14 DAY TRIAL // Parted Magic 6.0 has been released. The latest update gets a new major version number, due to some underlying, structural changes, and comes with a number of updated, as well as downgraded, packages.
Several changes have been implemented which should make booting significantly more reliable. Many booting issues should be fixed now, though, since this is a new system, others may have creeped in.
"If you have experienced booting issues with Parted Magic, this is the version you have been waiting for. The way the kernel is handled has been completely redone. This is the reason for the new major version number," Patrick Verner announced.
"The kernel modules, udev, and firmware have been moved to the initramfs. The nice graphical boot menu that we have been using for years has been removed in favor of a very basic one. Many laptops and notebooks could not start the complex menu. A large number of major and minor bugs have been fixed as well," he explained.
Parted Magic gets updated about once a month. This time around, it took about two months, the last update is from February, no doubt because of the deeper architectural changes.
It was probably worth it though, while fancy boot menu may be gone, the distro is more solid in this regard, a worthwhile trade-off.
Highlights of Parted Magic 6.0:
· Linux kernel 2.6.38.2; · Cryptsetup 1.2.0; · LVM2 2.02.84; · Nwipe 0.03 - downgraded; · Util-linux 2.19; · Udev 165; · Btrfs-progs 20110327; · Glibc 2.13 · JFSutils 1.1.15; · Usbutils 002; · XFSprogs 3.1.4; · Squashfs 4.2; · SimpleBurn 1.6.0.2 - downgraded; · BusyBox 1.18.4; · Memtest86 4.20; · NTFS-3G ntfsprogs 2011.4.12.
About Parted Magic
Parted Magic is a business-card operating system based on Slackware Linux, with programs that allow you to partition hard disks with ease.
Programs like Partition Image, TestDisk, fdisk, sfdisk, dd, ddrescue, and a good documentation will help you in your partitioning tasks. Parted Magic is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL).
Parted Magic 6.0 is available for download here on Softpedia.