A question about multiple boot options and live boot iso images

[Bret Busby]

On 31/10/2019, Brian <ad44 at cityscape.co.uk> wrote:
> On Thu 31 Oct 2019 at 20:00:26 +0000, Bret Busby wrote:
>
>> On 31/10/2019, Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > On Thu, 31 Oct 2019 at 16:53, Brian <ad44 at cityscape.co.uk> wrote:
>> >
>> >> 1. Make a partition on the drive to hold GRUB's files and install GRUB
>> >>    to the MBR of the drive.
>> > [...]
>> >> 6. Repeat for other ISOs.
>> >
>> > Sounds like a lot of work to me.
>> >
>> > This device does the same thing, entirely automatically with zero
>> > intervention.
>> >
>> > http://www.zalman.com/contents/products/view.html?no=212
>> >
>> > As I said in my blog post, and spelled out in my last message.
>> >
>>
>> So, I assume from that, that you are saying that it can not be done
>> with a common USB thumbdrive?
>
> Did it enter your mind to try it yourself and come to a decision? After
> all, the full instructions should help. :)
>


"not always as easy as it sounds"

Original query -
"whether something like a removable USB drive can
be easily set up, ..."

Your response indicates a complicated possible solution, that you
assessed as "not always as easy as it sounds".

What I was hoping to be the level of simplicity, was something like
copy a set of iso's to a USB thumbdrive, and either run a utility (if
such a utility exits) that writes a GRUB instance to the thumbdrive,
and that does a thing like update-grub, to configure GRUB to provide
boot options for the iso's on the thumbdrive, thence, for one of the
iso's booted from the thumbdrive, to be able to copy and add another
iso (or, more iso's) to the thumbdrive, and, to be able to run again,
update-grub on the thumbdrive, to provide options to boot the added
iso's.

Years ago, from memory, when the Linux Format (and/or, another,
similar) magazine was/were in print and being sold, copies of the
magazine were sold with a DVD that contained more than one Linux iso,
allowing the user to choose which iso to boot.

That was from a time when a Linux iso was CD size, so allowing
multiple iso's to fit on a DVD, and, from a time when new laptop
computers all came with built in removable optical drives (DVD’s or
CD's).

So, now, when laptop computers are being sold without CD/DVD drives,
but can be booted from USB thumbdrives, I am wondering whether what
used to be done with the magazine DVD's - having multiple iso's on
them, from which, a user could choose one (at a time) to boot, could
now easily (with emphasis on the "easily") be done with USB
thumbdrives.

-- 
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
..............

"So once you do know what the question actually is,
 you'll know what the answer means."
- Deep Thought,
 Chapter 28 of Book 1 of
 "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
 A Trilogy In Four Parts",
 written by Douglas Adams,
 published by Pan Books, 1992

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