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c/linux · by fnrir@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1y

Progress update on the Ventoy blob problem

https://github.com/fnr1r/ventoy-meta

Posting this since quite a bit has changed since I last posted about this on !technology@lemmy.world.

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

186 points · 24 comments · view on lemmy.world

24 Comments

drspod@lemmy.ml · 34 pts · 1y (1 reply)

If only booting Linux distros, consider GLIM instead: https://github.com/thias/glim

stefenauris@pawb.social · 7 pts · 1y

Thanks for sharing! I never heard of that before

catloaf@lemm.ee · 23 pts · 1y (8 replies)

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

fnrir@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 64 pts · 1y (7 replies)

TLDR: There's binaries instead of source code in the repo, which makes it hard to near-impossible to verify what it's doing. And the instructions for building those is lacking.

GH issue: https://github.com/ventoy/Ventoy/issues/2795

gwilikers@lemmy.ml · 7 pts · 1y (1 reply)

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

Black616Angel@discuss.tchncs.de · 17 pts · 1y

It is a risk as seen in the exploit in xz utils.

cornshark@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1y (4 replies)

What's ventoy?

SloppilyFloss@lemmy.ml · 8 pts · 1y (1 reply)

A tool to make bootable Live USBs out of operating system ISOs.

princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 33 pts · 1y

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.

teije9@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 1y

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

fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com · 1 pts · 1y

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

eneff@discuss.tchncs.de · 18 pts · 1y (1 reply)

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?

fnrir@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 14 pts · 1y

Focus on yourself first. I do have a Ko-Fi, but I don't promote it much.

Ludrol@szmer.info · 18 pts · 1y (1 reply)

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

fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com · 5 pts · 1y

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

balsoft@lemmy.ml · 7 pts · 1y (4 replies)

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.

fnrir@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 1y (3 replies)

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
balsoft@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 1y (2 replies)

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)

fnrir@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 1y (1 reply)

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.

balsoft@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 1y

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

fnrir@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 1y

Update: I managed to build wimboot after cherry-picking some patches.

koala@programming.dev · 3 pts · 1y

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.

CrypticCoffee@lemm.ee · 3 pts · 1y

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

pastermil@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 1y

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