Ventoy, Kaisen Linux, Clear Linux

I found Kaisen Linux a while ago, but didn't really get around to testing it until early August (I had to download the newer version).

I couldn't remember what USB multi-boot utility I was using after multiboot, but I couldn't seem to find it? Or it may just have been multiboot, but regardless, I couldn't find any hint of what it was. I came upon Ventoy, which is kinda multiboot's successor. Anyway, you install it to the USB drive and then drop the ISOs (or IMGs) directly onto the USB drive. I didn't really read the doc that well since I only read it for installation of Ventoy on the USB drive and then closed the tab, so I didn't realise I just had to plop the ISOs to the drive. It's a lot easier/faster/nicer than multiboot since it's drag and drop after the initial installation (multiboot has an install/uninstall ISO process that unpacks/cleans them in a certain way, which takes longer than just dropping/deleting an ISO file). IMGs only really work on UEFI systems btw, I learned this with Memtest86 V4 and Triela.

Back to Kaisen, it's a distro with sysadmin tools, which what originally got me interested in it because I wanted something that was more current and free than Parted Magic (last I remember, Parted Magic made you pay for current versions, but had previous versions for free), and also something less annoying than GParted Live (GParted asks for the keyboard layout during bootup). While Kaisen doesn't boot as fast as Parted Magic or GParted from what I remember, it's something I like more, even though the XFCE menu is the stock one and not the superior Whisker menu. The ISO includes English and French as an option, like Parted Magic does, but the keyboard is QWERTY instead of AZERTY when booting into English (another annoyance with Parted Magic). The menu is categorised appropriately, I think, but for someone like me that's used to the Whisker menu, it was annoying to find gparted. While I did find it, it's sadly quicker to just Alt+F2 and type for it. I don't think the Whisker menu is customisable like the stock XFCE one, but Whisker does include a search function that makes it easier to find stuff. It'd be nice if the Kaisen team can use Whisker instead or alongside the stock one, but I doubt it'll happen. But with this, definitely not bothering with Parted Magic or GParted Live ever again.

With the power of Ventoy, I wanted to rebuild a set of Linux distros as I previously had on the drive (installing Ventoy wipes the drive), so I poked around to see what else to get besides some obvious choices like Manjaro, openSUSE, and Fedora. I came upon Clear Linux, which is it's own distribution (not forked from anything), and decided to give it a shot since it claims to be optimised for performance. I don't think I've ever booted any faster into a live distro than Clear. I tried to test on Triela, but Clear requires certain CPU instruction sets to run, none of which Triela has (SSSE3 (three Ss, not two), SSE4.1, SSE4.2, CLMUL). Because Melty has those instruction sets (pretty much AMD FX CPUs and newer), I could've tried Clear on Melty, but I didn't really feel like bothering with it. Not really much else to say, since I didn't really do much besides poke a bit at it.

I did try Debian, but I think I had problems or something, but well, I really prefer something that has newer packages like openSUSE Leap. I get that Debian's supposed to be rock solid, but honestly, Manjaro's been pretty solid on Pod for only having installed once. I also tried GhostBSD, but I don't remember if it worked; if it did, I wasn't in it for too long (I was really just after if I could boot into it or not with Triela and Bazett). Oh, one interesting thing when booting into openSUSE Tumbleweed on Bazett was that during the boot, it showed the HP logo.

Not the best shot, but I was trying to avoid reflections of myself and the overhead light.
∞ Tumbleweed is right below the shadow of my phone and above the bright spot of the overhead light.

The logo section was blank when I booted openSUSE Leap on Triela, but it's possible she's too old for that sort of special treatment (or it could just be only on HP laptops, I dunno, I'd need a larger sample size).