Once this process is successful, adding new ISOs to your drive is only too easy. If everything goes right, you should be able to see a grub boot screen with the two menus for Ubuntu and Xubuntu. Make sure that you boot from your newly created USB drive, not from the hard drive as usual. Step-5: Boot from your USB drive and ensure that it works. If your ISO isn't one of the 'buntus or a debian, then it might get trickier. To know the right entry for your own distro, compare the ' /boot/grub/grub.cfg' file of your distro ISO to get a hint about what menu entry to add. However, note that there could be subtle differences between distros, xubuntu uses /casper/initrd instead of /casper/initrd.lz, for instance. For instance, loopback and loop attributes are used because we aren't booting directly from the USB, but mounting the virtual loop device (ISO file) instead. Linux (loop)/casper/vmlinuz boot=casper iso-scan/filename=/xubuntu-18.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso noeject noprompt splash -Īs you can see, I've changed only the menu entries to keep things simple. Loopback loop /xubuntu-18.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso Linux (loop)/casper/vmlinuz boot=casper iso-scan/filename=/ubuntu-18.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso noeject noprompt splash. Loopback loop /ubuntu-18.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso # Suggested Entries and the suggestor, if available, will also be noted. # This grub.cfg file was created by Lance For the purposes of this example, let's consider latest LTS releases of Ubuntu and Xubuntu (swap with any other flavors or debian too if you prefer): Step-3: Copy whatever ISOs you want into the root folder of your drive.

Type cd /media/prahlad/MULTIBOOT/boot/grub (or whatever your path is).

Type sudo grub-install -force -no-floppy -boot-directory=/media/prahlad/MULTIBOOT/boot /dev/sdx (replacing path with yours, x with your actual USB device).

Close the gparted window if its open, otherwise the drive won't be mounted.

Step-2: Install grub2 on the newly formatted drive, create a boilerplate grub.cfg file: Though the linked article below uses the fdisk/mkfs.vfat commands, you can even use graphical tools like gparted to make this process simpler. Also, label the drive as MULTIBOOT or something for recognizing it easier. Step-1: Format your USB drive to FAT32, there should be a single partition on the drive with boot flag enabled. Though the process is a bit more involved than the dd command, the reward is obviously worth it too. So, let's learn how to reclaim all that space by creating a single USB which can boot multiple ISO images. This simple dd command does the job, but you are left with a single ISO image occupying the entire disk space which is an inefficiency if you have a larger drive that can hold multiple images.

Multiple linux iso usb