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Show HN: Linux installer .exe without pendrives (secure-boot compatible)
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).<p>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).<p>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.<p>The website itself (especially payments) is also an interesting story, I can share it too some day.<p>What do you think?
This project is a niche technical utility rather than a scalable venture-backed startup, currently suffering from critical bugs like partition table corruption. While the developer shows technical proficiency in bootloaders, the market for 'no-USB Linux installation' is extremely small and the product lacks a clear path to monetization or a competitive moat.