Re: Multiple live iso's on a single bootable flash drive?

[Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk>]

On Sat 30 Apr 2016 at 21:02:56 +0300, Piyavkin wrote:

> On 29.04.2016 22:59, Brian wrote:
> >On Fri 29 Apr 2016 at 21:57:53 +0300, Piyavkin wrote:

[...Snip...]

> >>>It is a source of contention (and a number of bug reports) but it is by
> >>design.
> >>
> >>Why such design?
> >Suppose you want to install Debian; that's the objective after all. An
> >isohybrid allows mounting the USB stick directly. You dd/cat/cp the
> >image to a USB stick and boot and there you are - Debian is installed.
> >
> >What does loop-mounting of an ISO file with GRUB give you?
> 
> With Ubuntu distrib you can do the same.
> And still you can run it straight from .iso without additional quest and use
> of shaman drum.
> What's wrong with it?

Nothing, but a Ubuntu live ISO serves a different purpose from the
Debian installer. Which is not to say enhancing a netinst ISO is not
worthwhile and would benefit a few people. Patches to have iso-scan in
these ISOs' initrds were provided a couple of years ago and booting an
ISO with GRUB is on the installer team's list of feature requests.
Meanwhile, there is hd-media and a extra stanza in grub.cfg.

> In my view, it is much more convenient to download new .iso files (or
> replace old ones) straight to USB-drive and copy+paste one more menuentry in
> grub.cfg (working in any OS which supports FAT), than to do the same (.iso
> download in some dedicated folder, changing in grub.cfg) plus
> partitioning/repartitioning (with calculation of proper partitions' sizes
> every time when you want to use more then 2 distros on 1 USB-drive) and
> copying (which requires *nix-like OS already running). If I understand the
> process correctly.

The "convenience" argument is a decent one, although it does apply to
quite a narrow use-case.
 
> And much more safer, I believe. Because in the first case there are lesser
> chances that in a stressful & hasty time doing one more
> 
> cp debian-hot-new.iso /dev/sda
> sync
> 
> you may end up like:«Oh, wait… was it sdb?.. wait… and what was sda then?..
> Oh… that was my 40+ years long project in astrophysics… THANK YOU, Debian,
> for your design!»

Not a decent argument. Operations such as partitioning and formatting a
USB stick and installing GRUB to its MBR all require root privilege.
 
> I think KISS principle should be applied not only to tools, but to the user
> experience too. Which may be more important. Cause, in the end, everything
> we do, we do for others. And who ignores it (for some their reason) will
> suffer. For soft production one of the rules may sound like: «If you create
> unnecessary obstacles in installation process, you hinder distribution and
> hence adoption. Good luck!»

Advice to a newcomer for installing Debian
------------------------------------------
cat ISO to stick. Boot.

Alternative advice to a newcomer for installing Debian
------------------------------------------------------

Clean stick with dd. Partition stick. Format partition. Copy ISO to
partition. Install GRUB. Construct a grub.cfg and copy to partition.
Boot.