PING Community Edition

PING (Partimage Is Not Ghost) is an open-source and completely free distribution of Linux derived from the Recovery Is Possible (R.I.P.) operating system and designed from the ground up as a viable solution for backing up and restoring disk partitions.

It’s distributed in multiple editions

The project is distributed in multiple edition. While the Community Edition is freely distributable, the Business Edition of PING is available for purchase for the sum of 30 EUR (40 USD).

It can be downloaded as minimal Live CDs

The Community Edition of PING can be downloaded directly from its official website as a minimalist Live CD ISO image that must be burned onto a CD disc or written on a USB thumb drive in order to boot it from the BIOS of a PC.

What’s PING? How does it work

PING is a rescue/recovery/backup Live CD image that allows system administrator and regular users alike to backup and restore disk partitions or file from damaged drives to a network share. It can also be used to restore or backup BIOS data.

When booting the Live CD from the BIOS of a computer, you will encounter a boot prompt that will automatically start the live system in approximately 3 seconds. You’ll arrive to a screen where you have the choice between accessing the distro’s interface or a shell prompt.

The text-mode interface is very easy to use. It can be configured to automatically shutdown or reboot the computer, as well as to open root shell when the job is done. You will be able to choose where to save the backup (network share or local partition).

What else PING can do for me?

With PING you will be able to start a PXE (Preboot Execution Environment) server or RIS (Remote Installation Services) environment, blank local admin's password, partition and format disk drives, and much more.

What is new in this release:

• Upgraded Linux kernel from 2.6.37 to 3.1.2.
• Patched the kernel for Reiser4 mount support.
• Added xfsprogs-3.1.4.
• Added progsreiserfs-0.3.0.5.
• Added ufs-tools-0.1.
• Added vmfs-tools-0.2.1.
• Added jfsutils-1.1.15.
• Added libjfs-dev-1.1.12-2.2 (to no avail!)
• Added libufs2_7.2-2.
• Added partclone-0.2.24 (everything except jfs).
• Upgraded dhcpcd from 5.1.5 to 5.2.12.

What is new in version 3.01 2011-02-23:

• Upgraded Linux kernel from 2.6.33.2 to 2.6.37.
• Upgraded e2fsprogs from 1.40.2 to 1.41.14.
• Upgraded grub from 0.97 to 1.98.
• Upgraded fuse from 2.8.3 to 2.8.5.
• Upgraded ntfs-3g from 2010.1.16 to 2010.10.2.
• Upgraded Samba from 3.4.5 to 3.5.6.
• Upgraded LVM2 from 2.02.60 to 2.02.81.
• Upgraded e2fsprogs from 1.41.9 to 1.41.14.
• Upgraded parted from 2.1 to 2.3.
• Upgraded openssl from 0.9.8l to 1.0.0c.
• Upgraded lftp from 4.0.5 to 4.1.3.
• Upgraded openssh from 5.3p1 to 5.6p1.
• Upgraded clamav from 0.95.3 to 0.96.5.
• Upgraded curl from 2.19.7 to 2.21.3.
• Upgraded fuse-zip from 0.2.12 to 0.2.13.
• Upgraded dmraid from 1.0.0-rc15 to 1.0.0-rc16.
• Upgraded hdparm from 9.27 to 9.36.
• Upgraded nasm from 2.08rc6 to 2.09.03.
• Upgraded syslinux from 3.84 to 4.03.
• Upgraded ixgbe from 2.0.62.4 to 3.0.17.
• Upgraded mdadm from 2.6.9 to 3.1.2.
• Added multipath-tool 0.4.8 (kpartx).
• Intel Software RAID (ISW fakeraid) now handled.
• Added wget 1.12.
• Added lynx 2.8.7.

What is new in version 3.00.01:

• Many components were updated.
• Many new features were added, such as dynamic partition table changes.

What is new in version 2.01.19:

• Little code fixes.
• The addition of dmraid, hdparm, and fuse-zip to the live OS.
• The kernel has been recompiled with different options (which might improve speed a lot for certain controllers and SATA devices).

What is new in version 2.01.16:

• This release supports NFS, FTP, and SSHFS. Samba, the Linux kernel, and e1000 drivers have been upgraded.
• Zip archives can now complete or update partimage-made binaries (sda1.zip).
• Dirty NTFS filesystems are now supported in R/W.