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linux·Linuxbyfnrir

Progress update on the Ventoy blob problem

Posting this since quite a bit has changed since I last posted about this on [email protected].

Here's a rough breakdown of the current status:

  • shared Ventoy components: build and seem to work, needs more testing
    • grub / menu - builds
    • EDK II apps / UEFI chainloader and more - builds
    • iPXE / BIOS chainloader - builds, with fixes for newer toolchains
    • ISO9660 and UDF drivers - TODO
  • Ventoy CPIO / Linux ramdisk: builds; I deemed musl xzcat unneeded, so I skipped it; needs more testing
  • wimboot / Windows chainloader (?) - stalled, I lack the necessary knowledge to work on it
  • geom-ventoy / FreeBSD disk mapping kernel module - is being worked on, slowly; not ready for testing
  • anything else is a TODO

This should be enough to boot Linux with just what's built manually, but I haven't tried that yet.

Secure Boot is just done by using a pre-built bypass package. I'll deal with that later.

Having more people testing this would be nice. :)

Cheers

Progress update on the Ventoy blob problemhttps://github.com/fnr1r/ventoy-metaOpen linkView original on lemmy.blahaj.zone
186
Comments24

24 replies

catloaf
lemm.ee

What is the ventoy blob thing and why is it important?

23
gwilikersreply
lemmy.ml

Oh really? You're saying its a security risk?

7
Norah (pup/it/she)reply
lemmy.blahaj.zone

I think that's not quite right, otherwise you could say that Rufus is the same. Ventoy is a Live USB tool that allows you to drag and drop ISOs onto a storage device and boot them without needing to image the device at all. It has its own interface that it boots into, that lets you select which ISO to then boot up.

33
teije9reply
lemmy.blahaj.zone

a tool that allows multiple isos to be on one live usb, while the usb still works as a usb

2
fmstratreply
lemmy.nowsci.com

One boot USB to rule them all. Just copy ISOs to it, and boot to a menu of ISOs.

1
eneff
discuss.tchncs.de

Thank you for your work on this! It's highly appreciated!

I'm about as broke as it gets currently, but are there ways to send money your way in case someone who's able to comes across this?

18
Ludrol
szmer.info

Thanks for the thankless work. I hope that the changes will be accepted upstream.

18
fmstratreply
lemmy.nowsci.com

If not, rebrand and distribute. This is the most important thing to this project.

5
balsoft
lemmy.ml

Are there any instructions on how to build this all to get the ventoy installer binary that can replace upstream? Or is the project not up to this stage yet? I can go without Windows and FreeBSD support.

7
fnrirreply
lemmy.blahaj.zone

On Linux installation is done through a series of scripts and vtoycli. I haven't worked on that yet, but there's build scripts there that should do the trick, but since they build it for multiple architectures, you'll have to run just the stuff for your arch (probably x86_64).

sth like:

cd vtoycli/fat_io_lib/release
gcc -specs "/usr/local/musl/lib/musl-gcc.specs" -O2 -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 fat*.c -c
ar -rc libfat_io_64.a *.o
cd ../..
gcc -specs "/usr/local/musl/lib/musl-gcc.specs" -Os -static -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -Ifat_io_lib/include fat_io_lib/lib/libfat_io_64.a *.c -o vtoycli_64
# Optional
strip --strip-all vtoycli_64
3
balsoftreply
lemmy.ml

Do I have to build all other parts myself before then? (I'm trying to package it for Nix so that other people can also build it more easily)

3
fnrirreply
lemmy.blahaj.zone

Pretty much. I do have some releases, but considering Nix's philosophy you probably should. Ventoy-CPIO should build fine, if the right toolchains and dietlibc are in PATH. Ventoy-boot relies on overlay mounts though, so it might not build within Nix.

2
balsoftreply
lemmy.ml

Thanks! I will try and report the results back to you.

3
koala
programming.dev

I'm still a huge fan of Ventoy, but lately I have been finding more and more issues with it.

So I decided to investigate using a Raspberry Pi Zero with a USB adapter to create a virtual drive:

https://github.com/alexpdp7/alexpdp7/blob/master/hardware/using-an-rpi-zero-as-an-usb-drive-to-install-operating-systems.md

It's very wonky and manual at the moment, but I have managed to boot all Linux ISOs successfully so far. Unfortunately, I think only ISOhybrid works OOB, so Windows ISO do not work. I have found some scripts to take Windows ISO and make them ISOhybrid, but haven't gotten around to doing that yet.

I think it should be doable to package this nicely.

3
CrypticCoffee
lemm.ee

Credit to you. Many complained, but you went out of your way to solve the problems. The output here has real value. Thanks.

3
pastermil
sh.itjust.works

So in short, these seven components are what makes the Ventoy blob, am I getting this right?

2

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