As a computer science engineer, especially if you manage DevOps tools and infrastructure, or simply like to do a bit of shadow IT, there comes a time when you will have to install OSes (operating systems) on machines.

After doing that for a while, you will eventually face a problem: managing multiple OSes across your machine fleet.

Switching from Windows Server to Ubuntu Server, upgrading Ubuntu LTS versions… and every time, it’s the same old story:

• Downloading the OS ISO
• Finding an empty and usable thumb drive (and ending up buying a new one)
• Burning the ISO onto the (new) thumb drive
• Losing the thumb drive once the task is done

There is a time when laziness must have a purpose: efficiency. And if you are like me, you will appreciate finding ways to avoid redundant tasks. Here is my way of dodging the bullet of repetitiveness (and to stop financing SanDisk).

And we have a concrete reason to do it right now: our first homelab is assembled, and its three ThinkCentre machines are waiting for an OS. In this article we set up the thumb drive, and at the end we use it to install Ubuntu Server on all three of them.

Overview of existing solutions

So, in other words, we are looking for a multiboot USB setup. The easiest modern solutions are:

1. Ventoy → best overall for Linux ISOs, Windows installers, utilities.
2. YUMI → good traditional multiboot creator.
3. Easy2Boot → very advanced/powerful.

(Or doing it the old and hard way with a manual GRUB setup… nope, just kidding.)

I ended up using Ventoy, following ChatGPT’s recommendation based on my needs at the time (building my homelab). Since then, I never felt the urge to change: this tool is really simple and practical.

Ventoy in a nutshell

Instead of “burning” one ISO at a time on a new thumb drive, Ventoy installs a tiny bootloader onto the USB stick once. Then, after this one-time initial setup:

• You simply copy the ISO files of your choice onto the USB drive
• Boot from the USB drive
• Choose the ISO from the Ventoy menu

One thumb drive to rule them all!

No more reformatting every time: everything lives on a single USB drive you will cherish and never lose again. It supports:

• Linux distros
• Windows installers
• Rescue tools
• Hypervisor ISOs
• Firmware utilities

Examples:

• Ubuntu
• Debian
• Fedora
• Windows 11
• Proxmox VE
• GParted

Some advanced features Ventoy also supports:

• Persistence for Linux live systems
• Secure Boot
• ISO folders/categories
• Plugins/themes
• Auto-install scripts
• Booting from VHD/VHDX/WIM/IMG files

Ventoy covers 95% of manual GRUB multiboot use cases with much less effort. Documentation: Ventoy Documentation

How to use Ventoy

Setup

So, let’s get to work:

1. Download Ventoy: Ventoy Official Website, or the source code: Ventoy GitHub
2. Plug in your USB drive and find it on your system (on Linux: run lsblk and look for something like /dev/sdX; on Windows: just check your devices in the File Explorer)
3. Extract the Ventoy archive and run the Ventoy2Disk script:

• On Linux (replace /dev/sdX with your USB drive):

tar -xzf ventoy-*.tar.gz
cd ventoy-*/
sudo ./Ventoy2Disk.sh -i /dev/sdX

• On Windows, extract the archive with the right-click menu, double-click on Ventoy2Disk.exe, then select your thumb drive in the window that appears.

After installation, the USB drive behaves like a normal storage drive, so adding an ISO is just a copy.

Example:

cp ubuntu.iso /media/$USER/Ventoy/
cp windows11.iso /media/$USER/Ventoy/
cp proxmox.iso /media/$USER/Ventoy/

That’s it. You should see something like this on the drive:

Boot from USB

When your PC starts:

• Select the USB drive in the boot menu
• The Ventoy menu appears
• Choose the ISO to launch

Recommended specs

The size depends on what kind of ISOs you want to store, but a good rule of thumb (drive) is a minimum of 32 GB, and if you plan to store multiple Windows images, go for 128 GB or more to be safe. In terms of speed, go for USB 3.1: the faster the better to copy big ISOs and boot.

In my case, I am using a 64 GB USB 3.1 thumb drive with half a dozen ISOs.

Our use case: Ubuntu Server on the homelab

Now let’s put the thumb drive to work on our first homelab: three Lenovo ThinkCentre Tiny PCs (two M910q and one M920q) that will become the nodes of our first orchestrated cluster.

A few notes before starting:

• Which OS: we install Ubuntu Server LTS on all three machines. It is headless (no desktop to waste RAM on), well documented, and a common base for Kubernetes distributions. Download the latest LTS ISO from the Ubuntu Server download page and copy it onto the Ventoy drive, next to your other ISOs.
• Screen and keyboard: thanks to the shelves’ pass-through ports, we plug a screen into the front HDMI port of the shelf, and the thumb drive and a keyboard into the front USB ports of the ThinkCentre. No need to open the back of the rack.
• Boot menu: on the ThinkCentres, press F12 repeatedly at power-on to open the boot menu and select the USB drive (F1 opens the BIOS setup).
• Secure Boot: if Secure Boot is enabled, the first Ventoy boot shows a “Verification failed” screen. Either follow the Ventoy Secure Boot guide to enroll its key once per machine, or disable Secure Boot in the BIOS.
• During the install:
  • give each machine a clear and unique hostname (for example node-1, node-2, node-3), it will make the cluster much easier to read later,
  • use the whole 512 GB SSD,
  • enable the OpenSSH server and import your public SSH key, so that from now on we can manage the machines remotely, just like our VPS,
  • skip the optional snaps: we will install what we need ourselves.
• Unplug before reboot: when the installer asks you to remove the installation medium, pull the thumb drive out, plug it into the next machine, and repeat.

Once the three installs are done, each machine boots on its own SSD, is reachable over SSH, and the screen can go back in the drawer. They are now ready to become our cluster.

In conclusion

Over the past dew years, this ventoy little trick had a good return on the investment of my time, and I hope it will for you too!

Happy coding 🚀

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