Simple/easy sort of boot manager for directly using ISOs and/or VMs ??

[smallhagrid]

To be clear right from the start here, I have gotten superb results using Ventoy for USB sticks & I'm very happy with that.

Ventoy also may be installed onto a HDD - but I haven't tried that yet.

 

I'm a full-time Linux user now & having a tool set like PartedMagic to also be directly bootable from my HDD would be great.

 

So I wonder if anyone can confirm that Ventoy is able to be installed onto a HDD to use as a sort of boot manager as well, somehow ??

 

Having the ability to multi-boot with a bunch of tool ISOs and also an installed OS or 2 would be quite useful.

 

That would come as close as possible to having a sort of bare metal system with a bunch of bootable VMs, but minus the complications of the very limited technology at present for doing that.

 

Of course if there are other great & simple tools similar to Ventoy & NOT windoze-centered I'd love to hear about those too.

 

Thanks for any/all the helpful replies Folks !!

[gandalf44]

If you are a Linux user, have you considered using Grub?

 

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2

 

[smallhagrid]

Thanks for your reply Gandalf44 !!

 

Actually I have tried & found that GRUB is really a PITA to get juuuust right.

 

Way back when (in the DOS/windoze days) there used to be boot managers that did nifty, extra stuff - but that era is long gone.

I actually sort of collected a bunch of those but the only one claiming to do some ISO booting was GRUB.

 

There's an IMer who posts useless sales videos on YT about the 'new way' to host multiple OSes & VMs on a single PC, but her stuff is really intolerably long winded with zero real info.

[smallhagrid]

Amazing how little has improved in this area since I made the OP here & Ventoy remains my go-to for directly booting ISOs,

https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html

Yes, it says it can be installed to the local disk & 1 day I may get around to trying that...

 

What seriously shocks me is the barrier between running different OSes within a single PCs environment concurrently.

Proxmox is said to do this &I'll need to travel its learning curve someday.

 

The REAL biggie for me as a Linux user is a desire for a GOOD Android emulator or some way to be using Linux with an ability to also run Android apps.

Having tested many such things - the best I've found so far is the windoze-only app, Bluestacks - but I have to start my play box to use it...meh.

But, but, but - Android IS a Linux variant - and this barrier remains.

Edited June 2 by shwescorpion
Text format removed.