A few other operating systems can be installed the same way

Sep 15, 2014 09:02 GMT  ·  By

4MLinux Multiboot Edition 10.0 Beta, a mini Linux distribution that is focused on the 4Ms of computing, Maintenance (system rescue Live CD), Multimedia (e.g., playing video DVDs), Miniserver (using the inetd daemon), and Mystery (Linux games), has been released and is now ready for testing.

4MLinux is one of the smallest distributions in the world and this particular flavor is quite interesting. There are a couple of other distros out there that can do this job, but it looks like 4MLinux is the most complete one.

This kind of functionality is not something that you see every day, so users might want to test this on a safe system before deciding to advance any further.

The ISO for this flavor of 4M Linux only weighs about 280 MB. Users will be able to access and install some very famous distributions without having to carry multiple DVDs or images.

What are the systems supported by 4MLinux 10.0 Beta Multiboot Edition?

“This release is distributed in the form of a multiboot CD, which allows you to make network installations of the following systems: Debian 7.6, Fedora 20, Slackware 14.1, and Ubuntu 14.04.1. It is also possible to boot 4MLinux 10.0 Rescue Edition to prepare the installation of these systems (by performing data backup, disk partitioning, and the like),” reads the official announcement.

This is pretty much what we had in the previous release of this Linux distro, but there are a couple of exceptions. In any case, users should find the procedure rather straightforward and they won't encounter any major problems.

As you can expect, if you decide to use 4MLinux Multiboot Edition, you will need a stable and fast Internet connection to download all the required packages. The duration of the installation might very well depend on how much broadband you have.

Where to get it

4MLinux is actually a series of mini Linux distributions focusing on the following four Ms: Maintenance (system rescue Live CD), Multimedia (e.g. playing video DVDs), Miniserver (using the inetd daemon), and Mystery (a collection of Linux games).

A complete list of changes and updates can be found in the official announcement. You can download 4MLinux 10.0 Beta Multiboot Edition right now from Softpedia. Keep in mind that there is no desktop environment with this distro, so the procedure might seem a little old.

Remember that this is a development version and it should NOT be installed on production machines. It is intended for testing purposes only.