Is there an easy way to create a multiboot grub2 usb flash using isos?

Question

I've recently purchased a 32gb usb 3.0 flash drive. Because I find myself creating bootable flash drives all the time with different images, I'm looking for a way I could create ONE flash drive with multiple images on it.

What I'm trying to figure out is:

1. Is it possible to get Grub2 to boot directly from an ISO image, stored on the flash drive? (without extracting the content)?
2. If this is possible, is there an existing tool one could use? (I know I could run the grub commands over and over, but I'm rather looking for a tool that could do it for you)
3. Is Grub2 capable of "scanning" through a directory of ISO's and displaying that list on boot, or I need to manually add/remove the files each time they change?

Answer 1

You can try Easy2Boot if you want to boot directly from 100s of different Linux .iso files.

You just copy over any .iso file you like. The only snag is that you need to make sure each .iso file is contiguous. There is a defrag utility supplied for FAT32 USB drives or udefrag for NTFS USB drives so you can do this.

You can delete any ISO at any time. The menu is automatically created each time you boot, so no application is needed.

A good supplementary article on the details of using it here: https://www.technibble.com/easy2boot-boot-disks/

Answer 2

A really nice way to manage multiboot linux configurations is to use the excellent "YUMI" at http://www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-multiboot-usb-creator/.

Although it doesn't store the ISOs directly it formats up your USB stick and places a boot manager with nice menu system on the stick. Each ISO is expanded into the FS tree and the menu is updated to include the new image. The application even will provide a large list of available ISOs and download them for subsequent inclusion on your USB stick. You can even come back later and add more images. It's pretty teriffic!