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Netboot.xyz: your favorite operating systems in one place

netboot.xyz

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Re: Netboot.xyz: your favorite operating systems in one place

#61

Post by theantonym »

snvzz wrote: post #58
kayson wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like the maintainer had some issues with memdisk: https://github.com/netbootxyz/netboot.xyz/discussions/926

Why would they try to use memdisk in the first place? https://wiki.netbsd.org/tutorials/how_to_install__40__boot__... I've done this successfully (locally).

We are definitely willing to add NetBSD if someone can demonstrate it working well with iPXE. It's come up several times and it's implementation works with pxelinux in a local setting but not so well with iPXE as the implementation linked looks for a specific file on a tftp source.

Re: Netboot.xyz: your favorite operating systems in one place

#62

Post by bravetraveler »

hnlmorg wrote: post #47
bravetraveler wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found it convenient (once setup...) to run internal package mirrors. These with even relatively dated 'netinstall' media can provide you with current installations. Then provide you with super fast updates. I'm more familiar with doing this with RPM based distributions -- CentOS, Fedora, etc. It's basically a web server and rsync behind a [parameterized] systemd timer so you can centrally control existing/new mi…

That was the issue for me though. It would often be years between usages since the only time I needed it was when a computer stopped booting or I was repurposing a device. Neither being things that happens very often.

Aye, that makes sense. It's hard to justify if you don't leverage it often

I moved and I've been hard pressed to bother booting everything up and checking on it, and I have quite a lot of devices to manage

Re: Netboot.xyz: your favorite operating systems in one place

#63

Post by seanw444 »

SahAssar wrote: post #55
shantnutiwari wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ventoy is one of those "Great in theory, doesnt work in practice" tools. I spent some trying to boot from it, couldn't get it work. Couldnt find any help anywhere, so went back to the old boring tools that just work.

I'm not sure what your issue was, but I've used ventoy across 5-ish computers and with multiple OS'es (various linux distros and win10) and never had an issue. Did you file a bug report or find out what the issue was?

Same. Ventoy has been pretty awesome for me. I like to have options for if a friend wants me to set up and show them one of the simpler distros, or if I'm at work and I need to re-install Arch (or just boot the ISO and fix the existing install). Way better than either bringing multiple thumbdrives, or having to just pick one OS to be able to have on the go, and rolling with it.

Re: Netboot.xyz: your favorite operating systems in one place

#64

Post by squarefoot »

shantnutiwari wrote: post #52
kej wrote: post #7

Another neat "pick an OS to boot into" tool I discovered recently is Ventoy [1]. You install the bootable menu on your USB drive, and then you just drop ISOs or IMGs on there to add choices. [1] https://ventoy.net/en/index.html

Ventoy is one of those "Great in theory, doesnt work in practice" tools. I spent some trying to boot from it, couldn't get it work. Couldnt find any help anywhere, so went back to the old boring tools that just work.

Have you tried it on different USB dongles? There are notoriously crappy no-name ones that fake their capacity or have other problems, but once in a while also legit ones can fail in strange ways: I had this branded USB key bought in a regular shop that passed all data integrity tests but refused to boot. I had bought 3 of the same model the same day and the other two worked fine, but that one would never boot, no matter which image i would flash it with; I never discovered what the problem was, and the dongle still works fine for other uses. So you may want to test other dongles to be sure.

Re: Netboot.xyz: your favorite operating systems in one place

#65

Post by linsomniac »

HeckFeck wrote: post #50
linsomniac wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There used to be a tool called, IIRC, "firebreather" that was a multicast image broadcaster for booting clusters of systems. I did a search and couldn't find any reference to it now. An associate used it to boot hundreds or thousands of systems back in the early 2000s, it would take a minute or two. Basically: The systems would PXE boot the bootloader (or maybe it was burned locally to the boot ROM or similar, I don'…

That sounds a bit like UDP multicast. One of those tragically under used features of the networking stack. Ripe for abuse were it exposed on the open Internet certainly, but still very cool.

Yes, it was indeed built on UDP multicast.

Re: Netboot.xyz: your favorite operating systems in one place

#66

Post by csdvrx »

stuaxo wrote: post #51
csdvrx wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not bad, but with questionable choices making it not usable on a dedicated hard-drive partition: https://github.com/ventoy/Ventoy/issues/1342

I took the time to read the comments on the issue and I can't see anyone refusing to do this. It seems like the person that suggested it can't compile ventoy as it requires a particular version of fedora. This needs somebody to compile ventoy and make a PR. Tabgentially it seems like the solving the issue where it needs an old version of fedora would make it easier for others to participate. The best way of moving th…

> I took the time to read the comments on the issue and I can't see anyone refusing to do this.

Personally, I see a lack of interest and a lack of desire to expand the functionality

> It seems like the person that suggested it can't compile ventoy as it requires a particular version of fedora.

Yes, that was me.

> This needs somebody to compile ventoy and make a PR.

As you may guess by how I explained the problem and the solution (with code!), I would be happy to make a PR, but I don't want to waste more time by writing code that won't be merged.

> solving the issue where it needs an old version of fedora would make it easier for others to participate

Yes, that too

But given the lack of interest by the maintainer of the low hanging fruit of making ventoy usable on partitions, even when it would bring the side benefit of respecting the block size of removable media (like thumbdrives, SD cards...) I think working on either would be a waste of time :(

> The best way of moving this forward would be to free up a block of time and either work on a PR, or if not that a PR to make ventoy compilable on more distros.

A week ago, someone started a fork for a better integration with other tools.

If you want to join in to fix the compilation issues (so that it doesn't require a specific old Fedora for example) I'll be happy to fix the partition stuff.

My email is my nickname at outlook dot com

Re: Netboot.xyz: your favorite operating systems in one place

#67

Post by mmcnl »

shantnutiwari wrote: post #52
kej wrote: post #7

Another neat "pick an OS to boot into" tool I discovered recently is Ventoy [1]. You install the bootable menu on your USB drive, and then you just drop ISOs or IMGs on there to add choices. [1] https://ventoy.net/en/index.html

Ventoy is one of those "Great in theory, doesnt work in practice" tools. I spent some trying to boot from it, couldn't get it work. Couldnt find any help anywhere, so went back to the old boring tools that just work.

It works great in practice for me. What issues are you running into?

Re: Netboot.xyz: your favorite operating systems in one place

#68

Post by aardvark1200 »

shantnutiwari wrote: post #52
kej wrote: post #7

Another neat "pick an OS to boot into" tool I discovered recently is Ventoy [1]. You install the bootable menu on your USB drive, and then you just drop ISOs or IMGs on there to add choices. [1] https://ventoy.net/en/index.html

Ventoy is one of those "Great in theory, doesnt work in practice" tools. I spent some trying to boot from it, couldn't get it work. Couldnt find any help anywhere, so went back to the old boring tools that just work.

Was secure boot on? That made it not work right for me as well
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