Ventoy: A customizable USB boot loader - Everything you need to know | Ventoy
A brief introduction to the project:
Ventoy is an open-source project hosted on GitHub that provides a customizable USB boot loader. It allows users to create a bootable USB drive from ISO files, containing multiple operating systems or software installations. By supporting a wide range of ISO files and providing a simple installation process, Ventoy makes it easier for users to quickly create a multi-boot USB drive.
Project Overview:
Ventoy solves the problem of creating bootable USB drives by providing a flexible and user-friendly solution. With Ventoy, users can create a bootable USB drive with multiple ISO files, eliminating the need for separate USB drives for different operating systems or software installations. This significantly simplifies the process of installing or trying out different operating systems or software packages.
The target audience for Ventoy consists of tech enthusiasts, IT professionals, software developers, and anyone who frequently installs or tests different operating systems or software packages. It can also be useful for system administrators who need to deploy multiple operating systems or software installations on multiple machines without the need for physical media.
Project Features:
- Multi-boot support: Ventoy allows users to add multiple ISO files to a single USB drive, which can be booted into individual operating systems or software installations.
- ISO file compatibility: Ventoy supports a wide range of ISO files, including Windows, Linux distributions, live antivirus scanners, and other bootable software.
- Persistence support: Ventoy supports persistence, allowing users to save their data and configuration changes across reboots.
- UEFI and legacy BIOS support: Ventoy supports both UEFI and legacy BIOS boot modes, ensuring compatibility with a wide range of hardware.
- Drag and drop installation: Installing ISO files with Ventoy is as simple as dragging and dropping them onto the USB drive.
- Customization options: Ventoy provides several customization options, such as changing the boot menu, adding custom entries, and applying themes.
Technology Stack:
Ventoy is primarily written in C, making it lightweight and efficient. The project leverages several libraries and tools, including GRUB2 and Syslinux for booting ISO files, and JSON-C for configuration file parsing. These technologies were chosen for their robustness, wide community support, and compatibility with a wide range of ISO files.
Project Structure and Architecture:
Ventoy has a modular design and consists of several components that work together to provide the bootable USB drive functionality. The main components include:
- Bootloader: The bootloader is responsible for loading the boot menu and starting the boot process for the selected ISO file.
- Configuration file: Ventoy uses a simple JSON-based configuration file to specify the boot menu entries and customization options.
- Plugin system: Ventoy supports plugins, which can be used to extend its functionality. Plugins can be used to add specific drivers, customization options, or support for additional file systems.
The project follows a layered architectural pattern, where each component has a well-defined interface and interacts with other components through well-defined APIs. This allows for easy extensibility and maintainability.
Contribution Guidelines:
Ventoy encourages contributions from the open-source community and provides guidelines for submitting bug reports, feature requests, or code contributions. The project has an issue tracker on GitHub where users can report bugs or suggest new features. Code contributions can be made through pull requests, following the project's coding standards and documentation guidelines.
The project's documentation provides detailed information on how to contribute, including guidelines for submitting bug reports, feature requests, and code contributions. It also provides information on the project's development process and how to set up a development environment.
