On Friday, June 18, 2021 at 12:08:03 AM UTC-7 trl wrote:
I have a 1TB portable and thought I could fill it with Linux installers.
Then bringing this to meetings for people to use.
As far as creating single-ISO bootable media for the Linux installers, I myself tend to notice that there are three major types:
1. USB thumbdrives in storage capacities ranging from 1 GB (for bootable CD-size, netinstall-type ISO's) all the way up to 8 GB (for the vast majority of bootable DVD-size, complete install ISO's.)
2. DVDs.
Note that as of this writing, Michael P still has two DVD-burning SATA drives available as per his BALUG Wiki's Offered/Wanted: Hardware, etc. at https://www.wiki.balug.org/wiki/doku.php?id=balug:offered_wanted_hardware_etc
3. CDs.
Not just useful for netinstall-type ISO's such as that of "Debian (non-free, multi-arch)", but also useful for the tinier distro and Rescue-type CDs around and apparently still in active use. There is also the tiny Plop Boot Manager ISO -- see https://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager/full.html -- which can be burned to a CD and used to boot USB thumbdrives in machines with older BIOS'es without the ability to directly boot such USB drives.
I have heard of software Ventoy which is supposed to multiboot
any number of iso's. I have not tried it yet but I have heard good things.
So what distros should I download?
Ubuntu flavors
Debian (non-free, multi-arch)
Pop OS
Mint
What else? Aaron (goosbears) what do you suggest?
IMHO, it would do well to note that
a) Rick M has several suggestions within the Linux Tire-Kicking Department section of his must-read
http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/kicking.html and b) Michael P has a comprehensive list of CDs, DVDs, ISOs, images, etc. at https://www.wiki.balug.org/wiki/doku.php?id=balug:cds_and_images_etc
Just offhand, several overlapping ISO-download suggestion "approaches" might be ...
- those in-use distros that other BerkeleyLUG participants are or might be interested in
- similar to the above, new and/or recently upgraded
distros that you (Thomas), Wayne, Michael P, Rick M, and/or other local outspoken Linux advocates are most keenly interested in
- distros that those relatively new to Linux and/or BerkeleyLUG would or even "should" seriously consider
- distros currently mentioned by direct or social media "word-of-mouth", or via websites such as DistroWatch (see https://distrowatch.com/ and its Search Distros feature https://distrowatch.com/search.php )
-Aaron