Linux installer .exe without pendrives (secure-boot compatible)

Details

External ID

47855927

Source

HN

Company

—

Product

Linux installer .exe without pendrives (secure-boot compatible)

Website domain

1clicklinux.org

Launched

April 21, 2026

Cohort

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Upvotes

5

Upvotes percentile

0.11182519280205655

Tags

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Fetched at

Sept. 7, 2026, 9:26 p.m.

Updated at

Sept. 7, 2026, 9:26 p.m.

Description

It is fairly simple, but useful for non-power users: a statically-linked Qt app that gracefully edits Windows Boot Manager to do a reboot-once into GRUB, which in turn launches ZorinOS live/installer from disk loopback. I needed to make a custom initramfs with dislocker in it, and to squeeze it a little (default Windows EFI partition is not so big).Currently my biggest issue is that systemd is unable to shut down gracefully when rootfs is mounted from such a deep loop stack. The other is that installing to full disk crashes right after it successfully damages the partition table. I think I could solve both by copying the ISO contents to ramdisk before systemd takes over (initramfs needs to stay slim as I mentioned before) - maybe opportunistically if there is enough RAM (3,5G is not so unreasonable to expect).I decided to make it paid for now (maybe not eligible for show? if so, sorry, I've been mostly a HN reader so far), but I am still considering if my project brought more good by being free of charge. It is free as in GPL3+ though, so although I can politely ask you not to exercise it too hard until I turn Bad™, you (will) have several ways to obtain it without paying anyway.The website itself (especially payments) is also an interesting story, I can share it too some day.What do you think?

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