Table of Contents

Introduction

MultiSystem preferred

More at https://jira.bluelightav.org/browse/BLUE-1882

E2B - Easy2Boot

sources:

Pros:

Simple enough
Clear
Works with most iso's
Loads directly the iso

Cons:

Slower than other solutions

Prepare the drive

Format your USB Flash Drive to use a Single Partition (FAT32 type 0C - or if posible add a small 2nd partition too, to help bootability) using gparted - or do it the hard way using fdisk as follows:

Open a terminal and type sudo su
Type fdisk -l (and note which device is your USB Drive)
Type fdisk /dev/sdx (replacing x with your actual usb device)
Type d (to delete the existing partition) (press d again to delete the next partition, etc.)
Type n (to create a new partition)
Type p (for primary partition)
Type 1 (to create the first partition)
Press Enter (to use the first cylinder)
Press Enter again (to use the default value as the last cylinder)
Type a (for active)
Type 1 (to mark the first partition active "bootable")
Type t (for partition type)
Type c (to use fat32 partition)
Type w (to write the changes and close fdisk)

Create a Fat32 Filesystem on the USB Flash Drive:

fdisk -l (check which device is the USB Flash drive)

umount /dev/sdx1 (to unmount the mounted partition if it is mounted)
sudo mkfs.vfat -F 32 -n MULTIBOOT /dev/sdx1 (to format the partition as fat32)

Download the necessary files

grub4dos: https://code.google.com/p/grub4dos-chenall/downloads/list

Easy2boot (at the bottom of the page): http://www.rmprepusb.com/tutorials/72---easyboot---a-grubdos-multiboot-drive-that-is-easy-to-maintain/e2bv1#TOC-Downloads

defragfs script: http://defragfs.sourceforge.net/

Install grub4dos & Easy2boot

Mount the partition you just formatted.

Uncompress the grub4dos archive.

Install grub4dos onto the USB Flash Drive:

Assuming that the bootlace.com executable is on /mnt/mysrc and the USB drive is sdx, use the following command to install grub4dos to the MBR with 0 seconds timeout

sudo /mnt/mysrc/bootlace.com --time-out=0 /dev/sdx (note that we specify the whole disk sdx)

If you have formatted the drive as NTFS using gparted, you may need to add the --ntfs parameter to the command line

Extract the Easy2Boot files from the E2B zip file and copy it onto the USB Flash drive

e.g.

unzip /mnt/mysrc/Easy2Boot_v1.10.zip -d /mnt/newusb/

Add iso to the USB stick

Copy all your linux livecd ISOs to the \_ISO\MAINMENU or \_ISO\LINUX folder using the GUI File Manager in linux.

For other ISOs or for linux ISOs+Persistence, follow the instructions in the Easy2Boot tutorial.

Finalize the install

The iso need to be contiguous or they will not be read properly.

df
sudo perl defragfs.pl /mnt/newusb/ -f

Multisystem

Introduction

Having a 32G UFD used to boot a 700MB Debian install is not really the most efficient thing to do and flashing a new iso every time you want to change install image neither. This page is here to solve this problem by tutoring how do install and use Multisystem which is a software allowing you to boot from multiple image installed on one UFD.

Website of the project: http://liveusb.info/dotclear

Pro:

Cons:

Does a lot of tricky things on your system,
Many iso will not work properly

Requirement

ubuntu 12.04 (only works on systems with apt-get)
xterm
usb stick formated in FAT32 with non spaced label

Install

Get the tarball. Attachment: install-depot-multisystem.sh.tar.bz2. Repository: rose:home/share/resources/software/Linux/install-depot-multisystem.sh.tar.bz2).
Extract: tar -xjf install-depot-multisystem.sh.tar.bz2
Run install-depot-multiboot.sh

gksu install-depot-multiboot.sh

Add images to the drive

insert a usb stick (better let it be automounted as the mount point should be /media/<label>)
Launch the software: Multisystem
select the USB device to use and click Validate
drag and drop the images you want to add.
restart your system and select the distro you want to boot from.