Feedback welcome:
I’ve tried myself the distro in my dev environment for the new options, not the old ones and they seem to start ok. Another thing is doing a full test about their complete functionality. Please test the ISO and report back if something that worked on previous stable versions no longer works in this beta version.
Some little thoughts
I’ve added these expert tools because, basically, I don’t have to implement boot-repair functionality into Rescapp wizard (And the idea is one or two years old :(). Another reason might be because testdisk, photorec and extundelete can be useful in some situations but… again… I would rather include its functionality into Rescapp script (instead of adding disconnected apps).
Not everything is bad because adding these tools has made me add the Expert tools options menu to Rescapp. Now you can find Gparted inside of Rescapp instead of having to search for it in the Start menu.
I’m not sure if I want to freeze 0.31 beta 3 as it is right now or if I’m going to add one of these things: 1. Add more chntpw-ng functionality to rescapp. 2. Improve the Restore Grub and Update Grub to be able to detect Logical Volumes (LVM).
Razor-qt replaces LXDE as the new Rescatux default desktop
Added Qtfm (File manager)
Network-manager-gnome was replaced by Wicd.
Default Razor-qt desktop configuration was updated to mimic previous Rescatux desktop
Added Juffed (Text editor)
Added Qasmixer (Audio mixer)
Devel changes
(Devel) Reusable live-build directory added for faster builds
(Devel) Ignore Rescatux binary files from Git
(Devel) Distribution is now testing based instead of wheezy based so that sid packages can be pinned ok
(Devel) Add Openbox icon to Rescapp desktop file. Razorqt by default shows no icon for desktop files without icons. Or maybe we are not providing the default icon razorqt uses.
(Devel) Added siduction repository to be able to use qtfm
(Devel) Added razorqt-power package to be able to stop PC in a fancy manner.
Miscelanea changes
.packages file is now built in final release
Distro facts
Razor-qt replaces LXDE as the new Rescatux default desktop
(Devel) Distribution is now testing based instead of wheezy based so that sid packages can be pinned ok
(Devel) Added siduction repository to be able to use qtfm
Finally people at razor-qt irc channel say that this version is quite old and that will be soon be replaced by 0.5 version. I’ll wait for that but I’m not afraid of having to rebuild its config. It would seem that 0.5 version breaks 0.4 version.
Now it’s based on Debian (Testing) and not Debian (Stable). Rescatux 0.31 stable will probably be based on Debian (Stable) as Wheezy will be stable itself.
You probably need to update your script to reflect that default kernel is vmlinuz1 instead of old vmlinuz.
Feedback welcome:
I’ve tried myself the distro in my dev environment all the current options and they seem to work ok. Please test the ISO and report back if something that worked on previous stable versions no longer works in this beta version.
I applied for it 2 or 3 months ago and finally it went out. Rescatux is not very high in the distrowatch stats but that’s not a problem. I prefer having actual improvements in the distro that being at the Distrowatch’s top. That’s the main reason why I check Distrowatch from time to time, to learn about new features found in innovating distributions.
I was supposed to announced this around 20th February but I was quite busy at work. Anyways I wanted to say that apart from being busy the Rescatux development is quite of stalled because I’m waiting for the next stable release of Debian.
It seems that there’s only 100 bugs left to release it. Probably three months maximum and they will release it. Although you never know with Debian.
Around the things that I want to improve in the next Rescatux development there are:
I18N (Internalisation). Not complete but somewhat functional.
Regenerate Sudoers. Need to force root:root owner and 700 permissions.
Crack Windows password (by brute-force) because it seems that some Windows personal folder are encrypted and the reset password option wouldn’t recover those files
So, that’s it from the DEV front. Please forgive me if I cannot reply in the forum as often as I would like to.
If you select Rescatux autodetect at boot it tries to load 32bit kernel when you have a 64bit one and viceversa. More than this there’s another bug that makes unusable the manual Rescatux 32 bit and Rescatux 64 bit options. It just shows you a kernel panic error.
How to workaround it
You don’t need to download or wait for 0.30.2. You can use 0.30 version and workaround the bug with:
Select Rescatux autodetect and press ‘e’ key.
Replace vmlinuz to vmlinuz2.
Replace vmlinuz2 into vmlinuz.
Replace initrd.img into initrd2.img.
Replace initrd2.img into initrd.img.
Press F10 key or ctrl+x
Now Rescatux should boot with 64bit kernel if possible.
Rescatux 0.30.2 around the corner
I’m preparing 0.30.2 which only will be fixing this bug and it will ready soon.
Why this bug?
The original change was made so that isolinux iso file was generated with amd64 by default. This way tools such as Yumi (usb creators) would default to amd64 and not 32bit.
If you boot into amd64 and your pc isn’t prepared you can easily switch to 32bit. If you boot into 32bit you might think that Rescatux isn’t doing its job while in the background a Exec format error appears because of chrooting to a 64bit system from a 32bit one.
Options affected
All the options that imply a chroot command:
Restore Grub
Update Grub
Rescatux versions affected
Both Rescatux 0.30 and Rescatux 0.30 RC1 versions are affected.
Rescatux 0.30.2 and newer version should NOT be affected.
I made a Rescatux tour which might be interesting to be in the first place.
Each of one of the Rescatux options in this article will have a link to their video so please check them too.
About Rescatux and Super Grub(2) Disk
Super Grub Disk was a tool for fixing GRUB1 (version 0.9X) or booting into your system and it’s deprecated. You can still find its downloads although they are a bit hidden in Super Grub Disk page.
Super Grub2 Disk, contrary to Super Grub Disk, is not able to fix neither GRUB1 (version 0.9X) or GRUB2 (version 1.XX or 2.XX). However you can use it to boot into many systems including Windows, GRUB1 and GRUB2 based ones.
Rescatux is a Debian based live cd that lets you fix your GRUB1 and GRUB2 installations (as per Super Grub2 Disk lacks) but does much more. Here the are some of its features that will be explained in detail in the rest of the article:
Finally there’s the Super Grub Disk’s Halloween edition which it was not a Super Grub Disk formally but a Super Grub2 Disk with some scary messages about your computer being erased. What it’s funny is that as today a major Spanish downloads site offers the 0.9800 version for download. If you think it more carefully you will see that it’s kind of a benevolent trojan so that Super Grub Disk newcomers find that Super Grub2 Disk is the right choice (even if they are scared a bit;)).
A new stable release
More than a year since the latest Rescatux stable release (Rescatux 0.29 at 11 Jul 2011 according to Freecode (former freshmeat).
Rescatux 0.30 has been released as many beta versions that fixed minor problems, updated documentation to the current options and also tried to workaround some usability issues.
Helping newbies
The different approach of Rescatux is found in its main program: Rescapp. Rescapp is a nice wizard that will guide you through your rescue tasks.
At the first glance Rescapp seems to be just a launcher for Rescue tools:
. However it has some Support features that make it unique:
Chat: Open the chat for asking help directly in Rescatux channel.
Share log: After running an option you can share its log (the action registry that it has done) so that in the chat they can help you better. O better, even, you can help debug and fix Rescatux bugs on the fly.
Share log on forum: Prepares a forum post alike text so that you can just copy and paste it in your favourite forum. Logs are nicely inserted into it with [CODE] symbols.
Boot Info Script: Run Boot Info Script option to share your computer configuration (specially boot one).
When a filesystem has some errors in it some bad things might happen. Maybe GRUB1 or GRUB2 cannot find its own files (Grub errors) or the kernels (cannot find file error). Maybe the kernel can be loaded but its initrd stage isn’t able to find the final device root filesystem (Kernel panic – not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs. (initramfs))
This option tries to fix this filesystem errors even if the filesystem seems to be clean and ok.
Have you ever forgotten your Gnu/Linux password? Now you can change it from this nice wizard. As always you’re prompted to choose your Gnu/Linux installation and then the user which you want to change its password.
Have you ever tried to run an special program as a normal user… but by doing it you have somehow borked your /etc/sudoers file? Don’t panic! Now after baking up your previous sudoers file a new one is generated on the fly. You just have to select which it’s your user.
Not sure what’s the current situation with Windows 8 and Windows 7 but in previous versions once you reinstalled Windows (because of a virus or whatever reason) you lost your Grub menu. That meant that you couldn’t boot anymore into your Gnu/Linux system. The truth is that you can download the light-weight Super Grub2 Disk and boot into your system in a temporal way.
But how to fix it permanently? If you’re not good at the Gnu/Linux command line you can just use Rescatux’s Restore Grub option.
Sometimes the Grub configuration is no longer valid. Either your hard disks order at boot have changed (It should only affect to GRUB1) or you have added a new Windows installation and it’s not detected.
Update Grub option let’s you rebuild your Grub configuration files. This option will only work in Debian based distros like Ubuntu.
This option tries to restore Windows MBR but it’s kind of buggy because some users report that it’s not working for them. It probably works with no problem on Windows XP (without dynamic disks) and previous Windows versions. This is the reason why it’s a BETA option.
Please check the Rescatux wiki for USB instructions. For the cdrom you can just burn it like any other live cd. Imgburn for Windows and Brasero for Gnu/Linux should help you. Make sure you burn it as an image not as a file.
As per the upcoming Rescatux 0.30 stable release I’ve redesigned the menues so that you can easily choose between Rescatux and Super Grub2 Disk stable downloads or the beta versions.
The former design invited people to use and test beta versions because it wasn’t quite a mature project. Now that Rescatux is going to have stable versions that are going to last longer than before the users are invited or directed to use stable versions.
I haven’t begun to write a draft of the large Rescatux 0.30 stable release post yet!
Syslinux version has AMD64 boot as the default one.
Copyright notices were added
So, aproximately in a month time if there is not any special problem I’ll release 0.30 stable at last with a big post aimed at internet press which only copy and paste so that they explain accurately what Rescatux is, what it’s not, and what SGD and SG2D are.
Whenever I release a new beta the idea is to copy and paste this roadmap and to replace the dots (..) with the beta version where the feature has been implemented. An example would be: (0.30b3).
Whenever I release a new beta the idea is to copy and paste this roadmap and to replace the dots (..) with the beta version where the feature has been implemented. An example would be: (0.30b3).
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