unetbootin

[bill-auger]

On Wed, 28 Dec 2022 02:45:11 +0100 Denis wrote:
> I'm curious about this project as it seem to have interesting features
> like, from a Microsoft Windows installation, reboot to a GNU/Linux
> installer directly, without even needing an USB key.

as i remember, this project was not an innovation - i believe
that it was written as a libre replacement for ubuntu's 'wubi',
which was a popular way to try/install ubuntu at the time -
ubuntu discontinued 'wubi' after a few years though - im not
sure why - maybe it was too difficult to maintain, or maybe
people simply were not using it

unetbootin is (and 'wubi' was) useful for non-technical windows
users; but once someone install a distro (replacing the windows
bootloader with GRUB), unetbootin offers only a minor GUI
convenience, because GRUB can boot all of those ISO files
directly (though user must fetch each manually) - with GRUB
installed, all unetbootin does is to offer and download a
selection of ISOs, then to configure GRUB to boot the one you
just downloaded, then reboot - based on that description, the
functionality of this software (except for the windows bootloader
integration) could be replaced with a relatively small shell
script

in other words, the unique value of unetbootin is only useful is
the user prefers to keep the windows bootloader; but experiment
with ISOs, without burning the image to any external storage -
drop either of thise two requirements, and this program is much
less interesting

side note, in my experience, people dont really want this sort
of program anymore - what ppl want is to keep a single USB
storage with multiple distros installed (not read-only ISOs, but
installed volatile systems, all ready to use)