Multiple Bootable OS in Single USB
Recently I have been knee deep into Linux installations. Installing through USB is great process, there is no hassle of CD and its faster too. But problem is first we need bootable USB. Up till now I used “Start Disk Creator”, which is bundled in Ubuntu and is great for creating bootable USB, major problem with it is that it creates single boot USB, that is If I have bootable USB for Ubuntu 11.04, it will be erased when I create a bootable stick for Ubuntu 11.10.
This was a problem for me, and I found a solution to this problem in Multisystem, which creates a single bootable USB for multiple OS.
Here are steps to install And Use Multisystem
1) Download From PenDriveLinux.com, Extract the package .. change the permission of extracted file “install-depot-multisystem.sh” to make it executable.
2) Execute this file and it’ll download some files, and complete its installation. After Its Done, lets move to actually creating Pen Drive with multiple bootable OS.
3) Run Multisystem and it’ll ask you to confirm any USB drive if inserted. Once confirmed it should look as following images, but there would be no OS pre configured. (it shows some as I configured them, it also tells me that I have 4live CDs already configured.)
4) Click on icon at bottom in middle (Which has “Select .iso or .img “written on top of it). And Select image file of OS for which bootable USB need to be created. It’ll again ask for password and within less than a minute bootable will be ready.
5)Same process (step 4) can be repeated to add multiple OS to bootable USB stick.
6) It also lets you test how bootable stick will work.Just Click on “Q” button and see the magic. Below are the images of me testing ArchBang from my bootable USB.
