14 DAY TRIAL // Ryan Finnie has announced the release of Finnix 91.0, a self-contained, bootable Linux CD distribution - or LiveCD - for system administrators. Finnix is a distribution based on Debian Linux.
Here are some of the most important features included in this version:
Automatic 32-bit/64-bit detection (x86)
When booting up Finnix 91.0 x86, if you press enter, the boot loader will detect if you have a 64-bit capable CPU and will load the appropriate kernel. You can force it to boot for 32-bit or 64-bit by entering the "finnix" or "finnix64" boot profiles. PowerPC G5 users will have to enter the "finnix64" boot profile manually, because the yaboot boot loader doesn't have this capability.
Stackable RAID/LUKS/LVM
Although RAID, LUKS encryption and LVM detection have been present in Finnix, they were loaded in a certain order and some configurations were not detected because of that. Now, most configurations should be detected.
Several bug fixes were made for Finnix 91.0 including multiple-level /dev block device detection corrections and LVM/LUKS fixes.
Here are some more technical changes:
￭ dist-upgrade ￭ initrd: migrated from classic initrd model to initramfs ￭ Moved /sbin/init to /init ￭ Upgraded to BusyBox 1.8.2 (needed for switch_root) ￭ Replaced pivot_root init code with switch_root ￭ initrd: new default nameservers for non-DHCP NFS name booting ￭ Removed hard drive (non-initrd) installation capability ￭ Support booting from vanilla-supplied paravirt Xen (2.6.23 and beyond) ￭ Fixed automatic LUKS/LVM detection ￭ Added stackable RAID/LUKS/LVM detection ￭ Added packages: ntfs-3g ￭ Removed packages: unzsplit, zsplit, scrub (not maintained by Debian, abandoned upstream, functionality fulfilled by other packages) ￭ Subdirectory block devices (/dev/cciss, etc) fixed in several places ￭ Kernel upgrade, 2.6.24-1-finnix ￭ Upgraded isolinux, added default64 syslinux option
About Finnix
Finnix is equipped with the latest technology for sysadmins, with Linux kernel 2.6, LVM2, encrypted partitions and more. Finnix is over 300 MB, but is dynamically compressed into a bootable image of approximately 100 MB. It is not targeted at the average desktop user and doesn't have features like productivity tools, sound support or any desktop environments.
Download Finnix 91.0 right now from Softpedia.