R.I.P.

R.I.P. stands for Recovery Is Possible and it’s an open-source and completely free distribution of GNU/Linux derived from one of the oldest Linux kernel-based operating systems in the world, Slackware. It is designed from the ground up to be used for recovering data from broken OSes or damaged hardware.

It’s distributed as a Live CD ISO image

This Slackware-based distribution is distributed as a Live CD ISO image that has approximately 150MB in size. It is bootable on computers that support both the 32-bit (i386) and 64-bit (x86_64) hardware platforms.

In order to use it, the user must first burn the ISO image to a CD disc using any CD/DVD burning software or write it to a USB thumb drive of 512MB or higher capacity using the UNetbootin or GNOME Disk Utility (Disks) applications.

The boot menu is the most important feature

Being designed as a text-mode rescue CD, Recovery Is Possible’s most important feature is the boot menu. From there, the user can start the rescue system in normal or failsafe mode, boot a small initrd system, as well as to perform a system memory diagnostic test.

Supports a plethora of file systems

The OS has support for a plethora of file system types, including EXT2/3/4, ReiserFS, Reiser4, XFS, JFS, ISO9660, UDF, UFS, HPFS, HFS, MINIX, MS-DOS, NTFS and VFAT. Additionally, it supports IDE, SCSI and SATA, PCMCIA, RAID and LVM2 technologies.

Contains a wide-range of command-line utilities for system maintenance tasks

The distribution contains a wide-range of command-line utilities aimed at rescue, recovery and general maintenance tasks. Among these, we can mention partimage, parted, reiserfsck, fdisk, cfdisk, sfdisk, mke2fs, tune2fs, e2fsck, debugfs, mkntfs, jfs_mkfs, jfs_fsck, xfs_repair, cdrecord/dvdrecord, mkisofs, ntfsresize, dvd rw-format and growisofs.

In addition, the lynx, fetchmail, mutt, pop3spam, ncftp, popselect, epic irc, telnet, tin, wget, zgv, naim, testdisk, smbmount, smbclient, ssh/sshd, udp-sender/receiver, rsync, lde, rtvpatch, blesstivo, chntpw, grub, cmospwd, grubconfig, memtest86, smartctl, captive-ntfs, ddrescue, dd_rescue, dmidecode, acpitool, hwinfo, lshw and ethtool tools are also included.

What is new in this release:

• The kernels are 3.2.1.
• Updated xorriso 1.1.8
• Updated cdrskin 1.1.8
• Updated lrzip 0.608
• Added ndiswrapper 1.57
• Updated coreutils 8.15
• Updated curl 7.23.1
• Updated lftp 4.3.4
• Updated wget 1.13.4
• Updated util-linux 2.20.1
• No non-X versions, I had trouble uploading them.

What is new in version 13.6:

• The 32bit kernel is 3.2.0.
• Updated FireFOX 9.0.1
• Updated partclone 0.2.43
• Updated extcarve 1.3
• Updated testdisk/photorec 6.14-WIP Jan/2012
• Updated ddrescue 1.15
• Updated ntfs-3g 2011.10.9AR.1
• Updated GParted 0.11.0
• Updated e2fsprogs 1.42
• Updated truecrypt 7.1
• Updated rsync 3.0.9
• Updated openssh 5.9
• Updated grub2 1.99-14
• Updated xfsprogs 3.1.7
• Updated xfsdump 3.0.6
• Updated dkopp 6.0
• Updated ukopp 4.1

What is new in version 13.5:

• The kernels are 2.6.39.2 (no Reiser4 support)
• Updated extcarve 0.4
• Updated FireFOX 5.0
• Updated xorriso 1.1.0.pl01
• Updated cdrskin 1.1.0
• Updated mdadm 3.2.2
• Updated lftp 4.3.0

What is new in version 13.4:

• Updated lynx 2.8.8dev.9
• Updated ntfs-3g 2011.4.12AR.3
• Updated sleuthkit 3.2.2
• Updated afftools 3.6.12
• Updated Pidgin 2.8.0
• Updated pan 0.135
• Added netscript boot option:
• netscript=http://example.com/stuff-to-do.sh "After starting DHCP, this invokes a Bourne shell script via the network."

What is new in version 13.3:

• Added extcarve 0.3
• Updated smartmontools 5.41
• Updated gsmartcontrol 0.8.6
• Replaced 7za with 7z 9.20.1 (without RAR support)
• Added vmxnet3 and pvscsi support to kernels.
• Added governor boot option:
• governor=powersave "Choose CPU frequency governor: userspace, performance, powersave, conservative, or powernowd (userspace daemon). The default is 'ondemand'.

What is new in version 13.1:

• Updated cdrtools 3.01a05
• Compiled kernels to use "ondemand cpufrequency governor" to prevent "CPU reached critical temperature" system shutdown.

What is new in version 13.0:

• The kernels are 2.6.38.8.
• Updated dar 2.4.0

What is new in version 12.9:

• Added powertop 1.98
• Updated chntpw 110511
• Updated module-init-tools 3.13
• Updated xf86-input-synaptics 1.4.0.901+git-6/1/2011
• Patched GParted 0.8.1 to git-6/1/2011 changes.

What is new in version 12.8:

• Updated epdfview 1.8
• Updated partclone 0.2.24
• Updated udev 171
• Updated ati-radeon video card driver 6.14.2
• Updated wget 1.12-2504
• Updated psensor 0.6.1.10
• Replaced cpufrequtils with cpupowerutils (cpupower) 009p1.