Has anyone been able to boot an ISO file using Ventoy if the ISO was made using Linux Live Kit?

I'm using Linux Mint 20 Cinnamon to do it, and I can't get Ventoy to boot the ISO even though Ventoy boots other ISO files just fine (like the one that I used for installing Mint to make the other custom ISO).

It will boot Ventoy, and I can choose the ISO, and it even shows the screen to boot it and then begins booting, but then at some point it says:

Live Kit init
Setting Dynamic RAM compression using ZRAM if available
Probing for hardware
Looking for linux data in /linux.................................
Fatal error occurred - Could not locate linux data
Something went wrong and we can't continue. This should never happen.
Please reboot your computer with Ctrl+Alt+Delete...

I've tried using isohybrid to tweak the file in various ways, but that only makes it worse, so that it doesn't even show the screen with the boot options.

And by the way, even with the unmodified ISO file that attempts to boot until the error, it only works in BIOS/CSM/Legacy mode but not UEFI mode; does anyone know how to make it work in UEFI mode? Though that will only be useful to me if I can get it to work in Ventoy (which is ideal because I'd like to multiboot), but if I have to burn it directly then I'll use the ZIP file which is also produced, since that can work on a USB drive and the ISO seems to only be able to work on a CD/DVD (though I haven't tried that because I want to use USB).

EDIT: And by the way, when I extract the ZIP file onto a USB drive and run a script to make it bootable, it works fine. So then the only issue is that it's not a multiboot, and it's not UEFI compatible (I haven't tried it with Secure Boot yet but I intended to test that today).

I was about to ask why you were using an out of date version of Mint, but then I realized that Mint 20 is the «“newest”» version.

More broadly, have you tried Unetbootin, Etcher or Fedora Media Writer?

And to a further question, why Ventoy?

Don't those three you listed just burn the thing directly onto a USB to boot? I can achieve that by extracting the ZIP file and running a script which is built into it, that makes it bootable.

But the advantage of Ventoy is that it can multi-boot, so it gives me a menu of numerous distributions (however many ISO files I put on the drive) and I can boot any of them from the one USB drive.

Also, it seems like UEFI is newer and somewhat more compatible, so not being able to use that could possibly cause a compatibility issue with newer computers, couldn't it?

I'm trying to ascertain a situation where you need to shotgun load that many distros at once, especially for ready booting.
Regale and/or enlighten me.

It's because I like to keep my options open, and I want to maximize potential compatibility with every possible computer, rather than just putting a single OS on there and if it doesn't work then I have no backup plan.

And what about UEFI? How can I get that to work? For some reason the tool which is supposed to give that capability to ISO files isn't able to do it, and if I try to do anything else with it, the file won't boot in any context after that.

UEFI comparability more depends on how locked down your implementation of the "standard" is. I've run stock Dells for most of my computing life and their implementation is very Linux friendly. I'd suggest narrowing the scope temporarily and seeing if the problem is Mint or just in general.

I've also heard that some MOBOs are just outright incompatible.

Seriously? Well, I can see how an old computer might not work with UEFI (like before it was invented or became common), but why wouldn't a relatively new on be?

What about Macintosh? I know that it will need to be able to run on Apple computers.

The problem is that this needs to be portable and I don't know ahead of time what kind of computer it will run on, but it NEEDS to be compatible anyway!

And if Mint turns out to be the problem then that's all the more reason why I need Ventoy, because then there are numerous distributions as back-up plans!

go for manjaro

Uh, alright... care to elaborate?

i think that is better than mint

Well I like it too, but my main priority is to just get something to work and be as compatible as possible, even if it turns out to be Tiny Core Linux.

1) Some makers really take that stupid certification sticker seriously.

2) What about Macs? I haven't used them since the System 7 days.

3) And that's asking for something a marketing salesman would try to sell you.

What do you mean by that? Why wouldn't it be compatible with UEFI then?

Then I guess you don't know the answer to that specific question. Oh well. I'm not sure how to find the answer though, since I don't have a Mac on which to test it.

How so? I just want a way for it to be compatible. The problem is that this is going to be used on various computers of different kinds, and I don't have any way of knowing ahead of time what hardware they'll have, or any way of testing them on it either, but it's VERY important to me that they will work!

Even the new ones with an M1 chip?
That's going to be fun.

How on earth are you going to be able to guide your 'clients' on how to boot these things, if you don't know anything about the HW?

Is this Linux saga related to that cross platform .NET turned Java project you were playing around with?
If so, why do you need a universally compatible Linux-on-a-stick anyway?

I remember your thread, I thInk? Where people were trying to help you in your quest to install linux on a USB stick? For weeks, if not months?

Anyways, something tells me the this won't be the final anything for this project :) Nevermind a question. And thats ok, these forums are pretty dead anyways.

But I mean, I recently installed Arch btw, and I still have no clue wtf you are trying to accomplish and why and the reasons why it hasn't worked. Though to be fair, installing Arch is basically about just following the wiki, so that's not really saying much.

To answer your incredibly specialised niche question about some obscure linux utility - Nope.

But UEFI boots can be incredibly easy, or incrediby painful to make work. Assuming you have CSM on, Legacy/UEFI enabled, then you need to have made the live USB in a UEFI environment with a supported usb live creator tool. That makes it put in a good EFI partition, an then during POST bios you can select it. All these things have to happen to get the miracle of UEFI in a multisystem environment to work.

For an actual linux install, you'll probably need to setup the partitions for EFI yourself manually. Though the Linux Mint installer might do it for you probably somehow. I recently did this manually using (of course) the Arch wiki (can't post links but just search for EFI partition in arch wiki).

If your live usb creator is not creating a bootable UEFI medium, then you might have to do that yourself. You mentioned some script you had for live USBs, maybe modify that.