The SystemRescueCd team has announced today the latest version of their Linux system. This new release brings important new features, such as advanced customization and kernel recompilation, as well as updates to some of the already present applications.

It's a well known fact that SystemRescueCd is based on Gentoo and, now, with this version, you can add the packages of your choice using Gentoo's package manager. This is present here by including development tools (like gcc, automake, autoconf, etc.) and specific Gentoo-Linux applications (such as emerge, autoconf, etc.) required in order to install new packages, as all that is installed on Gentoo must be compiled.

SystemRescueCd includes 4 kernels, 2 standard ones (rescuecd and rescue 64) and 2 alternative ones (altker32 and altker64). Now, you have the possibility to compile which kernel you want, to best fit your needs. This is usually performed if you'd like more recent sources or you need another driver, or you simply need various compilation options.

Another clever utility we find in this version is the backstore, primarily used to keep the changes after a reboot. A backing-store is a loopback filesystem containing all the changed files of a system. Every minor file change like a file edit, creation or deletion, is recorded on the backing-store, so you just have to load the appropriate one to return to the state you want.

Now, let's have a look at a list with some of the highlights of SystemRescueCd 1.1.0:

· The two kernel sources, standard and alternative, have been swapped;
· The majority of drivers are compiled as module in the standard kernels (2.6.25.16);
· The majority of drivers are built-in the alternative kernels (2.6.25.14);
· The necessary development tools (gcc, make, ...) and Gentoo tools (emerge, equery, ...) have been added;
· The nameif option has been added, which can be used to specify the name of each ethernet interface using the mac address (ex: "nameif=eth0!00:0C:29:57:D0:6E,eth1 00:0C:29:57:D0:64");
· Support for backing-store loopback file systems has been introduced;
· Added support for the speakup (support devices for blind people).

You can find more information regarding the new features and updates by visiting the official changelog.

SystemRescueCd 1.1.0 is available for download on Softpedia. Try it yourself!