What is Ventoy and Why You Need It

Ventoy is a way to boot multiple iso image installers off of one USB key, using Legacy Bios OR UEFI. In essence, it allows you to put multiple OS installers on one USB key, instead of multiple keys, and it generates a boot menu automatically. You boot from the key, select the ISO file you want, and install away.

For example, I keep the following images on my ventoy key:

• Fedora 34 Gnome
• Fedora 34 KDE
• Linux Mint 20.2
• Partition Assistant (To fix windows)
• Pop-OS
• Rescatux
• Windows 10

This allows me to carry one key in my go bag to install or repair pretty much any system that I need in the field.

You can go to the Ventoy site to read about it and download it. It has a very simple Windows installer and a very cool web-based installer for Linux. The Windows installer is self-explanatory, and the Linux installer is very simple.

Download the tar.gz file, insert your USB key, and extract the tar file to a directory, open a terminal, and run:

sudo sh VentoyWeb.sh

This will give you an IP address which you can then control-click the link to open it. You will see the following:

Make sure the correct device is selected and click install. If you insert a new USB device, just hit update to refresh. In a few seconds, it will create the disk and a new device will show up in your file manager called Ventoy. Open up that device and copy in any ISO installers that you need.

That’s it. It automatically generates a menu and when you reboot using the key, you will get a screen that looks like the following:

There is a listing of supported ISO images on the Ventoy site, that you can check for your chosen installer. It also works for legacy BIOS.

As you can see, Ventoy is an essential tool for your kit.