How to Boot 10 Different Live CDs From 1 USB Flash Drive

8/6/2019 How to Boot 10 Different Live CDs From 1 USB Flash Drive

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How To Boot 10 Different Live CDs From 1 USB Flash

Drive

Ever get the urge to try out a bunch of Linux distros at once? Maybe youre hosting a Linux

installation party. Heres an easy way to get a bunch of Live CDs working from a single thumb

drive.

10 Distributions, You Say?

MultiSystemis a really easy tool made to run on Ubuntu and Ubuntu-based distros that you can

use to play with various LiveCDs at once, or to create the ultimate recovery device. If you dont

use Ubuntu, you can use an Ubuntu Live CD to install MultiSystem so that you can create your

super live USB drive without having to run Linux as your main OS.

Its best to download your ISOs ahead of time, and select a USB drive large enough to house

them all. I actually went with an 8 GB SD card (used via a USB adapter). Here are some of the

popular and interesting distros I used.

Ubuntu, a very novice-friendly and popular distro thats widely used Kubuntu, a KDE-oriented version of Ubuntu. Linux Mint, another novice-friendly distro that aims to get more usable out of the box. It is also

100% compatible with Ubuntu packages.

Linux Mint Debian Edition, like Linux Mint except its 100% compatible with the Debian testingbuild.
http://liveusb.info/dotclear/http://liveusb.info/dotclear/http://www.ubuntu.com/http://www.ubuntu.com/http://www.kubuntu.org/http://www.kubuntu.org/http://www.linuxmint.com/http://www.linuxmint.com/http://www.linuxmint.com/download_lmde.phphttp://www.linuxmint.com/download_lmde.phphttp://www.linuxmint.com/download_lmde.phphttp://www.linuxmint.com/http://www.kubuntu.org/http://www.ubuntu.com/http://liveusb.info/dotclear/


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Debian, one of the older and more central distros out there. It has both a stable build and atesting build.

Fedora, which used to be RedHat and is another big distro. It aims at power, and has severalspins, which aim to work out of the box for different purposes.

Fuduntu, A Fedora-based distro with some important optimizations for netbooks, like addingFewts Jupiter tooland moving /var to a ramdisk.

Slax, which is based on simplicity and up-to-date software, but also the ability to run smoothlyon older hardware, just like its Slackware roots. It usesmodulesinstead of installed software to

make this easy.

OpenSUSE, an easily-configurable distro that has been around for quite a while. BackTrack, a distro aimed specifically at penetration testing. Great for testing how secure your

or your friends network really is.

There are plenty of other amazing distros that work great, such asArch,Slackware,ZenWalk,

Cent OS, etc., but work best when installed. If you want to find more Linux distributions, check

outDistroWatch.com, and you can also take a peek atMultiSystems Compatibility Pagefor

more ideas.

Installing MultiSystem

Head over to theMultiSystem Download Page, and grab the installation script. The website is in

French, but if youre not comfortable theres a translate option on the right, sil vous plat.

Next, open up terminal and change to the directory where you downloaded your file. Mine is in

the Downloads directory:

cd ~/Downloads/

Uncompress the script with the following command:

tar -xvjpf install-depot-multisystem.sh.tar.bz2

Next, we need to run it:

./install-depot-multisystem.sh

Youll see a small windows pop-up and ask you for your password, like so:
http://www.debian.org/http://www.debian.org/http://fedoraproject.org/http://fedoraproject.org/http://spins.fedoraproject.org/http://spins.fedoraproject.org/http://spins.fedoraproject.org/http://www.fuduntu.org/http://www.fuduntu.org/http://sourceforge.net/projects/jupiter/http://sourceforge.net/projects/jupiter/http://www.slax.org/http://www.slax.org/http://www.slax.org/modules.phphttp://www.slax.org/modules.phphttp://www.slax.org/modules.phphttp://www.opensuse.org/en/http://www.opensuse.org/en/http://www.backtrack-linux.org/http://www.backtrack-linux.org/http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/39747/how-to-boot-10-different-live-cds-from-1-usb-flash-drive/www.archlinux.orghttp://www.howtogeek.com/howto/39747/how-to-boot-10-different-live-cds-from-1-usb-flash-drive/www.archlinux.orghttp://www.howtogeek.com/howto/39747/how-to-boot-10-different-live-cds-from-1-usb-flash-drive/www.archlinux.orghttp://www.slackware.com/http://www.slackware.com/http://www.slackware.com/http://www.zenwalk.org/http://www.zenwalk.org/http://www.zenwalk.org/http://www.centos.org/http://www.centos.org/http://distrowatch.com/http://distrowatch.com/http://distrowatch.com/http://liveusb.info/dotclear/index.php?category/OS-Supporteshttp://liveusb.info/dotclear/index.php?category/OS-Supporteshttp://liveusb.info/dotclear/index.php?category/OS-Supporteshttp://liveusb.info/dotclear/index.php?category/Installationhttp://liveusb.info/dotclear/index.php?category/Installationhttp://liveusb.info/dotclear/index.php?category/Installationhttp://liveusb.info/dotclear/index.php?category/Installationhttp://liveusb.info/dotclear/index.php?category/OS-Supporteshttp://distrowatch.com/http://www.centos.org/http://www.zenwalk.org/http://www.slackware.com/http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/39747/how-to-boot-10-different-live-cds-from-1-usb-flash-drive/www.archlinux.orghttp://www.backtrack-linux.org/http://www.opensuse.org/en/http://www.slax.org/modules.phphttp://www.slax.org/http://sourceforge.net/projects/jupiter/http://www.fuduntu.org/http://spins.fedoraproject.org/http://fedoraproject.org/http://www.debian.org/


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Just pop that in and youll be good to go!

Making Your Super Live USB Drive

Youll find the tool in Applications > Accessories > MultiSystem


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Lets take a look at the Selection window.


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Before we start, lets make sure its updated to the latest and greatest. Click the update

button. Youll see another window pop up and look like this:


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Enter your password when prompted and watch it do its thing. When its done, itll return to the

Selection window, and you can select your USB drive from the list at the bottom. Click

Validate and youll see the main window pop up.

Just drag and drop an .ISO file into the highlighted area to add it to your USB drive. Youll see awindow pop up with file progress.


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Once its done, just lather, rinse, and repeat. Upon booting from your device, youll see averitable plethora of options.


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Some Technical Details

Essentially, MultiSystem downloads and installs GRUB2 to your USB drive, along with

SYSLINUX and GRUB4DOS. These are tools that allow the booting of multiple OSs in various

ways. It then takes care of creating the proper entries for each bootloader and copying the files

over to your USB drive.

Support isnt limited to Linux. It supposedly works with Windows ISOs and XBMC, as well as

other utilities like Hirens BootCD, since it uses SYSLINUX in addition to GRUB2 andGRUB4DOS. Your mileage may vary from update to update, though. Share your experiences in

the comments!

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How to Boot 10 Different Live CDs From 1 USB Flash Drive