Several updates to initramfs

Mar 19, 2010 10:38 GMT  ·  By

SystemRescueCd has been updated, with the latest stable version being SystemRescueCd 1.5.0. The new version comes just a few weeks after the previous version was released. SystemRescueCd 1.5.0 brings some updated packages, including the latest stable Linux kernel, and several updates focusing on initramfs, the temporary file system used by the live CD environment.

The previous release, SystemRescueCd 1.4.0, came with a couple of new options for network booting. The Gentoo-based live CD distribution can now boot over a network and mount the file system remotely using either NFS (network file system) or NBD (network block device). This means that the root file system image doesn't have to be downloaded entirely and loaded into memory, a great option for slower network connections. This also saves up memory space.

Highlights of SystemRescueCd 1.5.0:

· Linux kernel 2.6.32.10 - for both rescuecd and rescue64; · Util-linux 2.17.1 - adds support for hard drives with 4Kb blocks; · Parted 2.2 - standard text based partitioning tool; · Gparted 0.5.2 - graphical partitioning tool; · Ntfs3g 2010.3.6 - driver that provides read-write access to NTFS partitions; · Gdisk to 0.6.5 - fdisk utility for GPT based hard disks.

Updates in SystemRescueCd 1.5.0:

· Added option for network boot, changed to "netboot=proto://" (http, tftp, nfs, nbd); · Plenty of updates for initramfs:  - Udevd used to load kernel modules that corresponds to the hardware;  - /init bootscript rewritten ("rdinit=/initold" to use the old one);  - Added firmware required for ethernet and disk controller devices;  - Ability to boot systems with selinux enabled using root=/dev/xxx;  - Kernel modules are gzipped to save memory used by the initramfs;  - Fixed print error when chrooting to a 64-bit system from a 32-bit kernel.

Download SystemRescueCd 1.5.0 right now from Softpedia.