14 DAY TRIAL // 4MLinux Rescue Edition, a special distribution that includes a wide set of system maintenance and recovery applications, has advanced to version 10.1 Beta and is now ready for testing.
4MLinux Rescue Edition is just one flavor in the 4MLinux ecosystem, but it's also one of the most useful, as it packs a large number of tools that can be used to salvage data or perform a backup on systems that are about to be erased or updated. You can never be too careful when you need to perform this kind of operations, so it's a good idea to see what this distribution has to offer.
It's also worth noting that the 4MLinux operating systems are among the smallest ones available right now that still provide a complete desktop and user experience.
You can argue that there are other smaller ones out there, but they don't provide the same wealth of apps and users have to tinker with them just to bring them up to speed with everything else. In the case of distros, size matters only when it doesn't become an inconvenience for users.
4MLinux Rescue Edition 10.1 Beta is all about updated packages
The 4MLinux developer is moving fast and he’s updated a number of important packages in the distribution. Most of the applications present in today's release were already integrated, but they have been updated. This is an operating system that usually features only the latest versions for the tools, but that is understandable when the OS has to be ready to handle anything.
"The main features in this release are antivirus protection (Clam AntiVirus 0.98.4), system backup (4MLinux Backup Scripts 10.1), data recovery (GNU ddrescue 1.19, TestDisk 6.14 with QPhotoRec), data wiping (shred 8.23, nwipe 0.16), disk partitioning (cfdisk 2.25.1, cgdisk 0.8.10, GNU Parted 3.2), and partition imaging (Partimage 0.6.9, Partclone 0.2.70). Many archive formats can be managed via 7-Zip 9.22, FreeArc 0.67, and PeaZip 5.5.0."
"File managers (Midnight Commander 4.8.13, X File Explorer 1.37, muCommander 0.9.0), CD/DVD burners (cdw 0.8.0, InfraRecorder 0.53), and UNetbootin 608 are also included," says the developer on his blog.
Check the official announcement for more details about this release. You can download 4MLinux Rescue Edition 10 Beta right now from Softpedia. Remember that this is a development version and it might still have some issues. Don't use it on productions machines. The development cycle for this distro is rather short, so you might want to wait until the final version is made available.