After a great article from hak5 I tried to find a good solution to create a personal bootable usb dongle. The best tool with a GUI seems to be UNetbootin a cross platform application that let the user select an iso image bootable from an usb drive.
The interface is simple and easy to use : you can choose a linux distribution, you can select an iso file or even an old floppy image. It’s best to format your drive using fat32 file system. After that just select the iso you want and the appliction will make the usb bootable for you.
Until now this was nothing new, the cool trick however is to make it multi bootable.
The path I choose for this is simple :
step1 – after the first iso installation, copy all the files to your local hard drive.
step2 – delete everything on the usb and install the second iso file
step3 – copy the old backup from your hard drive and make sure no folders overlap
step4 ( optional ) – in case the linux distribution is the same try to change the folder and the menu.ls file so it points to the renamed files and folders
This list is not complete without a few good recomandation any linux geek should have at his disposal at any time
- Live antivirus : f-secure-rescue-cd
- File recovery : Ubuntu remix rescue cd
- Network audit : BackTrack 4 linux distribution
- Partition manager – Gparted
I was just thinking about doing this today, when I stumbled across this. Thanks for the tips! I’m having a slight issue though. I don’t have a menu.ls file in any of my images created from Unetbootin. I’m using the latest version: 372-0gezakovacs~jaunty2. Is there some other file I need to be editing?
Thanks again, This was exactly what I was looking for!
I think there is a mistake in the text .. the file should be : syslinux.cfg