multiboot usb grub iso loop

[Member zpimp]

i wanted to make a multiboot usb on linux, without any additional programs, just grub and gparted (for formatting)
this is the only thing i still keep a windows hdd around, now im free 🙂

grub, the bootloader on many linux distros has the ability to mount iso files and boot them
so we need an empty flash drive with a single partition, for convenience use gparted to delete the partitions and make a single ext2 partitions
now we’ll use the terminal

use “lsblk” to identify the flash drive

NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda      8:0    0 149.1G  0 disk 
├─sda1   8:1    0  29.3G  0 part /
└─sda3   8:3    0 119.8G  0 part /media/sda3
sdb      8:16   1  14.8G  0 disk 
└─sdb1   8:17   1  14.8G  0 part /media/sdb1-usb-Multiple_Card_Re

my usb device is sdb – 14.8gb
take note ‘sdb’ is the device, ‘sdb1’ is the partitions (very important)

my partition is already mounted,
but we’ll mount it on another mountpoint: /media/usb
create the mountpoint “sudo mkdir usb”
mount it “sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /media/usb”
now we install the bootloader “sudo grub-install –force –removable –boot-directory=/media/usb/boot /dev/sdb”

note we are using /dev/sdb – wich is the device

make sure you replace sdb with your own device, it can be sdc,sde, whatever

next we must put the grub.cfg file in ‘/media/usb/boot/grub’
grub.cfg is attached

now just copy your iso files to the root of your flash drive
these are the latest versions downloaded tonight, if you get the iso files right now, they will work without modifications
as time goes on, new versions will come out, some filenames will change, and grub.cfg must be modified accordingly

most of the boot entries i got from the isos themselves, you can open them in mc and look for grub.cfg or something similar, and just added $isofile
the manjaro boot entry i got from their forum

hope this will be of use to someone, i wanted this for so long

• This topic was modified 5 years, 1 month ago by zpimp.

Attachments:

1. grub.cfg_.txt

[Moderator BobC]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Pretty neat. I do something similar for Knoppix.

[Member crestiah]

Helpful

Up

0

::

I’d Be curious to know if this worked with hybrid iso’s

hybrid = cd/uefi booting

puppy linux had a great little multi-boot usb I just cant remember which puppy it came from or the particular script/package it was.
you could how ever drag n drop cd based iso’s, as many as you liked that fit on it.

however for some reason anything with a hybrid style on it seemed to come up with a grub error code =60 “must be a continuous disk”

my pre-sumption is that it had something to do with either the uefi style booting or persistance ability just not sure which.
as an example i can run calculate 17.6 for i686 however i cant run devuan 2 ascii i386 from it.

after re-examining the puppy multiboot usb found it was based on grub4dos with some auto menu.lst rebuild scripts. i cant read the rebuild scripts, however it probably needs a new entry to rebuild for grub2 start-up.

given the simple beauty of grub4dos i can understand why they used it.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 11 months ago by crestiah.

[Author]

Posts