Rescatux 0.40 beta 1 released

October 18, 2015Download, News, Rescatux, Rescatux, Rescatux Betasecure enhanced linux, selinuxadrian15

Rescatux 0.40 beta 1 has been released.

Rescatux - Grub install option - Fedora — Rescatux – Grub install option – Fedora

Downloads:

Rescatux 0.40b1 size is about 596 Megabytes.

Some thoughts:

Now Rescatux is based on Debian Jessie (Latest Debian stable release)!

Rescatux 0.40 beta 1 is now based on Jessie

The great new feature in this release is the SELinux support. SELinux support is used by the Fedora, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), CentOS alike distributions. It’s not so much about adding SELinux related features which might be implemented in a far future. It’s about being able to interact with SELinux based system without damaging original contexts (contexts like additional permissions in SELinux).

Currently if you wanted to use the change password option on these systems then the system did not let you login (even if you know a password from a user different from the one its password you had changed) because these wrong contexts.

Now it should work flawlessly but please give us feedback here on the comments or in the mailing list. Anything about you detecting that Rescatux is not using the correct contexts for your files is welcomed.

It’s also welcomed feedback from people who uses non standard policy types such as the military ones. Given the nature of these systems try the options in non production machines of course.

This new beta release loses the long awaited feature about being able to select your own language, country and keyboard. The reason is that Rescatux 0.40 is based on jessie. These means that I have to use tails-greeter from Jessie and not Wheezy. The other problem on tails-greeter is that I need to hack it (this time properly thanks to the insights I have been given in Debconf 15 from Tails people) in order to fit my needs.

Finally don’t expect any new release in the next months. I am too busy. Anyway once I’ll start not being busy I will be able to speed a lot because the SELinux support improvement was very difficult to implement.

Many options have not been tested after having based Rescatux on jessie. So please use the Rescatux 0.32 beta 3 as if it was an stable release and this one as if it was a beta one. Use Rescatux 0.40 beta 1 if you have a SELinux based system of course.

In case you were asking yourself I add 0.1 to the Rescatux version either when the Rescapp program has been improved a lot or when the Debian OS has been updated to a new stable release. The latter is the reason why we jump from 0.3X to 0.4X suddenly.

I almost forgot. Thank you very much to the #fedora-devel and #selinux who helped so much on bringing SELinux support to Debian Live.

Roadmap for Rescatux 0.40 stable release:

You can check the complete changelog with link to each one of the issues at: Rescatux 0.32-freeze roadmap which I’ll be reusing for Rescatux 0.40 stable release.

[#1323] GPT support
[#1364] Review Copyright notice
(Fixed in: 0.32b2) [#2188] install-mbr : Windows 7 seems not to be fixed with it
(Fixed in: 0.32b2) [#2190] debian-live. Include cpu detection and loopback cfg patches
(Reopened in: 0.40b1) [#2191] Change Keyboard layout
[#2192] UEFI boot support
(Fixed in: 0.32b2) [#2193] bootinfoscript: Use it as a package
(Fixed in: 0.32b2) [#2199] Btrfs support
[#2205] Handle different default sh script
[#2216] Verify separated /usr support
(Fixed in: 0.32b2) [#2217] chown root root on sudoers
[#2220] Make sure all the source code is available
(Fixed in: 0.32b2) [#2221] Detect SAM file algorithm fails with directories which have spaces on them
(Fixed in: 0.32b2) [#2227] Use chntpw 1.0-1 from Jessie
(Fixed in 0.40b1) [#2231] SElinux support on chroot options
[#2233] Disable USB automount
[#2236] chntpw based options need to be rewritten for reusing code
[#2239]https://www.supergrubdisk.org/wizard-step-put-rescatux-into-a-media/suppose that the image is based on Super Grub2 Disk version and not Isolinux.The step about extracting iso inside an iso would not be longer needed.”>Update doc: Put Rescatux into a media for Isolinux based cd
(Fixed in: 0.32b2) [#2259] Update bootinfoscript to the latest GIT version
[#2264] chntpw – Save prior registry files
[#2234] New option: Easy Grub fix
[#2235] New option: Easy Windows Admin

Fixed bugs (0.40b1):

(Fixed in 0.40b1) [#2231] SElinux support on chroot options

Reopened bugs (0.40b1):

(Reopened in 0.40b1) [#2191] Change Keyboard layout

Fixed bugs (0.32b3):

(Fixed in 0.32b3) [#2191] Change Keyboard layout

Other fixed bugs (0.32b2):

Rescatux logo is not shown at boot
Boot entries are named “Live xxxx” instead of “Rescatux xxxx”

Fixed bugs (0.32b1):

Networking detection improved (fallback to network-manager-gnome)
Bottom bar does not have a shorcut to a file manager as it’s a common practice in modern desktops. Fixed when falling back to LXDE.
Double-clicking on directories on desktop opens Iceweasel (Firefox fork) instead of a file manager. Fixed when falling back to LXDE.

Improvements (0.32b1):

Super Grub2 Disk is no longer included. That makes easier to put the ISO to USB devices thanks to standard multiboot tools which support Debian Live cds.
Rescapp UI has been redesigned
- Every option is at hand at the first screen.
- Rescapp options can be scrolled. That makes it easier to add new options without bothering on final design.
- Run option screen buttons have been rearranged to make it easier to read.
RazorQT has been replaced by LXDE which seems more mature. LXQT will have to wait.
WICD has been replaced by network-manager-gnome. That makes easier to connect to wired and wireless networks.
It is no longer based on Debian Unstable (sid) branch.

Distro facts:

Packages versions for this release can be found at Rescatux 0.40b1 packages.
It’s based mainly on Debian Jessie (Stable). Some packages are from Debian Unstable (sid).

Feedback welcome:

Did you ever complain because of not being able to write in your own keyboard layout when asking for help in the integrated chat? Don’t miss your chance on testing if it works ok for your language and report us feedback !!!

Don’t forget that you can use:

Help Rescatux project:

I think we can expect four months maximum till the new stable Rescatux is ready. Helping on these tasks is appreciated:

Making a youtube video for the new options.
Make sure documentation for the new options is right.
Make snapshots for new options documentation so that they don’t lack images.

If you want to help please contact us here:

Thank you and happy download!

Super Grub2 Disk 2.02s3 released

May 3, 2015News, Super Grub2 Diskadrian15

I am not proud to announce Super Grub2 Disk 2.02s3 stable.

Super GRUB2 Disk is a live cd that helps you to boot into most any Operating System (OS) even if you cannot boot into it by normal means.

A new stable release

The former Super Grub2 Disk stable release was 2.00s2 version and released on May 2014 (one year ago). This release does not have as many new features as the previous stable version but some of them are quite interesting:

New option: ‘Disks and Partitions (Chainload)’ adapted from Smx work.

Super Grub2 Disk 2.02s3 - Chainload Disks and Partitions — Super Grub2 Disk 2.02s3 – Chainload Disks and Partitions

New option: “Enable all native disk drivers” so that you can try to load: SATA, PATA and USB hard disks (and their partitions) as native disk drives. This is experimental.
Most options had their search code improved. Super Grub2 Disk should be faster.
Based on grub 2.02 ( commit: 8e5bc2f4d3767485e729ed96ea943570d1cb1e45 )
Super Grub2 Disk builds its own grub based on upstream grub instead of Debian grub.
Mac OS X kernel detection was improved to avoid false detections.
Thanks to upstream grub improvement now Super Grub2 Disk supports booting in EFI mode when booted from a USB device / hard disk. Actually SG2D was announced previously to boot from EFI from a USB device while it only booted from a cdrom.
Many options titles were rewritten so that they are better understood.

Let me repeat it slowly. With Super Grub2 Disk hybrid iso you will be able to boot from:

EFI mode. Cdrom or DVD media.
EFI mode. USB or hard disk media.
BIOS mode. Cdrom or DVD media.
BIOS mode. USB or hard disk media.

We are going to see which are the complete Super Grub2 Disk features with a demo video, where you can download it, the thank you – hall of fame and some thoughts about the Super Grub2 Disk development.

Please do not forget to read our howtos so that you can have step by step guides (how to make a cdrom or an usb, how to boot from it, etc) on how to use Super Grub2 Disk and, if needed, Rescatux.

Tour

Here there is a little video tour in order to discover most of Super Grub2 Disk options. The rest of the options you will have to discover them by yourself.

Features

Most of the features here will let you boot into your Operating Systems. The rest of the options will improve the Super Grub2 Disk operating systems autodetecting (enable RAID, LVM, etc.) or will deal with minor aspects of the user interface (Colours, language, etc.).

Change the language UI
Translated into several languages
- Spanish / Español
- German / Deutsch
- French / Français
- Italian / Italiano
- Malay / Bahasa Melayu

Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 rc2 Spanish Main Menu

Detect and show boot methods option to detect most Operating Systems

Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 beta 3 Everything menu making use of grub.cfg extract entries option functionality — Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 beta 3 – Everything menu making use of grub.cfg extract entries option functionality

Enable all native disk drivers *experimental* to detect most Operating Systems also in special devices or filesystems
Boot manually
- Operating Systems
- grub.cfg – Extract entries
  Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 beta 3 grub.cfg Extract entries option
- grub.cfg – (GRUB2 configuration files)
- menu.lst – (GRUB legacy configuration files)
- core.img – (GRUB2 installation (even if mbr is overwritten))
- Disks and Partitions (Chainload)
- Bootable ISOs (in /boot-isos or /boot/boot-isos
Extra GRUB2 functionality
- Enable GRUB2’s LVM support
- Enable GRUB2’s RAID support
- Enable GRUB2’s PATA support (to work around BIOS bugs/limitation)
- Mount encrypted volumes (LUKS and geli)
- Enable serial terminal
Extra Search functionality
- Search in floppy ON/OFF
- Search in CDROM ON/OFF
List Devices / Partitions
Color ON /OFF
Exit
- Halt the computer
- Reboot the computer

Supported Operating Systems

Excluding too custom kernels from university students Super Grub2 Disk can autodetect and boot most every Operating System. Some examples are written here so that Google bots can see it and also to make more confident the final user who searchs his own special (according to him) Operating System.

Windows
- Windows Vista/7/8/8.1
- Windows NT/2000/XP
- Windows 98/ME
- MS-DOS
- FreeDOS
GNU/Linux
- Direct Kernel with autodetected initrd
  Super Grub2 Disk – Detect any Operating System – Linux kernels detected
  - vmlinuz-*
  - linux-*
  - kernel-genkernel-*
- Debian / Ubuntu / Mint
- Mageia
- Fedora / CentOS / Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
- openSUSE / SuSE Linux Enterpsise Server (SLES)
- Arch
- Any many, many, more.

FreeBSD
- FreeBSD (single)
- FreeBSD (verbose)
- FreeBSD (no ACPI)
- FreeBSD (safe mode)
- FreeBSD (Default boot loader)
EFI files
Mac OS X/Darwin 32bit or 64bit

Super Grub2 Disk 2.00s2 rc4 Mac OS X entries (Image credit to: Smx)

Support for different hardware platforms

Before this release we only had the hybrid version aimed at regular pcs. Now with the upcoming new EFI based machines you have the EFI standalone versions among others. What we don’t support is booting when secure boot is enabled.

Most any PC thanks to hybrid version (i386, x86_64, x86_64-efi) (ISO)
EFI x86_64 standalone version (EFI)
Additional Floppy, CD and USB in one download (ISO)
- i386-pc
- x86_64-efi

Known bugs

Non English translations are not completed
Enable all native disk drivers *experimental* crashes Virtualbox randomly

Supported Media

Compact Disk – Read Only Memory (CD-ROM)
Universal Serial Bus (USB) devices
Floppy (1.98s1 version only)

Downloads

Recommended download (Floppy, CD & USB in one) (Valid for i386, x86_64, and x86_64-efi):

Super Grub2 Disk (CD & USB in one) 2.02s3 (ISO)[Mirror #1]

EFI x86_64 standalone version:

Super Grub2 Disk (Standalone ; x86_64-efi) 2.02s3 (EFI)[Mirror #1]

CD & USB in one downloads:

Super Grub2 Disk (Floppy, CD & USB in one) 2.02s3 [i386-pc] (ISO)[Mirror #1]
Super Grub2 Disk (Floppy, CD & USB in one) 2.02s3 [x86_64-efi] (ISO)[Mirror #1]

About other downloads. As this is the first time I develop Super Grub2 Disk out of source code (well, probably not the first time, but the first time in ages) I have not been able to build these other downloads: coreboot, i386-efi, i386-pc, ieee1275, x86_64-efi, standalone coreboot, standalone i386-efi, standalone ieee1275. Help is welcome on this subject.

Source code:

Super Grub2 Disk 2.02s3 Source Code (Git repo)[Mirror #1]

Everything (All binary releases and source code):

Hashes

In order to check the former downloads you can either download:

or you can check their contents right here.

MD5SUMS

e7515b7d4e9ea90f28b7f5a534906b85  super_grub2_disk_hybrid_2.02s3.iso
1538893f58fa9dbd3a1fd5a3789f7cb5  super_grub2_disk_i386_pc_2.02s3.iso
38260bfd2b93586a25b2db1a27072661  super_grub2_disk_standalone_x86_64_efi_2.02s3.EFI
247f2219579d1826cf6fbdbee37d1296  super_grub2_disk_x86_64_efi_2.02s3.iso

SHA1SUMS

e1f0da49d4e600383647875f773f6182a5e3f3c4  super_grub2_disk_hybrid_2.02s3.iso
c4087937567d28f46f18c100ee047057d3acbac4  super_grub2_disk_i386_pc_2.02s3.iso
7af5cbbf947caa975a406b70c43fad803ba9c10d  super_grub2_disk_standalone_x86_64_efi_2.02s3.EFI
1e49427f95dcff3dc0318f20bbe934b4a5eb3493  super_grub2_disk_x86_64_efi_2.02s3.iso

SHA256SUMS

74def37a1208e4e2f54bbe4bd1b66337b6f026a6c553a3b8e7db8e2206fd59ed  super_grub2_disk_hybrid_2.02s3.iso
ce46670541ed9506832d1bf255a454273ac493beee68e88f823687c8ae3cc340  super_grub2_disk_i386_pc_2.02s3.iso
c4589c1d12fdf1260d025d11908f985a4e2b5c6b63e61d64ef0fc36e27613b30  super_grub2_disk_standalone_x86_64_efi_2.02s3.EFI
3ba7724f871f83d6996b74a529c79e6b7c237d7951eb642fd5fb7740f5d0464c  super_grub2_disk_x86_64_efi_2.02s3.iso

Changelog (since former 2.00s2 stable release)

Changes since 2.02s2 beta 1 version:

(Devel) grub-mkstandalone was deleted because we no longer use it
Updated (and added) Copyright notices for 2015
New option: ‘Disks and Partitions (Chainload)’ adapted from Smx work
Many files were rewritten so that they only loop between devices that actually need to be searched into.
This enhacement will make Super Grub2 Disk faster.
Remove Super Grub2 Disk own devices from search by default. Added an option to be able to enable/disable the Super Grub2 Disk own devices search.

2.02s2 beta 1 changelog:

Updated grub 2.02 build to commit: 8e5bc2f4d3767485e729ed96ea943570d1cb1e45
Updated documentation for building Super Grub2 Disk
Improvement on upstream grub (d29259b134257458a98c1ddc05d2a36c677ded37 – test: do not stop after first file test or closing bracket) will probably make Super Grub2 Disk run faster.
Added new grub build scripts so that Super Grub2 Disk uses its own built versions of grub and not the default system / distro / chroot one.
Ensure that Mac OS X entries are detected ok thanks to Users dir. This is because Grub2 needs to emulate Mac OS X kernel so that it’s detected as a proper boot device on Apple computers.
Thanks to upstream grub improvement now Super Grub2 Disk supports booting in EFI mode when booted from a USB device / hard disk. Actually SG2D was announced previously to boot from EFI from a USB device while it only booted from a cdrom.

2.02s1 beta 1 changelog:

Added new option: “Enable all native disk drivers” so that you can try to load: SATA, PATA and USB hard disks (and their partitions) as native disk drives. This is experimental.
Removed no longer needed options: “Enable USB” and “Enable PATA”.
“Search floppy” and “Search cdrom” options were moved into “Extra GRUB2 functionality menu”. At the same time “Extra Search functionality” menu was removed.
Added new straight-forward option: “Enable GRUB2’s RAID and LVM support”.
“List devices/partitions” was renamed to “Print devices/partitions”.
“Everything” option was renamed to “Detect and show boot methods”.
“Everything +” option was removed to avoid confusions.
Other minor improvements in the source code.
Updated translation files. Now most translations are pending.
Updated INSTALL instructions.

Finally you can check all the detailed changes at our GIT commits.

If you want to translate into your language please check TRANSLATION file at source code to learn how to translate into your language.

Thank you – Hall of fame

I want to thank in alphabetical order:

bfree (Niall Wash): For his work in rethinking how Super Grub2 Disk grub script might be rewritten although we never used that code. For adding code for EFI chainloader, helping on building and testing Super Grub2 Disk EFI releases.
Jordan_U (Jordan Uggla) (jordan.uggla AT gmail DOT com): For his work in rewriting Lua Super Grub2 Disk into new Grub2 scripting. Also for his work in translation system based on gettext and po. And also I want to thank him for all this work in Super Grub2 Disk in many many ways.
nox (Juergen Lock) (nox AT freebsd DOT org): For his work in fixing *BSD boot entries and helping adding new *BSD boot entries and testing.
Smx (Stefano): For his Mac OS X / Darwin boot fixes and testing. He has also worked in redesigning some of the menues and probably his work will be included in next Super Grub2 Disk versions. He has also worked in a keyboard selection menu on his own too. That will be also included in next versions.

The person who writes this article is adrian15 and is proud of being responsible among other things for the rewriting of options as if they were libraries. And also for the User Interface (UI) complete redesign.

And I cannot forget about thanking bTactic, the enterprise where I work at and that hosts our site.

Some thoughts about Super Grub2 Disk development

Super Grub2 Disk development to be stalled

There has not been too much feedback for Super Grub2 Disk betas. Hopefully this new stable release come back with new bugs (Yes, it’s sad to say so). As I want to focus on new Rescatux stable if no one wants to help on Super Grub2 Disk development there won’t be any new release (stable or beta) in a long time.

Rescatux development

I want to focus on Rescatux development on the next months so that we have an stable release on July 2015. I will probably base it on newest Debian Jessie.

(adrian15 speaking)

Getting help on using Super Grub2 Disk

More information about Super Grub2 Disk

Super Grub2 Disk stats in a random 2015 day

April 2, 2015News, Super Grub2 Diskadrian15

I have choosen a random day from 2015 to generate some stats of Super Grub2 Disk usage (and their users). I could use some better stats from a longer period of time but being exact is not the purpose of this post.

Social networks

There are people who use Google + (1), and comment on it (2). Yeah, although you might not believe it some people use Google+ (3).

Twitter (8), yeah, some twits (9) can be found on twitter (10).

Video

There are people who record their videos on Youtube (1) or that use it (2). Actually Youtube (3) is quite popular.

Countries

Poland (1)
Mexico (2)
Japan (3)
USA (4)
Italy (5)
Germany (6)
Probably Germany (7)
Iran (8)
Australia (9)
Spain (10)
Hungary (11)

Operating Systems

Some people still use the quite old Windows 7 (4). Other people use Gentoo (11).

Summary

As you can see Super Grub2 Disk is being used daily on many parts of the globe on such distant places as Japan, USA or Iran. You can learn that Windows 10 has not been released yet because people still use Windows 7. Hopefully many of the Super Grub2 Disk are young and will never need to ask for help.

See you next year!

Approximatively in a year I will redo the stats again so that we can compare with this year’s stats.

Improve grub detect loop (Super Grub2 Disk – Live Development)

This live development is about improving grub detect script so that it does not loop so much. We will also try to do other improvements.

I would have liked to announce it more in advance but that’s you what you get. Two days or so.

It will take about half an hour or an hour. Depending on it I might do an additional live development for Rescatux after it.

So if you want to join the conversation you need to join the #sgrub channel at freenode.

March 1, 2015 at 15:00 UTC Time.

Check the exact time for your country.

Remove SG2D devices from search (Super Grub2 Disk – Live Development)

Last week I learnt (adrian15 speaking) about other people doing live streams while programming. It sound as something stupid you doing a live streaming when you develop but as I saw all the streamings most of them where in non open source languages or non open source projects. So I told myself that I had to do it too.

The other reason is that it might help other people who are doubtful about contributing to Super Grub2 Disk to finally begin to do so. Because, it’s not as difficult as it might seem.

So last weekend I performed a public live devopment streaming which I announced in Super Grub2 Disk chat channel.

As you might see there are two things to be improved in the video:

Sound quality (I need something to remove my laptop fan noise at runtime)
Video quality. I think I will record with my second screen at 1024×768 instead of squeezing my bigger screen to 1024×768. This might improve video quality.

So I promise I’ll try to announce the live development streamings with more time, probably three or fours days in advance so that you can join by the chat.

So, here there is the video about how I managed to remove Super Grub2 Disk devices from search by default. You can find its associated commit here.

Super Grub2 Disk 2.02s2 Beta 1 released

February 14, 2015Download, News, Super Grub2 Disk, Super Grub2 Disk, Super Grub2 Disk Betaadrian15

This is an exciting release. For the first time we are not relying on Debian’s grub packages but on our own grub2 build system. Yes, just like the distributions do when they build their own packages.

This improvement let us to track grub git so that we can use its latest features. Sometimes you choose to rely on an stable grub release but sometimes some features are needed as right now.

One of these features is being able of booting from EFI system from a hard disk or usb in EFI mode. (That feature was wrongly announced in the past releases of Super Grub2 Disk as being functional). And, what it’s better than that… The same disk also works for BIOS based boot and also for CDROM boot.

Let me repeat it slowly. With Super Grub2 Disk hybrid iso you will be able to boot from:

EFI mode. Cdrom or DVD media.
EFI mode. USB or hard disk media.
BIOS mode. Cdrom or DVD media.
BIOS mode. USB or hard disk media.

Another fix from upstream grub enables us to avoid showing Super Grub2 Disk device itself as a (wrongly detected) Mac OS X installation. This error arised on last beta and we discovered that grub itself did not work ok when testing two expressions if the first one was detecting if a file existed or not. You can check this grub commit if you are interested.

That same fix might make Super Grub2 Disk run faster because now our tests will work as expected. I haven’t tested Super Grub2 Disk speed myself so if you have feedback on it please report here on the comments.

Dedicated to forum.ubuntu-fr.org and malbo

I want to dedicate this release to the Communauté francophone d’utilisateurs d’Ubuntu forum people and specially to malbo who managed to make Super Grub2 Disk to boot from a USB thanks to the standalone version. Now the Super Grub2 Disk hybrid version should boot in either BIOS or EFI mode when burned to a cdrom and also when dd to a hard disk. No need to build your own usb version for that.

I know that around that community there are many great people that did find many ways of dealing with EFI specifics (Hopefully I can reuse some of these next year for Rescatux) but I chose malbo because he is great at writing howtos or step-by-step instructions so that other people can debug why their systems do not boot and hopefully they can finally boot into them.

Unfortunately Microsoft’s approved secure boot is not in my Super Grub2 Disk TODO list because of ethical reasons. That would even help even more, till then, make sure you disable secure boot when booting from Super Grub2 Disk in an EFI machine.

Changelog

Updated grub 2.02 build to commit: 8e5bc2f4d3767485e729ed96ea943570d1cb1e45
Updated documentation for building Super Grub2 Disk
Improvement on upstream grub (d29259b134257458a98c1ddc05d2a36c677ded37 – test: do not stop after first file test or closing bracket) will probably make Super Grub2 Disk run faster.
Added new grub build scripts so that Super Grub2 Disk uses its own built versions of grub and not the default system / distro / chroot one.
Ensure that Mac OS X entries are detected ok thanks to Users dir. This is because Grub2 needs to emulate Mac OS X kernel so that it’s detected as a proper boot device on Apple computers.
Thanks to upstream grub improvement now Super Grub2 Disk supports booting in EFI mode when booted from a USB device / hard disk. Actually SG2D was announced previously to boot from EFI from a USB device while it only booted from a cdrom. Use dd to put Super Grub2 Disk in your usb device if you want to make use of it.

Recommended download (Valid for i386, x86_64, and x86_64-efi):

Super Grub2 Disk (Floppy, CD & USB in one) 2.02s2-beta1 (ISO) (MD5)[Mirror #1]

Super Grub2 Disk 2.02s1 Beta 1 Main menu

EFI x86_64 standalone version:

Super Grub2 Disk (Standalone ; x86_64-efi) 2.02s2-beta1 (EFI)(MD5)[Mirror #1]

Floppy, CD & USB in one downloads:

About other downloads

As we no longer rely on Debian grub packages some of the releases have been removed (till someone teachs me how to rebuild them). The downloads you will not be finding are: coreboot, i386-efi, ieee1275, standalone i386-efi and standalone ieee1275. Help is welcome on this subject and also feedback if someone was actually using them or not. Else I might remove them completely.

How to test

Try to boot your desired operating system with this version. If it does not boot try the 2.00s2 stable version. If you can boot with the stable version but not with this beta version please report it to the bug tracker.

This is a Super Grub2 Disk tutorial that it’s not based in this beta version but that can help you understand what you can do with Super Grub2 Disk.

Development miscelanea:

This release was built in a Debian jessie system but using upstream 2.02 grub version (commit 8e5bc2f4d3767485e729ed96ea943570d1cb1e45).
Please check the new DEVELOPMENT file if you plan to build Super Grub2 Disk on your own very often.

If you want to translate into your language please check TRANSLATION file at source code to learn how to translate into your language.

Note: 2.02s2-beta1 means:

2.02: Upstream Grub 2.02 version
s2 : Super Grub2 Disk scripts version (inside this Upstream Grub version)
beta1: Beta 1

Redefining Rescatux 0.32 release

January 18, 2015News, Rescatuxadrian15

I am going to modify Rescatux 0.32 roadmap so that it’s easier to release Rescatux 0.32 even if it lacks some importants items.

We drop UEFI Boot Support. This does not mean not being able to fix grub systems based on UEFI. What it means is that I was going to make sure that you could boot Rescatux cd in EFI mode without a problem. You will be able to boot Rescatux cd from a UEFI system if the CD is booted in legacy boot mode (BIOS) but not as EFI mode. The reason for dropping this UEFI boot support is because of Debian Live for its Debian Wheezy version not being good enough for enabling UEFI boot based on grub2. I also do not want to achieve the same result by using current SG2D and the Rescatux isolinux image as I did in the old days. I just want a plain isolinux based ISO image and that’s it. I also do not want to rebase Rescatux on Debian Jessie even if it’s tempting. Once we release the stable Rescatux 0.32 we would be able to think about rebasing Rescatux on Debian Jessie which its Live Build package will have EFI support based on syslinux / isolinux. Not yet, but I’m sure that they won’t release Debian Live for Jessie without EFI boot support because it’s a must nowadays.
Doubts about SELinux. I was about to drop SELinux support but I will make more tests and depending on the result I might drop it or not.

Well, that’s not as much as I had thought but these are some changes. Hopefully I do not rewrite release roadmap for 0.32 in the future again.

Roadmap for Rescatux 0.32 stable release:

You can check the complete changelog with link to each one of the issues at: Rescatux 0.32-freeze roadmap.

[#1323] GPT support
[#1364] Review Copyright notice
(Fixed in: 0.32b2) [#2188] install-mbr : Windows 7 seems not to be fixed with it
(Fixed in: 0.32b2) [#2190] debian-live. Include cpu detection and loopback cfg patches
(Fixed in 0.32b3) [#2191] Change Keyboard layout
~~[#2192] UEFI boot support~~
(Fixed in: 0.32b2) [#2193] bootinfoscript: Use it as a package
(Fixed in: 0.32b2) [#2199] Btrfs support
[#2205] Handle different default sh script
[#2216] Verify separated /usr support
(Fixed in: 0.32b2) [#2217] chown root root on sudoers
[#2220] Make sure all the source code is available
(Fixed in: 0.32b2) [#2221] Detect SAM file algorithm fails with directories which have spaces on them
(Fixed in: 0.32b2) [#2227] Use chntpw 1.0-1 from Jessie
[#2231] SElinux support on chroot options
[#2233] Disable USB automount
[#2236] chntpw based options need to be rewritten for reusing code
[#2239]https://www.supergrubdisk.org/wizard-step-put-rescatux-into-a-media/suppose that the image is based on Super Grub2 Disk version and not Isolinux.The step about extracting iso inside an iso would not be longer needed.”>Update doc: Put Rescatux into a media for Isolinux based cd
(Fixed in: 0.32b2) [#2259] Update bootinfoscript to the latest GIT version
[#2264] chntpw – Save prior registry files
[#2234] New option: Easy Grub fix
[#2235] New option: Easy Windows Admin

Super Grub2 Disk 2.02s1 Beta 1 released

January 14, 2015Download, News, Super Grub2 Disk, Super Grub2 Disk, Super Grub2 Disk Betaadrian15

Changelog

Based on Grub 2.02 (commit bac5d1a64ab4191058a8fd4c05f6b3b339e249e7 )
Added new option: “Enable all native disk drivers” so that you can try to load: SATA, PATA and USB hard disks (and their partitions) as native disk drives. This is experimental.
Removed no longer needed options: “Enable USB” and “Enable PATA”.
“Search floppy” and “Search cdrom” options were moved into “Extra GRUB2 functionality menu”. At the same time “Extra Search functionality” menu was removed.
Added new straight-forward option: “Enable GRUB2’s RAID and LVM support“.
“List devices/partitions” was renamed to “Print devices/partitions”.
“Everything” option was renamed to “Detect and show boot methods”.
“Everything +” option was removed to avoid confusions.
Other minor improvements in the source code.
Updated translation files. Now most translations are pending.
Updated INSTALL instructions.

Recommended download (Valid for i386, x86_64, and x86_64-efi):

Super Grub2 Disk (Floppy, CD & USB in one) 2.02s1-beta1 (ISO) (MD5)[Mirror #1]

About other downloads. As this is the first time I develop Super Grub2 Disk out of source code (well, probably not the first time, but the first time in ages) I have not been able to build these other downloads: standalone EFI x86_64, coreboot, i386-efi, i386-pc, ieee1275, x86_64-efi, standalone coreboot, standalone i386-efi, standalone ieee1275. Help is welcome on this subject.

How to test.

This is a Super Grub2 Disk tutorial that it’s not based in this beta version but that can help you understand what you can do with Super Grub2 Disk.

Development miscelanea:

This release was built in a Debian jessie system but using upstream 2.02 grub version (commit bac5d1a64ab4191058a8fd4c05f6b3b339e249e7).
I want to thank Jordan Uggla to teach me about what were the Grub2 native disk drivers and what nativedisk command did actually. phcoder did try once to explain it but I wasn’t smart enough to understand it. Hopefully I can help with nativedisk help text inside Grub2.
This new “Enable all native disk drivers” option unloads the usually default biosdisk drivers which talks to the bios to access hard disks (Like did MS-DOS in the old days) and replaces it with native drivers (as a normal Operating System would do). It also manages to find somehow the old Super Grub2 Disk device and define the correct $prefix variable.
In my tests this new option: “Enable all native disk drivers” aborts Virtualbox. That means that we are also testing Grub2 or maybe Virtualbox. Please check my submitted bug.
We have renamed many menues so that their purpose is more clear.

If you want to translate into your language please check TRANSLATION file at source code to learn how to translate into your language.

Note: 2.02s1-beta1 means:

2.02: Upstream Grub 2.02 version
s1 : Super Grub2 Disk scripts version (inside this Upstream Grub version)
beta1: Beta 1

Rescatux 0.32b3 tutorial

So this is the official Rescatux tutorial based on the latest 0.32 beta 3 Rescatux. Please enjoy the full show or select the section that matches your need.

If you are more interested on what Rescatux can do instead of how you are supposed to use it please check Summary .

If you want to make use of the Recover Windows boot option ( Restore Windows MBR (Beta) ) make sure to use Rescatux 0.32 beta 2 or a newest version else you might get your Windows 7 unbootable even if you use the latest stable 0.30.2 version.

My English is not perfect and I will try to improve it for the next videos.

Super Grub2 Disk 2.00s2 Tour Video

I have recorded another video of Super Grub2 Disk Tour. It is now based on 2.00s2 version. The video is much better than the latest one (which I have just removed) because my English is better and because I had an script with what I needed to say. More than this I speak slowly for non English speakers.

Anyways my English in this video is far from optimal if you are a native English. Nobody has offered himself to record it so… I can’t do any better ;).

Enjoy !!!