We feature the best Linux repair and rescue distros, to make it simple and easy to resolve issues when a hardware failure or a clumsy operating wreaks havoc with your installation.
The best Linux repair and rescue distros make it simple and easy to resolve issues when a hardware failure or a clumsy operating wreaks havoc with your installation. Of course, there’s no shortage of tools and utilities that’ll help users heal their broken installations. However, like with most things open source, it is the sheer number of choices that often confuse the average desktop user who might end up choosing the wrong tool for the job. This is where these specialized rescue distros come into the picture. They not only collate a vast number of healing tools, they’ll also go the extra mile and help you find the right tool for the job. These are the best Linux training providers and online courses. The Finnix distro has been around since the early 2000s and though the project had been languishing for quite a few years, it’s developer has now actively started working on it with regular releases. In fact, the project recently celebrated its 20 year anniversary with a new release. The distro has had a complete overhaul and now has a new build system based around Debian Testing. Finnix is also a native 64-bit distro now and features several enhancements that make it more usable on modern machines. For instance, it now uses GRUB as default bootloader for both BIOS and UEFI systems. There are several other noteworthy features as well including the use of zram swap compression, and improved remote SSH access. One of the goals of the distro is to keep the size of the final release small enough to fit inside a CD. To that end the layout of the distro is optimized for CD-ROMs, which doesn’t impede when it’s used from a USB, but will result in faster boots from CDs. This makes it suitable even on machines that can’t boot from USB sticks. Finnix’s tool list is comprehensive, and virtually unrivalled. However, its usability is limited thanks to it being a command-line only distro. New users shouldn’t expect much help from the project’s website as well as the documentation there is pretty old, though the developer has promised to update it as well.
