
in order to do that press enter to
select ok
and if you're not already in the
computer's uefi or bios
enter it now unfortunately not all setup
utilities are created equal
and the layout of yours will most likely
differ from this one
but you need to find the section where
secure boot is located
and from there disable it once you've
done that you need to save your changes
and exit re-enter the boot menu once
more
and select the usb stick again and all
being well you should now see the ventoy
boot screen at the moment as to be
expected we just have the one entry for
ubuntu mate
along the bottom of the screen we have a
few extra options
pressing f1 before choosing your
operating system is an interesting one
however for our purposes this will be
largely redundant
so press f1 again to deselect it f2
gives us some power options
but as we've only just got here i'm
going to press escape to return to the
previous screen
f3 provides a tree view if you like that
sort of thing
i'm going to press enter to return to
the list view
f4 for local boot does what it says on
the tin
so this would allow us to boot from the
computer's internal drive
again or back out of there pressing f5
takes us to tools from here we can
change the keyboard layout
or the screen resolution you can even
alter the display mode
vent or uefi utilities is one to be
aware of
if you ever experience a b1 initialized
library failed error message when trying
to boot an iso
in this situation running fix up windows
b1 initialized library failure
and then trying the iso again should
hopefully fix the issue
let's return to the previous menu the
check plugin json configuration section
is a more advanced feature if you'd like
to read up on this have a look on the
ventoy website's plugin page i've put a
link in the description
i'm just going to press escape to exit
out of there
and then again to return to the main
menu and then f6
ex menu stands for the ventoy menu
extension plugin
this is another relatively advanced
feature designed to allow you to create
your own menu
i've also included a link in the video
description to ventoy's relevant web
page if you'd like to read more about
this
let's press enter to exit out of there
right now that we've familiarized
ourselves with ventoy's interface
let's boot the distro and we can do that
by pressing enter to select it
and here we have the desktop complete
with a welcome screen
when you finish taking it out for a spin
you can restart the system
from the power button on the main menu
and when this message pops up remove the
usb
stick and press enter we're going to
boot back into windows and get another
distro
okay so if one of ubuntu mate's greatest
strengths
lies in its ability to resurrect older
hardware perhaps one of this next
distro's biggest benefits is its ease of
use
particularly for those new to linux so
let's fire up the web browser
and search for linux mint
and it's this one we want linuxmint.com
i'm going to head to the downloads
section and get
the cinnamon edition this is linux
mint's principal desktop environment
if you scroll down the page you can
choose a download mirror
at a location that's closest to you so
i'll pick one from the united kingdom
and save that to my downloads directory
while it's downloading if we scroll back
up to the top of the screen
and click on verify your iso we'll
select the version we're downloading
which should be the latest one in my
case 20.1
and then click on this sha256sum.txt
file i'll pause the video until the
download is complete
right if we open our gtk hash utility
and click on file we can open the linux
mint download
and then click on hash
so we can now compare our sha256 output
to the corresponding line on the web
page and all being well it's an exact
match
if this wasn't the case you should
download the file again perhaps choosing
a different mirror
but as my downloads intact i can close
out of there
make sure that your vent or usb stick is
connected to your computer
and then open file explorer we need to
browse to our downloads directory
and copy and paste linux mint
onto the ventoy drive i'll pause the
video once more and come back when the
process is complete
with the distro copied to the usb drive
let's restart the computer
enter your computer's boot menu or uefi
bios
and boot from your usb stick
so now just by copying and pasting that
second iso file onto our ventoy drive
we have two distros to choose from let's
press
enter to select linux mint
and then press enter again to start it
you can see right away that this has a
much more familiar looking layout
with a taskbar along the bottom and a
menu in the lower left corner
take it for a test drive and when you're
done you'll find
restart by clicking the power button on
the menu
remove your usb stick as instructed and
press enter to reboot into windows
the final linux distribution i'm going
to add to my multi-boot usb stick
is ubuntu being the operating system
many other flavors of linux are based on
including as you probably guessed ubuntu
mate but also linux mint
ubuntu is arguably best suited to
business or office use
offering both a solid base and long-term
support releases
so let's open a web browser and head
to ubuntu.com
and then to the downloads section at the
time of this recording
20.10 is the most recent version but i'm
going to get 20.04
as this is an lts or long-term support
release
offering five years of updates
save that to my downloads directory
being another large download i'll pause
the video and come back when it's
complete
once that's finished leave the web page
open and launch
gtk hash we'll click on
file and select the ubuntu download
and then click on hash
if we move that out of the way a little
bit and then click on verify your
download
we'll need to click on the gtk hash icon
on the taskbar to bring it back into
view
and then compare the two sha256
checksums
if you download ok you can close the
open windows
and launch file explorer and then copy
the ubuntu iso into the ventoy usb drive
let's pause the video until that's
complete
before rebooting the computer to try out
ubuntu
i'll quickly demonstrate how easy it is
to remove an iso you no longer require
let's say i've finished evaluating
ubuntu mate
simply right click on the disk image
file and select delete
confirm that's what you want to do and
there you have it the iso is gone
right let's reboot the computer
as before be sure to boot from your usb
stick
and as you can see we now have a new
entry for ubuntu
20.04 and the previous entry for linux
mint
ubuntu mate has gone so let's boot
ubuntu
as we're starting to see lots of linux
distros have the option to try them
without making any changes to your pc
which is what makes our multi boot usb
stick so useful but if you later decide
you've had enough of windows
never-ending updates and would like to
switch over to linux
you also have the option to install the
operating system onto your computer
but i'm just going to click on try
ubuntu to proceed
and here we have the ubuntu desktop in
linux parlance this is what's known as
the gnome desktop
and as you've no doubt noticed already
the layout is considerably different
from windows
but don't let that put you off you'll
find the included software by clicking
the applications icon at the bottom left
corner of the screen
you can click it again to exit and when
you've finished having a play around you
can click the power button at the top
right
to do a restart
then remove the usb stick and press
enter to continue
now that you're familiar with the ventoy
multi boot usb
process go fill your boot if you're not
sure what other linux distros to
try i'd suggest taking a peek at both
peppermint os
and manjaro there's a link to each of
them in the video description
it's also well worth paying
distrowatch.com a visit
as this lists the top 100 distros
i'd like to take a look at one last
operating system
this is not a distro at all but it is
available as an iso file
i'm talking about microsoft windows so
let's open a web browser
and search for windows 10 media creation
tool
and it's this download windows 10 disk
image iso file link that we want
if we scroll down the page we can
download the tool now
and save it to our computer when you've
got that you can close the web browser
and open file explorer and locate the
media creation tool
yes we do want to run that
accept the license
and then choose the option to create
installation media
if you want to change any of these
selections untick this box to do so
or leave them as they are and click next
to continue
select the iso file and click next again
and then choose where you want to save
it to unlike the linux distros we've
looked at
windows doesn't have a live boot mode so
why then are we downloading it
even though windows has to be installed
in order to use it
it's still worthwhile keeping a copy of
it on the vento
usb stick imagine heaven forbid that
your computer's hard drive was to fail
assuming you wanted to continue down the
microsoft path
once the drive was replaced you would
need a copy of windows to get up and
running again
if you only had a single pc this would
create a catch-22 type of situation
but with the windows iso already on a
usb stick
you could simply reinstall it as you can
see this is a lengthy process so i'll
pause the video and return when it's
finished
great that's done so click on finish and
make sure the vent or usb stick is
connected to your computer
then we're going to copy the windows iso
file
and paste it onto our usb drive
again this will take some time so i'll
pause the video once more
there we have it nearly five gigabytes
of windows goodness
i'm not going to reinstall the operating
system right now as i don't want to mess
up my pc
but let's restart and make sure that we
can at least boot into the windows
installer
so as per usual select your usb stick as
the boot device
and from then toys menu i'm going to
choose windows
and look at that the windows setup
wizard now that we know it's working i'm
going to exit
out of there the final thing i want to
look at is update
if we open the web browser and return to
ventoy's website
head to the downloads section and
compare the latest release
now this hasn't changed since the last
time i downloaded it
but if there was a new version you'd
download it to your computer
and run gtk hash to compare the file
checksums
then you'd extract the downloaded
software and then make sure that your
vent or usb
stick was connected to your computer
before running ventoy to disk
from there you'd check that the correct
usb stick was selected
and then you'd see the latest version of
ventoy that you just downloaded
and the version currently on your device
as we already knew it would be this is
currently the latest version
but i'll go through the rest of the
procedure anyway so you'd click on
update to continue
and then click on yes
and that's it your vento or usb stick
would then be up to date
that brings us to the end of this video
as well as iso files apparently ventoy
works with other formats
the program's website also states that
it supports most types of operating
system
so now there's no excuse for not
exploring what else is out there besides
the more mainstream solutions that
usually come pre-installed
get ready because a whole new world of
possibilities awaits
as always if you enjoyed this video
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thanks for watching and until next time
take care
[Music]
you