Review: SystemRescueCd 0.3.3
March 5th, 2007 by jamesSystemRescueCd is a Linux distribution whose purpose is to make it easy to check and repair your system and its data after a crash or other problems arise. It is more comprehensive than Knopperdisk for this purpose as it includes many more utilities for checking and repairing your drives and their file systems. Version 0.3.3 is the latest stable release as of this review.
What this distribution provides
The description from SystemRescueCd’s website explains:
SystemRescueCd is a Linux system on a bootable CD-ROM for repairing your system and your data after a crash. It also aims to provide an easy way to carry out admin tasks on your computer, such as creating and editing the partitions of the hard disk. It contains a lot of system utilities (parted, partimage, fstools, …) and basic ones (editors, midnight commander, network tools). It aims to be very easy to use: just boot from the cdrom, and you can do everything. The kernel of the system supports most important file systems (ext2/ext3, reiserfs, reiser4, xfs, jfs, vfat, ntfs, iso9660), and network ones (samba and nfs).
The distro also includes Xorg with Window-Maker and gparted, a graphical partitioning utility.
Trying it out
When the CD begins to boot, a nice presentation of what the live CD is capable of is presented on the boot loader. You are also able to get extra options through the boot loader in case your particular setup has problems with the default boot configuration.
When booting this distribution you can see that it is based off the Gentoo init system by the boot messages and also the layout of /etc.
Once booted, you’re automatically logged in and presented with a list of information on some basic commands you can run to help you get started. SystemRescueCd correctly detected all the hardware on my work PC, a Dell GX240, and on my home-built PC, including the SATA controller and NIC (nForce 4 chipset).
X worked great as well. SystemRescueCd includes no software to take screen shots with (no “fbgrab”, “import”, “xwd”, “gimp”) however a nice variety of screen shots are on the distro’s website.
On my desktop I was able to successfully read and write to an NTFS partition with Ntfs-3g. If my Windows XP system had a problem and I needed to get to my data SystemRescueCd would allow me to do that just fine.
SystemRescueCd 0.3.3 also provides a graphical (framebuffer) version of links so you can browse the web easily in console mode. Of course the plain text version is available as well. If you load up X, Firefox 2 and dillo are available to browse the web there.
Since the focus of this distribution is strictly for system recovery purposes, there aren’t any extra applications installed that don’t serve to further your system recovery attempts. Beyond the web browsers it comes with there are several different text editors, including gvim and leafpad for use in X.
When I rebooted the system, I noticed it didn’t eject the CD automatically. This is one thing that would be nice if they added (ala Knoppix).
Final Thoughts
SystemRescueCd 0.3.3 is a fully capable live CD Linux distribution that includes all the necessary utilities to help get your broken system back in order. The ability to read (and write) a variety of different file systems makes this rescue distribution useful for Windows as well as Linux.
The included tools allow you to scan your system for viruses (ClamAV) and root kits (chkrootkit) and even burn DVD’s. You can use NFS and Samba (Windows) shares from the live CD as well.
If you can’t boot from CD on your system, the distribution can also be booted from a USB stick using instructions found on the website. Speaking of the distro’s website, it’s very good for a small distribution. The website includes a good amount of information about the distribution and a wealth of documentation. There is even a complete system handbook in three different languages.
All in all this is quite a handy distribution to keep around. Whether you are a systems administrator or just a regular user, you will probably one day need the tools that SystemRescueCd provides.
March 8th, 2007 at 12:10 am
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March 8th, 2007 at 9:46 am
I’ve tried SystemRescue on two different systems, and both have had problems with booting or hardware detection.
Instead, I’ve found Trinity Rescue Kit (trinityhome.org) to be more useful.
March 8th, 2007 at 10:44 am
Dave:
Thanks for the comment. I’ll definitely give Trinity Rescue Kit a try at some point.
March 9th, 2007 at 11:16 am
[…] TriedIT | Review: SystemRescueCd 0.3.3. Definitely looks like another good option for your toolkit. […]
March 20th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
I have exclusively used the SystemRescueCD since version 0.2.17, QUITE a while back (just over a year), and for what its designed to do, it does AMAZINGLY well. I dont expect it to be a PCLinuxOS desktop distro, she’s straight up recovery and maintenance. I’ve had nothing but good news and constant success (at least 80 clients) with the distro, and I fully support and recommend it for anyone needing a bit more useful tools for their arsenal.
March 27th, 2007 at 12:17 am
[…] by their usefulness. In my line of work I have found them useful from time to time myself. On my SystemRescueCd review, a reader named Dave recommended checking out Trinity Rescue Kit. So, I decided to give it a […]
October 21st, 2007 at 7:53 pm
This is a great tool to carry around with you. I used it to recover a Windows
2000 Admin password on a Dell Inspiron 1150 notebook. Password had been forgotten because the notebook had not been used in a long time due to a broken power brick. Windows wanted to a do a system file check on reboot (docs warns you about this), but I could get into the Windows OS fine after this.