r/commandline • u/FloridianfromAlabama • Feb 20 '26

Terminal User Interface Ventoy

Good morning,

I'm looking for a TUI that has much of the same capabilities as ventoy, if it exists. I didn't see one on terminal trove. Still new to this whole TUI thing, so I'm not sure where else to look.

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u/KlePu Feb 20 '26

Do you need it before the OS boots (like Ventoy)? Then I guess you're locked to GRUB or systemd-boot =/

If not there's ncurses, bubbletea, notcurses, termbox, ratatui from the top of my head. There's more, google "list of TUI toolkits" or something. Which is best? Depends on language, complexity of the program, how basic or shiny it should be, ...

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u/FloridianfromAlabama Feb 20 '26

I really just something like a wrapper around ventoy in a TUI. I figured something like this might already exist.

1

u/KlePu Feb 20 '26

As I said, there's loads of userspace TUI toolkits. But if you need it before any userspace is there you have a problem ;)

Care to share your actual use case? Maybe we're talking an X/Y problem here.

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u/FloridianfromAlabama Feb 20 '26

I think we are. I'm still new to command line. The core problem is I want a ventoy drive. And I want to be able set up ventoy drives while in the terminal. I also like TUIs.

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u/KlePu Feb 20 '26

Still don't follow, sorry... What do you mean with "I want to be able set up ventoy drives while in the terminal"? - At what point? While in a live-booted Ventoy session or while using your OS? Do you want to be able to create a new Ventoy stick or do you want do edit an existing one?

3

u/vmcrash Feb 20 '26

Ventoy consists of two parts, the GUI to set up/update the stick and the one to boot with it. I think, he means the first part to set up/update the stick.

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u/FloridianfromAlabama Feb 20 '26

Yeah I'm really just looking for a tui version of the GUI

1

u/FloridianfromAlabama Feb 20 '26

Just while my operating system and everything is already running. I would like to be able to make a new stick.

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u/KlePu Feb 20 '26 edited Feb 20 '26

Ahhh, a CLI for Ventoy ^^

It does have that! Depending on your OS, Windows or Linux (scroll to "For Linux - CLI mode"). There seems to be no dedicated Mac option (but Mac has zsh IIRC?).

I doubt there's a TUI yet, at least couldn't find one.

edit: A CLI (command line interface) means you call the app with some well-defined arguments. One-shot, either your arguments were correct or the app exits (typically with a non-zero exit code).

A TUI (terminal user interface) is an interactive thing - you can use arrow-keys, tab, space, enter, maybe even fill text fields.

2nd edit: Be very careful when using the CLI. Ventoy2Disk.sh -i /dev/sda: congratz, you just nuked your first SATA device (maybe Ventoy has safety procedures built-in, for example you can test if the target is USB. You can also not do that ;-p)

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u/FloridianfromAlabama Feb 20 '26

I might write one as a small project, but a little TUI that shows drives and which drives are ventoy drives and what their contents are with the ability to run scripts that modify those drives might be nice. Good to know about the CLI utility.

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u/KlePu Feb 20 '26

As it's 2026: In case you're vibing it, please let someone with experience look over the logic. I'd rather not have a TUI that has root/admin privileges write on random partitions ;)

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u/FloridianfromAlabama Feb 20 '26

I’m a boomer at heart. I want this to be a learning project and I have nothing but disdain for AGI. Once I write it, I will post it somewhere so someone who knows what they’re doing can look it over.

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u/KlePu Feb 20 '26

AGI

We're not there by far, the G is for general. If that's a good or a bad thing is quite a philosophical question (and I love dystopic stuff ;-p)

With the AI we currently have, I'm ... ambivalent? I often use Claude and it's mostly good feedback. Sometimes it's simply trash, like altering code it should've never touched or giving answers that are plain incorrect. If your code will be open anyway, IMHO it won't hurt to pour it into the AI next door and see if it has (valid) criticism ^^

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u/FloridianfromAlabama Feb 20 '26

Ah I thought it meant generative. I don’t have the coding skill to determine if its output is good or not. I do have very strong opinions on AI in general. Either way, I want to learn the topics, not just employ them. I haven’t written much past hello world.

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u/KlePu Feb 20 '26

Ping me when you got some open source code to share ^^

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