The latest version of this Linux distribution can be downloaded from Softpedia

May 12, 2014 11:43 GMT  ·  By

4MLinux Game Edition, a special Linux distribution based on Busybox, Dropbear, OpenSSH, and PuTTY, which also features a large collection of games old and new, has just reached version 8.2 Beta and is now available for testing.

The 4MLinux distributions are among the smallest ones that you can find that still retain a desktop environment that can still be used for day-to-day operations. All the 4MLinux OSes are designed with different purposes in mind and, in this case, it's all about gaming.

The distribution comes in the form of a Live version, but users can choose to install it after they booted into the system. This can be done very easily because users also have access to a very handy installer that should take care of any problems and issues that users might encounter.

“This is an updated version using 4MLinux 8.2 as the core system. The 4MLinux collection includes, among other things, the following items: classic ‘shoot'em up’ games (Abuse, Doom, Freedoom, Heretic, Hexen, Quake I, and Quake II), Liero (a realtime ‘Worms-like’ game), Lincity (a construction and management simulation game), space shooters (XGalaga, Kobo Deluxe), Extreme Tux Racer (3D game), and DOSBox 0.74 with some Freeware DOS games. GNU Chess 6.1.1 with WinBoard 4.7.33, GNU Go 3.8, and Michael Speck's LGames are also available,” reads the official announcement.

As you can clearly see, this a distribution that is aimed at players who were around during the golden years of gaming, with titles such as Quake, Doom, and Xgalaga. Users will be able to find other games, newer ones, in the default installation, but there are also a few in the official repositories.

4MLinux Game Edition is probably the only operating system of its kind and very few distributions include such a large number of games. Most of the modern distros only ship one or two games, and others like Fedora and Ubuntu don't actually include any gaming titles.

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 distribution. You can also download 4MLinux Game Edition 8.1 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.