Create USB Installation Media for Oracle Linux with Ventoy

This tutorial describes how to use Ventoy to create Oracle Linux installation media on a USB device.

Introduction

Oracle Linux is distributed as an ISO image, which is a binary representation of the files and contents for installing the operating system. An Oracle Linux installation requires that you need to create an installation media from the ISO image.

As the official documentation shows, Oracle’s supported method for creating the installation media is by using the dd command. However, you can choose any preferred third party utility, such as Balena Etcher or Rufus.

This tutorial focuses on using Ventoy to create installation media on a USB drive. If you are using macOS, follow the instructions in our tutorial for Fedora Media Writer instead.

Ventoy is a utility that creates a bootable USB device, but unlike other installation media creation tools that copy the contents of one ISO image onto one USB device, Ventoy installs a custom bootloader onto that USB media and then creates a blank partition onto which you can copy one or more ISO image files.

This approach means that, instead of needing three separate USB devices for each ISO image, you can use the same physical USB device to run install media for Oracle Linux 7, Oracle Linux 8, and Oracle Linux 9. Also, whenever Oracle releases a new ISO image, you can copy it onto your existing USB device instead of creating new install media for Oracle Linux on another USB device. You can also continue to use your USB flash drive to back up files and copy files between machines.

Objectives

At the end of this tutorial, you should be able to do the following:

Prerequisites

Downloading the Oracle Linux ISO

  1. Log in to Oracle Software Delivery Cloud.

    Your Oracle Single Sign On (SSO) credentials are required to access the download site.

  2. Search for Oracle Linux and select the latest version of the operating system.

    The selected item is automatically added to the cart.

  3. Click Continue to proceed to the next step.

  4. Select the platform of the operating system to be installed, then click Continue.

  5. Accept the Oracle License Agreement.

  6. Deselect the check boxes for the source DVD and Boot ISOs so that you would download only a single installation ISO image, for example, V984216-01.iso.

  7. Click Download to install the Oracle Download Manager to your computer.

  8. Use the Oracle Download Manager to download the selected ISO file.

Alternatively, you can download the ISO file directly from http://yum.oracle.com/oracle-linux-isos.html. Select the Full ISO to download.

Formatting the USB flash drive

The procedure for formatting the USB flash drive differs depending on your workstation’s operating system.

Formatting the USB flash drive on Windows

  1. Insert your USB flash drive, open File Explorer, and then locate the device in This PC.

  2. Right-click the correct drive letter, then select Format….

  3. Select exFAT as the file system, set a volume label, and then select Quick Format.

  4. Click Start to begin the format process, then confirm that you want to proceed.

Formatting the USB flash drive on Linux

  1. Install gparted through your Linux distribution package manager.

  2. Start gparted and select the storage device from the drop-down list, which is located at the top right side of the window.

  3. Delete any existing partitions and then create one single FAT32 partition.

  4. Click the green tick mark, then click Apply to start the format process.

  5. After the format process has completed, disconnect and then reconnect your USB flash drive.

Installing Ventoy

The procedure for installing Ventoy differs depending on your workstation’s operating system.

Installing Ventoy on Windows

  1. Download the Windows zip archive at https://www.ventoy.net/en/download.html.

  2. Decompress the zip archive.

  3. Double-click on Ventoy2Disk.exe. You may be prompted to grant additional permissions before Ventoy can run.

Installing Ventoy on Linux

  1. Download the Linux gzipped tarball at https://www.ventoy.net/en/download.html

  2. Decompress the gzipped tarball.

  3. Run the VentoyGUI executable that aligns with the system CPU architecture. For example, on a 64-bit Intel/AMD system, run the following commands:

    chmod +x VentoyGUI.x86_64

    ./VentoyGUI.x86_64

    Note: Ventoy automatically selects GTK or Qt as the engine for VentoyGUI based on which Linux distribution you are running. It defaults to GTK, but you can optionally force Ventoy to use Qt by appending the --qt5 option when you run the VentoyGUI executable.

Creating a bootable USB memory stick

  1. Insert your USB flash drive and start Ventoy if you have not done so already.

  2. Under Device in the Ventoy GUI, select the USB flash drive in the drop-down list. If it’s not visible, click the Refresh button.

  3. Click the Install button and wait for the process to complete.

  4. Close Ventoy, safely unplug or unmount your USB flash drive, and then re-insert it.

  5. Copy the Oracle Linux ISO image(s) to the blank partition on your USB flash drive.

Installing Oracle Linux on compatible machines

The key combination for editing the BIOS/UEFI configuration or for selecting the current boot device varies depending on the manufacturer. Refer to the manufacturer of your particular hardware for related technical support documentation.

  1. Insert the newly created USB installation media and then restart the system.

  2. Press the appropriate key combination when the machine boots, then select your USB flash drive as the boot device.

  3. Select the Oracle Linux install ISO that you want to run from the list in the Ventoy bootloader.

  4. Follow the instructions provided in the installation guide for the Oracle Linux version that you are installing at the Oracle Linux library.

For more information:

More Learning Resources

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For product documentation, visit Oracle Help Center.