So it begins.

I’ve been flashing my USB often enough that it’s now worth it to keep all my ISO’s neatly to use them when I need them. I plan on buying 10 USB sticks to just have ready when ever I need a specific version.

I’m visiting family now, so time to upgrade their Linux Mint to Kubuntu

    • Hi Hello@lemmy.world
      4·
      4 days ago

      I wish I knew how it worked before! I thought it was a Windows only software and I kept installing isos to my USB one by one every time. Wasted so much time :')

    • ColdWater@lemmy.ca
      1·
      3 days ago

      For me seem like Ventoy is fucking with Arch iso and can’t be install from it, now my 64GB USB is only contain an Arch install, probably be I’m doing something stupid idk

  • azvasKvklenko@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    7·
    3 days ago

    Don’t distrohop too much, at one point there won’t be much more to explore with other distros other than wallpapers and themes

  • Labna@lemmy.world
    991·
    5 days ago
    1. you need Ventoy to stop formatting you’re USB sticks
    2. Keeping lot of ISO is a bit useless just the few that you use daily.
    3. If you’re keeping this ISO anyway, get them by torrent and keep sharing for helping the community
      • smeg@feddit.ukEnglish
        7·
        5 days ago

        Is there a simple guide to checking checksums? It doesn’t seem like it should be complex but half the time the distro’s instructions don’t work for me!

        • Kory@lemmy.ml
          17·
          5 days ago

          First you need to download the provided file from the distro page. Something with Checksum in the name most of the time. The website should provide instructions. Please note that does not validate the gpg key.

          Quick Method Terminal: Open the terminal at the location of the ISO file or go there with cd. Type sha256sum NameOfIsoFile.iso - it takes a moment depending on your system. Copy the output (some long numbers/letters). Compare it with the downloaded checksum-file - open the file, press ctrl-f or whatever you have for find and paste it. If it’s found, it’s the same.

          Method KDE: Right click the file, open properties, then go to tab “Checksums”. Paste same number/letter combination from above into the provided space “Expected checksums…” - if it’s green, it’s correct.

          • SMillerNL@lemmy.world
            5·
            4 days ago

            While checking checksums is important, it you’re getting them from the same place as the download you might as well ignore the checksum. If someone can replace the download they can very likely also replace the checksum file download.

          • smeg@feddit.ukEnglish
            5·
            5 days ago

            Thanks, that does sound familiar. Maybe it was the gpg bit that confused me before.

        • floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          4·
          5 days ago

          Just use the appropriate command for the hash type, i.e. sha256sum <filename> (iirc, might be wrong, man is your friend)

    • Retro_unlimited@lemmy.world
      15·
      5 days ago

      Ventoy is great, it’s my go to tool, boots on basically everything (even my MacBook) but… wasn’t there a scare about possibly being compromised because it builds itself from hundreds of modules on github or something like that?

  • bizdelnick@lemmy.ml
    78·
    5 days ago

    Your family will hate you if you’ll change their distro and DE every time you visit them. Distro hopping is normal for the first couple of years, but do it on your own machine.

    • Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.socialOPEnglish
      1·
      2 days ago

      I distro hopped them once on their media PC they just use to watch YouTube and series.

      I don’t see myself changing it again, Kubuntu & KDE is so nice

    • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
      10·
      5 days ago

      I’ve been using Linux for like 18 years and I still hop. I got a better idea of what I like to use for different situations though…but there are so many great builds/derivatives now. I’m pretty well settled into Bazzite and Nobara, or regular Fedora and Fedora Blue, depending on specific needs now though.

    • erebion@news.erebion.euEnglish
      5·
      5 days ago

      First couple of years? I was in my early teens when trying out many distros within a couple weeks, for example Puppy Linux, Ubuntu, Edubuntu, Ubuntu Netbook Remix, OpenSuse… Then I settled on Ubuntu and used that from 2008 to 2022, when I was fed up with Canonical shoving snapd down my throat and me having to uninstall it all the time. Since then I’ve used Debian exclusively, previously I only had it on some machines.

      (I’ve also toyed a bit with the BSDs, but was missing systemd, so those never stuck with me.)

        • erebion@news.erebion.euEnglish
          2·
          4 days ago

          Several different operating systems, such as FreeBSD, NetBSD, DragonflyBSD (the latter one having a live system and being the easiest to try out). Those have their history based in BSD. But thatʼs all bit too much to fit in s reply here.

          Unlike Linux distributions, those projects develop a kernel and the other parts together and make an OS.

          Most software will be available on BSDs and on Linux distributions.

  • utopiah@lemmy.ml
    6·
    3 days ago

    Ugh… why? I mean it’s a fun process to distro hop and better understand the different package managers, boot process, default services, etc but beyond that I’m confused at what the point is.

    FWIW one can distro hop “virtually” in minutes using containers via Podman or Docker (or even QEMU to be more isolated) with images that do have a window manager, e.g. https://docs.linuxserver.io/images/docker-webtop/ provides Alpine, Arch, Debian, Enterprise Linux, Fedora and Ubuntu with i3, KDE, MATE or XFCE. Switching from one to another takes minutes (basically download time of image content) and if you mount the right directory you can even use your own content for your tests.

    Edit : if one wants to install nothing https://distrosea.com/ is quite neat but it’s online.

  • Evil_Shrubbery@thelemmy.club
    4·
    3 days ago

    I think I’m missing something here - why would y’all need a storage of ISOs?
    Just think of a distro & download it from like anywhere at that moment? Especially if there is a functioning PC you are about to “upgrade”. That way you don’t need to think ahead of anything & get the latest ISO.

  • grue@lemmy.world
    505·
    3 days ago

    Uh… you do know that people don’t literally save a bunch of Linux ISOs, right? It’s a euphemism for collecting less legit things, like pirated media or porn.

    By the time you want to install the same distro again, it’s likely that a new version will be out and you’ll want to re-download it anyway.

    Edit: okay, okay, some of y’all really do collect Linux ISOs. That’s fine; I won’t kink-shame.

  • realitaetsverlust@piefed.zipEnglish
    36·
    5 days ago

    I can assure you, you will never need them.

    I got a USB stick with ventoy installed, got a gparted and an arch linux iso on that thing, I do use those regularly.

  • rozodru@pie.andmc.caEnglish
    27·
    5 days ago

    10 USB sticks? why? just use ventoy and throw them all on an external SSD or something. that’s what I do. can even use that with specific dotfiles you need for each distro along with ventoy. much easier to deal with than 10 usb sticks.

    • radswid@feddit.org
      10·
      5 days ago

      isn’t it the other way? Ubuntu/Kubuntu -> Mint -> Arch-based (Manjaro, …), Arch … -> “btw”

      • dogs0n@sh.itjust.works
        3·
        4 days ago

        I mostly found it funny they felt the neet to upgrade from mint on a family members computer to anything else, because I can’t imagine mint not already working fine for them.

        I fail to see the benefit in “Upgrading” to kubuntu (or anything else) in this case.

        But yes u right hehe arch btw but also mby mint btw 🤔

      • thethunderwolf@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        1·
        5 days ago

        manjaro -> ubuntu -> most other distros

        There are no “outstanding good distros”, there are bad ones to avoid, and ones suited or not suited for your use case

  • thethunderwolf@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    122·
    5 days ago

    Maybe not Kubuntu? It’s not de-Canonical’d like Mint or Pop!_OS, so it’ll have weird bad things like Snap or the not-yet-ready Rust coreutils.

  • Magister@lemmy.world
    18·
    5 days ago

    Use Ventoy, you can have dozens and dozens of ISO on one stick only, when you boot on it you can select the one you want.

    • nil@piefed.caEnglish
      6·
      5 days ago

      The drawback of using Ventoy is that it doesn’t support systems that has too old BIOS installed. Otherwise it’s great.

  • a14o@feddit.org
    17·
    5 days ago

    If I saw that folder name while using a friend’s machine I would know not to click on it to respect their privacy.

    • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
      8·
      5 days ago

      Or if you want to install an entire iso in less than a minute, one of these.

      I really like that one. I can move a terabyte in minutes, and unlike some other M.2 enclosures, this one is a heatsink sandwich, which enables sustained full-speed operation.

        • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
          2·
          5 days ago

          True. But if you have an old one laying around, from a laptop, desktop or whatever, even a low end one will saturate usb while beating 2.5" hdds.

      • Leon@pawb.socialEnglish
        2·
        5 days ago

        I’d recommend a HDD enclosure with a virtual drive emulator. I personally use this one which I’ve had for about a decade at this point. Lovely device. At some point I think I’ll pop an SSD in it instead, mostly just for durability purposes.

        • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
          1·
          5 days ago

          Sure.

          But that’s limited to SATA 3 speeds. A “mere” 600 MB/s. Not to mention SATA SSDs often can’t sustain their theoretical maximums.

          USB3.2x2 can do 2500 MB/s, and with heatsinks on an NVME drive you can actually reach and sustain that transfer speed.

          When you’re moving more than 500 gigs of something, or if you move ISO sized things often, it’s really nice.

          When I occasionally have to write an ISO to usb for macOS or when ventoy for some reason wont work, I get annoyed at how I actually have to wait a bit, even though my thumbdrives aren’t slow.

          They’re just not NVME with a heatsink fast. I’ve gotten used to moving ISOs around like they’re text files.

      • db2@lemmy.world
        1·
        5 days ago

        It may not work. I have two ssds like that and they both won’t boot ventoy for some reason, but a hdd in a usb case worked no problem.

        Also, unless you’re using the usb3 interface it doesn’t make much difference really.

        • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
          1·
          5 days ago

          I use this one professionally, yet to come across a PC that wouldn’t boot from it.

          And yeah, you won’t benefit unless the PC also has both fast ports and fast storage.

          But half of the time I’m using it to move files from a customers old PC to their new one, and more aften than not, even the old one has at least one quick usb C port.