this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2024
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Balena Etcher is a writer that does one ISO at a time. Other similar options are Fedora Writer, Rufus, etc.
Ventoy is one that can do multiple ISOs and is generally easy to manage.
However, be aware that Ventoy has a lot of unknown code involved. There's binary blobs that the maintainer refuses to open source, so there's a big question over whether it's hiding some malware or is using unpatched packages. Nobody knows except the maintainer, and it's just his word saying it's safe. You could use it to test out ISOs, but I wouldn't personally use it to actually install a system.
Also, the Ventoy fanbois are pretty insufferable, and they tend to brigade anyone that speaks ill of Ventoy or its dev.
If you want something similar that's open source, Glim works and could be a good option; YUMI has been around for a while, but I dunno if it's still a good project or not.
Edit: typo
I more often see a different picture, where any mention of Ventoy leads to unwarranted agression and screams about how storing multiple ISOs on the same disk is useless.
I have quite literally never seen that. The majority of the time, somebody brings up Ventoy, somebody mentions the opaque blobs or some other legitimate criticism, and a bunch of fanbois pile onto that person for having their own opinions or concerns.
Ventoy works well, but the lack of transparency concerns me and people like me.
I have a different experience. There was one thread which linked to a github issue. The issue said some blobs don't have source code. Ironically when I went on to check, the blobs mentioned in the issue had source code, but there were other blobs which seemed to miss the source or build instructions.
I would love to have an independent audit to put this issue at rest. All that happens is more and more noise and no resolution. I am not a programmer so can't really help here.
I would also love that! The truth of this matter would be much preferred over a bunch of cast aspersions.