14 DAY TRIAL // 4MLinux Rescue Edition, a special distribution that includes a wide set of system maintenance and recovery applications, is now at version 9.1 Beta and is ready for testing.
All the 4MLinux operating systems have really small sizes, but the Rescue Edition is actually bigger than most of the other flavors. There is a very good reason for that size and it all has to do with the integrated packages. The OS could have been a little bit smaller, but the developer would have been forced to remove some important applications.
4MLinux Rescue Edition might sound like a Linux distribution for professional users and it can be, but at the same time it can also be used by regular people who don't have any specific technical expertise. It's not required, but it's recommended.
“The main features in this release are antivirus protection (Clam AntiVirus 0.98.4 with ClamWin), system backup (4MLinux Backup Scripts 9.1), data recovery (GNU ddrescue 1.18.1, TestDisk 6.14 with QPhotoRec), disk partitioning (cfdisk 2.24.2, cgdisk 0.8.10, GNU Parted 3.1), and partition imaging (Partimage 0.6.9, Partclone 0.2.69).”
“Many archive formats can be managed via 7-Zip 9.20, FreeArc 0.67, and PeaZip 5.4.0. File managers (Midnight Commander 4.8.11, X File Explorer 1.37, muCommander 0.9.0), CD/DVD burners (cdw 0.7.1, InfraRecorder 0.53), and UNetbootin 608 are also included,” says the developer on his blog.
The operating system actually has many more applications than the ones mentioned above, and it's hard for users not to find a tool that they need. It's also possible to install this 4MLinux flavor, although users might consider waiting a little while before doing that.
The development cycle of these distributions is pretty short and this means that a stable and final version should be available in a few weeks. Until then, users should run it in a virtual machine or just as a Live CD.
Previous versions of 4MLinux didn't start in the shell and users had to manually start the X server. This procedure has been automated now, but it's still possible to intervene before the desktop environment is loaded and to remain in the terminal.
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).
Check the official announcement for more details about this release. You can download 4MLinux Rescue Edition 9.1 Beta right now from Softpedia.
Remember that this is a development version and it should NOT be installed on production machines. It is intended for testing purposes only.