Geek Software of the Week: Ventoy!
Here’s a handy utility to turn you USB stick into a quick install tool!
Ventoy is an open source tool to create bootable USB drive for ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI files.
With Ventoy, you don’t need to format the disk over and over, you just need to copy the ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI files to the USB drive and boot them directly.
You can copy many files at a time and Ventoy will give you a boot menu to select them (see screenshot).
x86 Legacy BIOS, IA32 UEFI, x86_64 UEFI, ARM64 UEFI and MIPS64EL UEFI are supported in the same way.
Most types of OS supported (Windows/WinPE/Linux/Unix/VMware/Xen…)
100% open source (license)
Very simple to use (Get started)
Fast (limited only by the speed of copying iso file)
Can be installed in USB/Local Disk/SSD/NVMe/SD Card
Directly boot from ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI files, no extraction needed
No need to be continuous in disk for ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI files
Both MBR and GPT partition style are supported
x86 Legacy BIOS, IA32 UEFI, x86_64 UEFI, ARM64 UEFI, MIPS64EL UEFI supported
IA32/x86_64 UEFI Secure Boot supported
Persistence supported
Windows auto installation supported
RHEL7/8/CentOS7/8/SUSE/Ubuntu Server … auto installation supported Notes
FAT32/exFAT/NTFS/UDF/XFS/Ext2(3)(4) supported for main partition
ISO files larger than 4GB supported
Native boot menu style for Legacy & UEFI
Most type of OS supported, 700+ iso files tested
Linux vDisk(vhd/vdi/raw…) boot solution
Not only boot but also complete installation process
Menu dynamically switchable between ListView and TreeView mode
“Ventoy Compatible” concept
Plugin Framework
Injection files to runtime environment
Boot configuration file dynamically replacement
Highly customizable theme and menu style
USB drive write-protected support
USB normal use unaffected
Data nondestructive during version upgrade
No need to update Ventoy when a new distro is released