When you need a Windows install...

[ihrsetrdr]

When you are an all Linux shop but find yourself in the position of needing a Windows install for specific purpose, it can be daunting, as the game has become more complex. I run all Arcolinux desktops but a particular tool (Ventoy)for creating bootable USB Windows installers was just not successfully ebuilding , via Pamac(pacman). However, I read that Ventoy was readily available in Ubuntu, and I'd been looking for a reason to try out the latest release...so this was the reason. Shrank a partition for the Ubuntu 23.04 install, and made it happen.

Ventoy succeeded were other methods fail. I now have Windows 10 and a Windows 11 USB installers that work. With all that out of the way I can take advantage of several AI video editing apps that (hopefully) will be more functional than currently available open source provide.

​

 

[knoober]

Imagine how awesome it will be when you grab a 64gb or greater USB stick and put all the OS on it

I find myself in need of a Windows install from time to time for oddball reasons like updating the bios on an old-ish laptop or some other such nonsense that has a Windows lock on the program. I am really drawing a blank for examples atm but it happens from time to time (Odin for Samsung phones as well, which does have Heimdall in Linux but Odin seems to work better). The best I have been able to come up with for a liveiso experience is throwing Hirens onto my Ventoy stick or even putting an entire Windows install onto an nvme usb3 adapter. Between those 2 options and VMs I can do most of what I need, but since it seems like you also get into this pickle... any swiss army knives or tricks that I might not have heard of?

Edit: Geeze I didn't look at the date of the OP till I posted. Sorry for the resurrection of the old thread

 

[ihrsetrdr]

Imagine how awesome it will be when you grab a 64gb or greater USB stick and put all the OS on it

I find myself in need of a Windows install from time to time for oddball reasons like updating the bios on an old-ish laptop or some other such nonsense that has a Windows lock on the program. I am really drawing a blank for examples atm but it happens from time to time (Odin for Samsung phones as well, which does have Heimdall in Linux but Odin seems to work better). The best I have been able to come up with for a liveiso experience is throwing Hirens onto my Ventoy stick or even putting an entire Windows install onto an nvme usb3 adapter. Between those 2 options and VMs I can do most of what I need, but since it seems like you also get into this pickle... any swiss army knives or tricks that I might not have heard of?

Edit: Geeze I didn't look at the date of the OP till I posted. Sorry for the resurrection of the old thread

No problem actually, as improvements in OS USB installation media is an ongoing topic of interest. On just one 32 GB stick created with Ventoy I have:
debian-live-12.5.0-amd64-mate.iso
Endeavouros-Galileo-11-2023.iso
Fedora-MATE_Compiz-Live-x86_64-39-1.5.iso
gparted-live-1.6.0-1-amd64.iso
manjaro-mate-23.0.1-230921-linux65.iso
rescuezilla-2.4.2-64bit.jammy.iso
super_grub2_disk_hybrid_2.04s1.iso
tails-amd64-6.0.img
ubuntu-mate-22.04.3-desktop-amd64.iso
...with 5GB still available. I have another 32GB stick with Win10 and Win11 .ISOs...too bad MS doesn't have a "live" image available, would be quite handy.

 

[knoober]

Thats about what my stick looks like. I keep 2 or 3 desktop distros, Hiren's Boot, DBAN, Win10 &11, and FreeDOS. If I need to work with partitions I will use gparted/fdisk from the desktop distro, as well as fixing grub issues but that supergrub2 looks like it might be handy. I kind of want to keep clonezilla on there as well but I cant decide if its wasted space. I have been searching for a long time for a usable windows live iso with no luck. The PE environments are often missing drivers or other misc files that are needs to run whatever little windows thing I am trying to do. I will just keep my fingers crossed that windows devs will some day see the light

 

[ihrsetrdr]

Thats about what my stick looks like. I keep 2 or 3 desktop distros, Hiren's Boot, DBAN, Win10 &11, and FreeDOS. If I need to work with partitions I will use gparted/fdisk from the desktop distro, as well as fixing grub issues but that supergrub2 looks like it might be handy. I kind of want to keep clonezilla on there as well but I cant decide if its wasted space. I have been searching for a long time for a usable windows live iso with no luck. The PE environments are often missing drivers or other misc files that are needs to run whatever little windows thing I am trying to do. I will just keep my fingers crossed that windows devs will some day see the light

After Windows 7 I felt it wise for MS to make a shift to a Unix-like OS as Apple did, in 2001. MS "kind of" wants to join in with the Open Source goodness, but apparently only if they can call the shots. I cringed at the news that Microsoft had bought GitHub, but they survived and as a stock has increased in value considerably.

 

[knoober]

After Windows 7 I felt it wise for MS to make a shift to a Unix-like OS as Apple did, in 2001. MS "kind of" wants to join in with the Open Source goodness, but apparently only if they can call the shots. I cringed at the news that Microsoft had bought GitHub, but they survived and as a stock has increased in value considerably.

Not trying to muck up the thread or anything, but I had a comment about this:
When I saw Win10, one of my first thoughts was that MS was trying to emulate the look and feel of KDE and this has only been strengthened by the look and feel of Win11. Perhaps this is wishful thinking but I think that if they can see the better UI/UX, then maybe they will come around with other areas as well (far into the future that is). I also thought MS were going to kill github, but it has been a non issue from my perspective. None of the projects I follow have boycotted or move to competitors, and that tells me that MS must not have made too many waves.

 

[Flamethrower1972]

When you are an all Linux shop but find yourself in the position of needing a Windows install for specific purpose, it can be daunting, as the game has become more complex. I run all Arcolinux desktops but a particular tool (Ventoy)for creating bootable USB Windows installers was just not successfully ebuilding , via Pamac(pacman). However, I read that Ventoy was readily available in Ubuntu, and I'd been looking for a reason to try out the latest release...so this was the reason. Shrank a partition for the Ubuntu 23.04 install, and made it happen.

Ventoy succeeded were other methods fail. I now have Windows 10 and a Windows 11 USB installers that work. With all that out of the way I can take advantage of several AI video editing apps that (hopefully) will be more functional than currently available open source provide.

​

Thats great but is the PC running Linx with a windows feel or something else.