All posts by adrian15

Thinking on Rescatux 0.26

News, Rescatux

I think I have managed to do most of the work involved on the stabilisation roadmap. I have even finished the most tedious of them: Documentation ;).

However I think I am going to add another useful option before releasing Rescatux 0.26 version (As an user I wouldn’t like to see another Rescatux with no new useful options). Fix Boot of Windows (MBR). It is an option that it is already present on Super Grub Disk but I want to implement it. I doubt if I am going to using install-mbr command and I doubt about using sfdisk for activating the windows partition.

As you might know Windows boot has three steps: MBR Boot, Partition Boot, Kernel Boot. This option will only fix the first one of the Windows boot step which it is common for all the Windows versions.

By the way… I have already implemented the Share log option on my test Rescatux and it works quite well.

As you might have seen Forum and Wiki have been disabled for a long time now. I plan to reenable them with antispam methods in the short them.
In the meanwhile I am going to do an experiment. This post comments  are going to be open for you to give me feedback about Rescatux only. (Till I close its comments 😉 By the way comments are moderated (Because of spammers again)).

Working on Rescatux API

News, Rescatux

Today I have worked on Rescatux API as I already told you on Rescatux stabilisation roadmap. I thought that it was a matter of four or five functions but there are more functions than I expected :).

The functions are mainly saved into rescatux_lib.sh file and so far I have implemented these functions:

  • rtux_Get_Etc_Issue_Content: Given a partition it returns its etc issue content
  • rtux_Get_System_Partitions: Return partitions detected on the system
  • rtux_Get_Linux_Os_Partition: Return partitions which have Linux os detector on them
  • rtux_Get_System_HardDisks: Return hard disks detected on the system
  • rtux_Choose_Linux_partition: Let the user choose his main GNU/Linux partition
  • rtux_Get_Desktop_Width: Returns Desktop width

Having a Rescatux API will simplify Rescatux development. No more repeated code. Functions can be improved if needed without altering the rest. And, most important of it, it will help Rescatux contributors to code their rescue tasks without neither having to care about backend (Reading system partitions and so on) nor having to care about frontend (How to build a menu so that the user selects a partition).

By the way, after stabilisation I will try to improve the support menu with the “Share logs” option which will involve pastebinit tool.

Apart of working on Rescatux API I have reniced a lot of code because it seemed a mess. You know, identing lines of code, removing debug lines, unnecessary comments and so on. 😉

Rescatux 0.25 released

Download, Rescatux, Rescatux Stable

Rescatux 0.25 Cdrom or USB ISO for x86 or amd64 Mirror #1 Mirror #2
MD5 (371 Megabytes)

Source code and other downloads
Useful Rescatux Options:

  • Restore Grub to the MBR
  • Update Grub Configuration
  • Filesystem check (Fix forced)

Changelog:

  • Artwork has been improved
  • Added “Restore Grub into MBR” option local documentation
  • Added “About” option
  • Known bug: All local documentation except “Restore Grub into MBR” and “About Rescapp” option has the same documentation: “Restore Grub into MBR”
  • 0.25 useful features = 0.22 useful features

bTactic has kindly offered a new artwork for Rescatux 0.25. Actually bTactic is going to take over control of Rescatux project very soon.


bTactic is an IT consulting company specializing in solutions based on free software for SMEs. Its main product is bMail. bMail is a collaboration piece of software capable of managing email, contacts, calendar, tasks, notes and even a powerful briefcase for files

bTactic nos ha ofrecido un nuevo artwork para Rescatux 0.25. De hecho, bTactic tomará el control del proyecto Rescatux muy pronto.


bTactic bTactic es la primera consultora TIC de Lleida especializada en soluciones basadas en SOFTWARE LIBRE para la PYME. Su principal producto es bMail. bMail es una solución integral de colaboración, capaz de gestionar el correo electrónico, contactos, agenda, tareas, notas y hasta un maletín potente de archivos.

Rescatux stabilisation roadmap

News, Rescatux

As you can see, Rescatux 0.22 has been released.
Rescatux’s current source code is a bit messy but that was intentional. I needed to test the different options a bit to try to imagine how an Rescatux API would be.

I think that I still needed more options to get a better idea and design but I want to tide up things a little bit.

So here there are some points about short-term Rescatux roadmap.

  • Do not add any more useful options
  • Add About option
  • Redesign help system so that it is based on html instead of txt
  • Write a good local documentation for the current three useful options
  • Make the local documentation also online documentation
  • Improve current options when there are problems (I.e. Restore Grub to the MBR should inform if no partition is found instead of offering you an empty selection choice).
  • API restructuration. All functions that are repeated among useful options scripts should be found in one script that it is read from the original scripts.
  • Improve source code here and there.

So I think this is most of the issues that I need to resolve till I release a new Rescatux.

As long as this new release would be kind of a stable one I will also try to release a Torrent file because I think that Berlios is something satured with Rescatux downloads.

About update grub configuration file option being updated to support SuSE, Fedora or other grub legacy distributions it will be postponed to later versions but comments on how to do this from a live cd are welcomed.

See you in the next Rescatux development post!

Happy new year 2011!

Rescatux 0.22 released

Download, Rescatux, Rescatux Stable

Rescatux 0.22 Cdrom or USB ISO for x86 or amd64 Mirror #1 Mirror #2
MD5 (595 Megabytes)

Source code and other downloads
Useful Rescatux Options:

  • Restore Grub to the MBR
  • Update Grub Configuration
  • Filesystem check (Fix forced)

Changelog:

  • New option: Filesystem check (Fix forced)
  • Filesystem check (Fix forced) can help you to recover grub or grub2 when grub or grub2 or a live cd cannot read filesystem because filesystem has inconsistencies.
  • Filesystem check (Fix forced) can also help you to recover your GNU/Linux files from a live cd even if you were not able to mount the GNU/Linux partition, now you will probably be able to mount it.

Help on Updating Grub Configuration on non Debian/Ubuntu distributions

Uncategorized

As you might have seen in previous post I have just released Rescatux 0.21 which features the new option “Update Grub configuration”.
It is the same option as if you chroot into your system thanks to a live cd and run update-grub inside it.

However it is special because it lets you rename the live cd hard disk names so that they meet your normal (the ones that your installed distribution knows) hard disk names. More than this you can order them according to your BIOS hard disk boot order.

Unfortunately I have only coded this for Debian / Ubuntu based distributions. It should work for both grub and grub though.

So if you know how to run something equivalent to update-grub (automatically detect OSes in your system and build either a menu.lst (grub) or grub.cfg (grub2)) in either Opensuse, Mandrake, Fedora, Arch, Gentoo or any other non-Debian based system I am glad to hear you.

I am very interested in knowing if grub2 implementations of these distributions have or not update-grub script by default or not.

Please use the Rescatux subforum at main Super Grub Disk forum. Thank you very much.

Rescatux 0.21 released

Download, Rescatux, Rescatux Stable

Rescatux 0.21 Cdrom or USB ISO for x86 or amd64 Mirror #1 Mirror #2
MD5 (477 Megabytes)

Source code and other downloads
Useful Rescatux Options:

  • Restore Grub to the MBR
  • Update Grub Configuration

Changelog:

  • Now login is automatic
  • Added “Update Grub Configuration” option that lets you rename your hard disks names, order them by BIOS hard disk boot order.
  • “Update Grub Configuration” should only work with Debian based distributions such as Ubuntu.

Rescatux Downloads 2010/11/08

Rescatux

Rescatux 0.20 Cdrom or USB ISO for x86 or amd64 Mirror #1 Mirror #2
Mirror #3
MD5 (477 Megabytes)

Source code and other downloads
Update: I have corrected release which was 0.18 and not 0.20. And I have added a third mirror because the two first ones had some problems. However use the first ones when possible.

This release merges x86 and amd64 versions in one cd.
Improvement: Added Rescatux logo at Syslinux prompt.
This release has only one useful option: Restore Grub to the MBR.

Login password is: live

Adding syslinux logo to Rescatux Build

Rescatux

Now I’ll be able to publish kind of a development blog at the main page.

At the same time you will also see new downloads at main page.

This weekend I am trying to write an script that generates an image for the Syslinux logo. The great thing about the script is that it changes as long as the version changes.

I probably publish 0.20 Rescatux this week because although x86-Amd64 architectures in the same cdrom is not very useful (as a new Rescatux option) I want to publish it because of the logo.

That’s it! I will kept informed about Rescatux development.