The Finnix project and DistroWatch are observing the 25th anniversary of the Finnix live distro a few days ago:
From Finnix:
Today is a very special day: March 22 is the 25 year anniversary of the first public release of Finnix, the oldest live Linux distribution still in production. Finnix 0.03 was released on March 22, 2000, and to celebrate this anniversary, I'm proud to announce the 35th Finnix release, Finnix 250!
Besides the continuing trend of Finnix version number inflation (the previous release was Finnix 126), Finnix 250 is simply a solid regular release, with the following notes:
From DistroWatch:
The Finnix distribution is a small, self-contained, bootable live Linux distribution for system administrators, based on Debian. The project's latest version is Finnix 250 which marks the project's 25th anniversary.
Other live distros come and go. However, Finnix is a special live distro because it contains so many pre-installed system administration tools that it has been a goto tool for system recovery and repair for two and a half decades.
Previously:
(2016) Refracta 8.0: Devuan on a Stick
(2015) Slackware Live Edition Beta Available
(2014) Snowden Used Special Linux Distro for Anonymity
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Klint Finley reports that Edward Snowden used a Linux Distro designed for anonymity to keep his communications out of the NSA's prying eyes. The Amnesic Incognito Live System (Tails) is a kind of computer-in-a-box using a version of the Linux operating system optimized for anonymity that you install on a DVD or USB drive, boot your computer from and you're pretty close to anonymous on the internet. "Snowden, Greenwald and their collaborator, documentary film maker Laura Poitras, used it because, by design, Tails doesn't store any data locally," writes Finley. "This makes it virtually immune to malicious software, and prevents someone from performing effective forensics on the computer after the fact. That protects both the journalists, and often more importantly, their sources." The developers of Tails are, appropriately, anonymous. They're protecting their identities, in part, to help protect the code from government interference. "The NSA has been pressuring free software projects and developers in various ways," the group says.
With Slackware Linux, it had always been necessary to install the distro to your hard drive to try it out. That is changing.
Eric Hameleers blogged
I have been irritated by past distro reviews where the reviewer complained that Slackware did not have a Live version. Meaning, to give it a test run they would have to install the distro to an actual computer--which would lead to the usual moaning about the arcane installer and "Slackware not keeping up with time".
[...] I am far from done [building the ISOs] and I would consider the current state of things at most to be "Beta Quality".
[...] When I feel confident enough I will probably upload the XFCE and Plasma 5 versions, and when the feedback is OK (and I fixed all the glaring bugs you guys will surely uncover) I will also release the scripts.
A week later, Eric continues with some details of what is in the release, more background on its development, and links to where you can download it:
[More after the break.]
DistroWatch reports
Geeks determined to resist the systemd juggernaut have several options. For me, the most interesting project is Devuan, a fork of Debian. [...] However, it does have a few flaws
[...] It was my search for a quick and easy way to get Devuan up and running that led me to Refracta, a unique distro that fills a niche that has long been neglected. Refracta's existence predates the systemd wars--it was originally based on Debian 5.0, otherwise known as "Lenny". But when Debian 8.0 "Jessie" went full systemd, Refracta moved to the Devuan camp.
Refracta's chief selling point is this: it's a live image that can be quickly installed, customized, and re-installed again. So basically you can roll your own live CD, configured for your hardware and tweaked to suit your personal tastes. It is currently my favorite distro, and I'd recommend it to any Linux geek who has had a little bit of experience. A total Linux newbie might feel more comfortable with a distro that mimics Windows' point-and-click friendliness, but once you've got the basics down, Refracta is easy to get used to.
It's also worth mentioning that even without being installed, a Refracta live CD or USB stick makes an excellent diagnostic and rescue tool. It contains quite a few command line utilities that aren't in a default Devuan or Debian installation, including gddrescue, testdisk, smartmontools, hdparm, lm-sensors, iftop, and iptraf.
[...] Unlike Devuan which uses PulseAudio, Refracta employs ALSA.
[...] Starting with version 8.0, Refracta has gone whole-hog at banishing systemd, not to mention PulseAudio. [...] One could say that Refracta is actually more Devuan than Devuan.
(Score: 2) by dwilson98052 on Wednesday March 26, @02:34AM (8 children)
...and I've used some pretty obscure distros over the decades.
Might have to check it out.
(Score: 4, Informative) by ls671 on Wednesday March 26, @04:39AM (7 children)
Seems to be for system rescue. Live usb boot and fix systems that don't boot and such things.
Everything I write is lies, including this sentence.
(Score: 2, Informative) by pTamok on Wednesday March 26, @10:29AM (2 children)
Second time of typing. Some key combination got my web-browser to go 'back' and drop contents of the edit box. Sigh.
I had not heard of Finnix previously, either.
I last used a combination of SystemRescueCD [system-rescue.org] (now renamed to simply SystemRescue) and Super Grub2 Disk [supergrubdisk.org]. Super Grub2 Disk shares a website with Rescatux [supergrubdisk.org] which is also aimed at recovering computers. In addition, I use rEFInd [rodsbooks.com] as a very good UEFI boot manager, and used an ALT Linux Live CD [altlinux.org] which was an early distribution to offer a signed shim on the Live CD, meaning you did not need to disable Secure Boot. This used to be very non trivial.
James Bottomley (2012-11-20): Adventures in Microsoft UEFI Signing [hansenpartnership.com]
ALT Linux: UEFI SecureBoot mini-HOWTO update 2018 [altlinux.org]
The current process is at: https://github.com/rhboot/shim-review [github.com]
I've recently simply used an Ubuntu installer USB and got the network working and downloaded any other tools I needed. Most PCs I deal with have an Ethernet, and for those that don't, I have a Linux-support USB Ethernet 'dongle'. I dislike WiFi-only devices.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 26, @11:34AM (1 child)
I always used to keep a Trinity Rescue CD handy.
(Score: 2) by ls671 on Wednesday March 26, @08:44PM
It doesn't matter really what you use for rescue IMHO. I use anything at hand, distros install CD often have what is needed.
Everything I write is lies, including this sentence.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Unixnut on Wednesday March 26, @10:37AM (3 children)
Still interesting to investigate further. I discovered Knoppix first in the 2000's so only really used that over the years so didn't hear of Finnix. However it seems Knoppix have not made a release for a few years now so I'm not sure if that project is still active.
(Score: 4, Funny) by turgid on Wednesday March 26, @11:15AM
Knoppix was awesome when it came out. I gave a copy of it to a relative to try. She didn't. She thought "Knoppix" meant "no pics" as in no graphics, that it was a neck-beard CLI OS for weirdos. She stuck with Windows.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 4, Informative) by pTamok on Wednesday March 26, @12:02PM (1 child)
As far as I know, Knoppix is still the 'go to' distribution for people with sight impairments. Klaus Knopper's wife is blind (or very partially sighted, I don't remember which), so he did his best to produce an installer and distribution that could be operated without relying on the screen - so the installer includes braille-display drivers, and text-to-speech software.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Unixnut on Wednesday March 26, @01:36PM
That is interesting to know. I was unaware of that as I have not had the need but it is nice that someone thought of accessibility by default in a liveCD. I really went with Knoppix as it was the first "live" distribution I had heard of, and it was very useful both for testing out Linux on different HW (to see if it works) and as a base for appliances (as its autodetection system was very powerful) and for recovery (Which as a new Linux user starting out in the 00's was a godsend, I trashed my installs so many times while learning).
Looking on the wiki for each distro, it seems Finnix might be older by a few months (March 2000 vs September 2000) but Knoppix was definitely the one that was better known of the two. I had never heard of Finnix despite it being released before Knoppix, and I honestly thought knoppix was the first of its breed.
Reading the Finnix Wiki [wikipedia.org] It seems the reason for this is that while Finnix was released earlier than Knoppix, it was effectively abandoned from March 2000 up until 2005, after which a few releases were a Knoppix re-master until they switched to being based on Debian.
As such while both were started in 2000, it seems Knoppix became dominant because it actually continued being developed through the early 2000's gaining utility and mindshare across the tech community, which is probably why I heard of (and used) Knoppix a lot, but not Finnix (after all, if Knoppix does what you want, there is not much incentive to look for alternatives).
(Score: 4, Informative) by nostyle on Wednesday March 26, @04:11PM (2 children)
As I mentioned in my recent journal [soylentnews.org], I actually use a "live" distro as my preferred platform. It is something of a zen exercise to train myself to dissociate myself and my PII from the tools I use. Then if anyone comes looking, they won't find out much about me from the evidence on my laptop.
Then, again, I don't do any real computer work these days, and I don't have the need to gather an esoteric collection of cyber-tools to create an ideal environment for doing development on a particularly peculiar piece of niche software. TLDR: I am retired.
Back in the day, I managed to configure a USB stick to do multi-boot of various "live" distributions, but that stick has gone missing, and so I have spent several days this week trying to re-create it based on old clues I can find online. So far, I have re-learned a few ways that things don't work.
In this process, I have learned of the existence of the utility Ventoy [ventoy.net], which claims to offer that "multi-boot" functionality I am seeking. I thought it appropriate that I mention it in this commentary in case there are others seeking similar solutions.
It turns out Ventoy doesn't quite work for me. Some my machines are HP branded, and for these particular ones, the Ventoy USB stick hangs at boot time.
I am still working on re-inventing the multi-boot solution, but other higher priority tasks are pushing this one into the "when I can get around to it" stack.
Meanwhile, producing a "single boot" USB stick is drop dead easy for most live distros, and is well documented online. For Slackware in particular, I have had success with the "iso2usb.sh" utility that alienbob has developed.
--
-Steely Dan
(Score: 2) by nostyle on Wednesday March 26, @09:24PM
Sorry, I botched the last happy link. It should read...
(Score: 2) by nostyle on Saturday March 29, @01:59PM
This is now an old thread, and it's likely nobody will ever see this entry, but I wanted to add this final note about the "multi-boot USB stick" idea.
I found my old multi-boot USB stick, and I realized the reason it went missing is that I never had any need of it. It's great for spending a day experimenting with various distros (like mint, ubuntu, slackware, ...etc), but at some point one simply wants to get on with life and quits needing to reboot into a different OS.
Also, making a "multi-boot" USB stick is a fools errand. Logically it is the same as a collection of "single-boot" USB sticks arrayed in a USB hub, and if you already have a target OS you wish to boot, then you should need only one "single-boot" stick - so why bother with such a hub.
So I've given up on recreating a multi-boot USB stick that I would likely never use. Meanwhile I discovered that there is a recent release of "ubuntu-studio" which can be run live, so I am experimenting with that.
A word for the wise about running ubuntu live distributions:
It takes me a while to figure all these things out, but I will keep trying.
--
-Stephen Bishop
(Score: 1) by ssvt on Friday March 28, @04:22AM
Slack in 1994 was my first distro.