As he states, many have looked for a true multiboot USB that can be built in Linux.
Preparation:Libre_Things wrote:I’ve spent days looking for a good live Multiboot USB solution. I mean a way to include many downloaded ISO files in a single USB stick. I was looking for a system allowing to drop the ISOs in a folder on the key, just showing a menu with the ISO files to boot. Easy2Boot does exactly that!
1. Download grub4dos from https://code.google.com/p/grub4dos-chen ... loads/list
.a. extract the archive on your PC. (easy2boot.com suggests that grub4dos-0.4.5c works.)
.b. If you try another that won't boot, look for this one.
2. Download Easy2Boot_v1.41_DPMS.zip, is the latest as of today:
.a. http://files.easy2boot.com/200000592-d6 ... 1_DPMS.zip
.b. extract all the files in the zip to the root directory of your, soon to be, Easy2Boot pen drive.
.c. keep this handy in case your files become non-contiguous.
3. Partition the USB drive, as follows:
.a. Create the 1st partition --the largest, less 33 MiB for the 2nd partition.
.b. Create the 2nd partition --33 MiB, MINIMUM for FAT32!, to ease potential boot problem.
[NOTE: 12 MiB worked before, but gparted said 33 was minimum; however, with 64 MiB seems better.]
.c. Format both partitions as FAT32.
Build a multiple boot USB:
1. Install grub4dos onto your USB drive, by running this from within the grub4dos dir:
.a. in a console:
Code: Select all
$ sudo blkid -o list -c /dev/nul
Code: Select all
$ sudo ./bootlace.com --time-out=0 /dev/sdx
Code: Select all
[richard@mx14 grub4dos-0.4.5c]$ sudo ./bootlace.com --time-out=0 /dev/sdd
Disk geometry calculated according to the partition table:
Sectors per track = 63, Number of heads = 255
Success.
[richard@mx14 grub4dos-0.4.5c]$
3. The ISO files MUST BE CONTIGUOUS.
.a. If you erase some ISOs, add others,
.b. then it won't boot, do the following:
copy all of _ISO/MAINMENU on to another device,
adjust, change, etc, the ISOs in the MAINMENU directory, then
copy the MAINMENU directory back into the _ISO/ directory.
.c. Make sure it all still fits on your USB pendrive.
.d. Make sure to maintain the directory structure as found in the Easy2Boot.zip,
and keep all files contiguous.
====================================================================
derived from Libre_Things
http://positon.org/the-ultimate-live-us ... -easy2boot
The ultimate live USB MultiBoot solution: Easy2Boot 2013-03-16 17:41
Please advise any problems, inconsistencies, errors, etc.
I built my first one on Windows XP, then got it to work on Linux.