如何在一个 U 盘上安装多个 Linux 发行版
USB 发行版

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> 本教程介绍如何在一个 U 盘上安装多个 Linux 发行版。这样，你可以在单个 U 盘上享受多个<ruby> 现场版 <rt>  live </rt></ruby> Linux 发行版了。
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我喜欢通过 U 盘尝试不同的 Linux 发行版。它让我可以在真实的硬件上测试操作系统，而不是虚拟化的环境中。此外，我可以将 USB 插入任何系统（比如 Windows 系统），做任何我想要的事情，以及享受相同的 Linux 体验。而且，如果我的系统出现问题，我可以使用 U 盘恢复！


创建单个[可启动的现场版 Linux USB](https://itsfoss.com/create-live-usb-of-ubuntu-in-windows/) 很简单，你只需下载一个 ISO 文件并将其刻录到 U 盘。但是，如果你想尝试多个 Linux 发行版呢？你可以使用多个 U 盘，也可以覆盖同一个 U 盘以尝试其他 Linux 发行版。但这两种方法都不是很方便。


那么，有没有在单个 U 盘上安装多个 Linux 发行版的方式呢？我们将在本教程中看到如何做到这一点。


### 如何创建有多个 Linux 发行版的可启动 USB


![How to install multiple linux distributions on a single USB](/data/attachment/album/201710/13/235401s37mueawuwd8z7z7.jpg)


我们有一个工具正好可以做到*在单个 U 盘上保留多个 Linux 发行版*。你所需要做的只是选择要安装的发行版。在本教程中，我们将介绍*如何在 U 盘中安装多个 Linux 发行版*用于<ruby> 现场会话 <rt>  live session </rt></ruby>。


要确保你有一个足够大的 U 盘，以便在它上面安装多个 Linux 发行版，一个 8 GB 的 U 盘应该足够用于三四个 Linux 发行版。


#### 步骤 1


[MultiBootUSB](http://multibootusb.org/) 是一个自由、开源的跨平台应用程序，允许你创建具有多个 Linux 发行版的 U 盘。它还支持在任何时候卸载任何发行版，以便你回收驱动器上的空间用于另一个发行版。


下载 .deb 包并双击安装。


[下载 MultiBootUSB](https://github.com/mbusb/multibootusb/releases/download/v8.8.0/python3-multibootusb_8.8.0-1_all.deb)


#### 步骤 2


推荐的文件系统是 FAT32，因此在创建多引导 U 盘之前，请确保格式化 U 盘。


#### 步骤 3


下载要安装的 Linux 发行版的 ISO 镜像。


#### 步骤 4


完成这些后，启动 MultiBootUSB。


![MultiBootUSB](/data/attachment/album/201710/13/235401q6gpcvo5rdgx8gb6.png)


主屏幕要求你选择 U 盘和你打算放到 U 盘上的 Linux 发行版镜像文件。


MultiBootUSB 支持 Ubuntu、Fedora 和 Debian 发行版的持久化，这意味着对 Linux 发行版的现场版本所做的更改将保存到 USB 上。


你可以通过拖动 MultiBootUSB 选项卡下的滑块来选择持久化大小。持久化为你提供了在运行时将更改保存到 U 盘的选项。


![MultiBootUSB persistence storage](/data/attachment/album/201710/13/235402hme1x542pf01kp4z.png)


#### 步骤 5


单击“安装发行版”选项并继续安装。在显示成功的安装消息之前，需要一些时间才能完成。


你现在可以在已安装部分中看到发行版了。对于另外的操作系统，重复该过程。这是我安装 Ubuntu 16.10 和 Fedora 24 后的样子。


![MultiBootSystem with Ubuntu and Fedora](/data/attachment/album/201710/13/235402mny2gwa9414wq9hf.png)


#### 步骤 6


下次通过 USB 启动时，我可以选择任何一个发行版。


![Boot Menu](/data/attachment/album/201710/13/235402uphyxjnksnjynk6n.png)


只要你的 U 盘允许，你可以添加任意数量的发行版。要删除发行版，请从列表中选择它，然后单击卸载发行版。


### 最后的话


MultiBootUSB 真的很便于在 U 盘上安装多个 Linux 发行版。只需点击几下，我就有两个我最喜欢的操作系统的工作盘了，我可以在任何系统上启动它们。


如果你在安装或使用 MultiBootUSB 时遇到任何问题，请在评论中告诉我们。




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via: <https://itsfoss.com/multiple-linux-one-usb/>


作者：[Ambarish Kumar](https://itsfoss.com/author/ambarish/) 译者：[geekpi](https://github.com/geekpi) 校对：[wxy](https://github.com/wxy)


本文由 [LCTT](https://github.com/LCTT/TranslateProject) 原创编译，[Linux中国](https://linux.cn/) 荣誉推出


OK
![Warp Terminal](/assets/images/warp-terminal.webp)


![Warp Terminal](/assets/images/warp-terminal.webp)

You probably already know that you can create a live USB of a Linux distribution and try it on any system without installing it. If you like the distribution, you can then choose to install it.

Usually, you put one Linux distribution on a single USB stick. If you want to use another distribution, you have to format the USB and burn the other distribution on it.

What if I told you you could use multiple Linux on a single USB? Yes! That’s totally possible.

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to create multi boot USB.

## Ventoy: The swiss army knife for creating bootable USBs

[Ventoy](https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html?ref=itsfoss.com) is a “tiny OS” that boots your ISO.

When you create a bootable drive in the traditional way – by [using a tool like Rufus](https://itsfoss.com/live-usb-creator-linux/), Etcher or dd on Linux, the drive only boots that particular distribution. When you use Ventoy, it makes a tiny bootable EFI partition on your USB drive and gives you the remaining space to simply copy ISO files to it.

This means, you [create a Ventoy disk](https://itsfoss.com/use-ventoy/) once and then all you have to do is update the ISO files like a normal USB stick. Pretty cool because it allows you to have multiple operating systems on one USB disk.

Of course, your USB disk should have enough space to accommodate all the Linux distributions you want.

Ventoy is available on Linux, Windows and ARM platforms like Raspberry Pi.

### What do you need to create the bootable USBs?

Here’s what you need to have to follow this tutorial:

- A computer with active internet connection (to download Ventoy and the Linux ISOs)
- A USB disk with 16 GB or more (size varies as per the number of OS you want to use)
- Time and patience

Let’s see how to achieve it.

## Using Ventoy to create bootable USB with multiple Linux distributions

Download Ventoy from its GitHub repository.

You should see multiple options for various operating systems. For now, you should only be concerned with the file “ventoy-<version_number>-linux.tar.gz” or with “ventoy-<version_number>-windows.zip”.

![multiple download download options for ventoy](https://itsfoss.com/content/images/wordpress/2022/02/01_github_download_options-800x267.webp)

Download file for your operating system (Windows or Linux).

**I am going to focus on using it in Linux** but I have also quickly mentioned the installation steps for Windows.

**Windows users** should download “ventoy-<version>-windows.zip” file from their Github repository, unzip the file. Launch the “Ventoy2Disk.exe” executable file and select the drive that you want to make bootable. Create a partition called “Ventoy”, copy ISO files to the newly created partition. Boot to the Ventoy disk and enjoy

## Creating a Ventoy disk from Linux

Open the Downloads folder in your file manager. You will find the downloaded tar file for Ventoy here. To extract it, right click on the file and click on the “Extract Here” option.

![Installing Ventoy in Linux](https://itsfoss.com/content/images/wordpress/2022/02/01-800x474.webp)

Enter in the extracted folder. You may have another Ventoy folder here. Enter and then you’ll see some folders and executable files. You should be concerned with the executable files.

If you are using a Raspberry Pi, go with aarch64 or else stick with x86_64 as “x86_64” extension is for 64-bit Intel and AMD computers (this is what the vast majority of computers are).

![Installing Ventoy in LinuxInstalling Ventoy in Linux](https://itsfoss.com/content/images/wordpress/2022/02/02-1-800x411.webp)

You can create a bootable disk with Ventoy by either using the GUI tool or by using the command line script.

Perform a right click on “VentoyGUI.x86_64” file and click on “Run”. That will open up an authentication screen, type in the password of your local user (the password that you type when you reboot your computer) and the GUI tool will launch.

![Ventoy GUI tool on Linux (x86_64)](https://itsfoss.com/content/images/wordpress/2022/02/Screenshot-from-2022-02-11-18-52-30.webp)

Attention!

Ventoy usually automatically detects the USB but still make sure that the intended USB disk is selected in the tool.

There are other options for you to select, but I would not recommend changing the default options unless you know exactly what you are doing. The options include things like using GPT partitioning scheme, enabling secure boot support etc.

All you have to do is click on the “Install” button. It asks for your confirmation twice.

![Installing and using Ventoy on Linux](https://itsfoss.com/content/images/wordpress/2022/02/03-1.webp)

And it takes less than a minute to make a bootable disk out of the selected device. Note that there is no operating system on it yet. You should see a success message when the process completes.

![04](https://itsfoss.com/content/images/wordpress/2022/02/04.webp)

Once Ventoy has been installed on the USB disk, you’ll have two partitions on it now.

![Ventoy creates two partitions on the USB disk](https://itsfoss.com/content/images/wordpress/2022/02/05-800x512.webp)

The partition named VTOYEFI is reserved for the boot files by Ventoy. The first partition, named Ventoy, is an exFAT partition. This is the partition which will be used for copying the ISO file.

## Using ventoy to create multiboot USB

You have a bootable USB by Ventoy but there is no operating system on it yet.

The next step is to put your choice of Linux distributions on it. Download the ISO files from the official websites of the Linux distribution projects. Ventoy also has a [full list of tested ISOs on its website](https://www.ventoy.net/en/isolist.html?ref=itsfoss.com).

To show you as an example, I am going to use Arch Linux, CentOS, Debian, elementary OS.

All there is left for you to do is copy the ISO files onto the drive named Ventoy.

![Go to the partition named Ventoy and copy the ISO files here](https://itsfoss.com/content/images/wordpress/2022/02/06-800x474.webp)

It may take some time to copy the large ISO files on the disk. Be patient here.

Even if it shows that the file transfer has been completed, **don’t unplug the USB just like that**. Click on the unmount option or right click the mounted USB and use the Eject option.

![ksnip 20220212 155641](https://itsfoss.com/content/images/wordpress/2022/02/ksnip_20220212-155641-800x473.webp)

Why? Because the USB might still be in use by Ventoy for post-processing. Trying to safely remove the drive will give you a warning if the USB is in use. If you unplug it just like that, you may corrupt the USB.

![ksnip 20220212 154140](https://itsfoss.com/content/images/wordpress/2022/02/ksnip_20220212-154140-800x389.webp)

So, here’s what my USB looks like with all the desired Linux ISOs copied on it. Since the same Ventoy drive will boot on an Intel/AMD (x86) machine and also on an ARM (Raspberry Pi – provided that you use [Raspberry Pi 4 UEFI Firmware Image](https://github.com/pftf/RPi4?ref=itsfoss.com)) machine. Here, I also copied ARM ISO files on it, and it boots the specified ISO flawlessly.

Safely eject the USB and it is time to use this multiboot Linux USB.

### Using the multiboot USB

Plug in the USB to the system where you want to use it.

Reboot the computer and when you notice a splash screen from displaying your computer vendor’s name, make a note of if there is an option like “Press F12 to go in boot menu” or something along this line.

Press whichever key is specified and that will show you a list of all drives that are bootable. Select the drive that you installed Ventoy on, and Ventoy should start up in under 5 seconds.

As you can see, it gives me the option to boot into various distributions I had put on the USB.

![How the ventoy boot screen looks in my setup](https://itsfoss.com/content/images/wordpress/2022/02/PXL_20220211_121001480-800x600.webp)

From the Ventoy boot menu, select an OS by using the up/down arrow keys and start it by pressing the Enter/Return key.

## Conclusion

Ventoy is a tool that I rarely use but it is very handy when I need to install Linux on my machines or repair machines.

This trick saves a lot of effort when you want to test more than one Linux distribution over a period of time. You don’t need to format the USB again and again. Just add or remove the ISO files from the disk and you are good to go. Makes life so much simpler, isn’t it?

Ventoy is capable of doing a lot more. We have a detailed guide on Ventoy that you may want to check out.

[Install and Use Ventoy on Ubuntu [Complete Guide]Tired of flashing USB drives for every ISO? Get started with Ventoy and get the ability to easily boot from ISOs.](https://itsfoss.com/use-ventoy/)![](https://itsfoss.com/content/images/2023/07/install-ventoy-on-ubuntu-linux.png)


![](https://itsfoss.com/content/images/2023/07/install-ventoy-on-ubuntu-linux.png)

I have tried to simplify the steps as much as possible but you may still encounter issues. Let me know if you need any help in the comment section.