Linux @lemmy.ml countrypunk @slrpnk.net 4mo ago

Balenca vs Ventoy?

I'm curious what the difference is between Balenca etcher and Ventoy for writing isos to a live USB for distro hopping purposes. I see both recommended in fourms. Is there any advantage to using one over the other? Are they both equally safe/secure?

I'm also curious about trying out new distros. I've been using LMDE for about a year now and it's been fine, but I want to expand my knowledge and see whether LMDE is my favorite distro or not. I'm not the most well versed in Linux and don't have any prior programming experience so a beginner/mid level distro is what I'm looking for. I want something I can test out without connecting to WiFi (so not arch).

33 comments

Balena Etcher is a writer that does one ISO at a time. Other similar options are Fedora Writer, Rufus, etc.

Ventoy is one that can do multiple ISOs and is generally easy to manage.

However, be aware that Ventoy has a lot of unknown code involved. There's binary blobs that the maintainer refuses to open source, so there's a big question over whether it's hiding some malware or is using unpatched packages. Nobody knows except the maintainer, and it's just his word saying it's safe. You could use it to test out ISOs, but I wouldn't personally use it to actually install a system.

Also, the Ventoy fanbois are pretty insufferable, and they tend to brigade anyone that speaks ill of Ventoy or its dev.

If you want something similar that's open source, Glim works and could be a good option; YUMI has been around for a while, but I dunno if it's still a good project or not.

Edit: typo
- Can you point to some discussion of the ventoy blobs? I had never heard about that and can't find anything that says it's not GPL3.
  
  This thread made me look at this issue. Realistically it's not a big issue, the VAST majority of the binary blobs are accounted for and have a script or a readme file that shows where they're downloaded from.
  
  That being said I will take a serious look at alternatives.
  
  Maybe start here, but there's lots of discussion on the post.
  
  https://lemmy.world/comment/12416453
- Cool! I might give that a try instead of the Ventoy i use regularly. Thanks for the info !
- Also, the Ventoy fanbois are pretty insufferable, and they tend to brigade anyone that speaks ill of Ventoy or its dev.
  
  I more often see a different picture, where any mention of Ventoy leads to unreasonable agression and screams about how storing multiple ISOs on the same disk is useless.
  
  I have quite literally never seen that. The majority of the time, somebody brings up Ventoy, somebody mentions the opaque blobs or some other legitimate criticism, and a bunch of fanbois pile onto that person for having their own opinions or concerns.
  
  Ventoy works well, but the lack of transparency concerns me and people like me.
Ah, yes, Ventoy, my favorite “open source” program. https://github.com/ventoy/Ventoy/issues/2795
- The files it uses are mostly just the tools and shims which can be copied over from a working distribution.
  
  The maintainer is just lazy and he doesn't let people improve it either because he wants it to be coded in a certain way: https://github.com/ventoy/Ventoy/issues/2795#issuecomment-2326831525
  
  It is not a malicious project, yet the xz-utils backdoor should make us be concerned, and we should only use a fork that pulls in the binaries from trusted sources.
Love ventoy. That one usb becomes a Swiss army chainsaw.

But as said elsewhere it hides proprietary blobs among other things.
I liked etcher before balena bought it. The cli was small and easy to use. After the buyout it got super bloated.

USBImager does the same thing.
You're comparing apples to oranges here, but of course Ventoy is a more versatile tool, after one time preparation you're just copying ISOs like files, you can use multiple ISOs at once etc, also do you really need a clunky electron app to burn images on Linux
ventoy is nice in that I can just dump ISOs to a single USB and take it around, but balena is one of many boot media tools that's useful if you need a single ISO for a system - fast.
- What is faster about always flashing the required ISO instead of selecting it more quickly in the boot loader?
  
  @IceFoxX @merthyr1831 I just keep a handful of color coded thumb drives. I know the red one for example is Ubuntu-Mate 24.04, the black one Win10, the yellow, Gparted Live disk, the Green Boot-Repair, etc.
  
  Eh nothing really, but if you don't have a Ventoy set up and you just need an image burned it's more convenient to just use balena or something else.
You can also write an iso to a USB stick with:

cp path/to/awesome.iso /dev/disk/by-id/usb-My_flash_drive
- You can also use pv to see a nice progress bar:
  
  pv path/to/awesome.iso > /dev/disk/usb-drive
- Does this work for multiple isos?
I use Ventoy regularly but im too lazy to setup Grub2 on a USB and load up isos.

Not sure who these Ventoy fanbois or bros are.

Yup Ventoy does hide binary blobs and has some dodgy devs and code. Use at own risk.

Also I dont have any sensitive stuff. So mostly Ventoy is used to install playground server isos and stuff. Not much use for it otherwise.
https://www.balena.io/pricing

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

Do you have a need to spend money for no good reason?
Endeavour IS is arch with KDE and a few basic apps. Pretty sure you dont need WiFi to test it. For any issues you can just use the arch wiki. I really enjoyed it as first distro as the wiki is so helpful. I moved to Mint tho (not DE) and have loved not having to use the terminal for anything.
Belena is simpler, it’s just writing an image to a drive.

Ventoy is complicated and changes the booted image to make it work. That sometimes breaks things.

33 comments