Rescatux 0.32 beta 1 Regenerate Sudoers file. Note the support buttons rearrangement so that Run button is visible.
Some thoughts:
Trendynick, from the irc, sent me a nice mockup of how he thought Rescapp should be designed. The final result is 100% as he expected but most of it.
Now we can add new options without bothering about design because we have got an scroll bar for seeing all the options.
The best thing about the new design is that you can see all the available options in one glance. That makes easier for new comers to discover the truly Rescatux potential. It also makes easier to run options because the Run option screen which shows the html help, as always, has had some of its buttons rearranged.
As I was not able to use RazorQT from unstable or testing Debian, and as LXQT was even more difficult I had to drop RazorQT and fallback to LXDE (which it’s currently based on GTK2). The long waited dream of an almost QT based rescue cd has been paused. That’s the reason why I had to change 0.31 to 0.32.
The other reason for 0.31 to 0.32 change is because I am dropping Super Grub2 Disk integration. I have been thinking about a Rescatux Plus edition that would include it but I’m not very sure of it. I would rather prefer to have only one Rescatux download and then, if you want to, you can build your USB with both Super Grub2 Disk and Rescatux in it.
If you wanted an ISO for the your CDROM with both Super Grub2 Disk and Rescatux, well, you will have to burn two cds. If you don’t agree with this decision please comment below so that we can gather actual feedback on how many people think the Super Grub2 Disk is something useful for them or not.
As you can see one drawback from using isolinux instead Grub2 from Super Grub2 Disk is that the logo and boot entries are the Live ones (Rescatux is based on Debian Live project) instead of Rescatux ones. As this is a beta and I don’t want to mess in a long time with Rescatux code I have decided not to worry about that.
Unless you think you are going to have problems with network connections (which it’s not actually needed for Rescatux to work, only for asking for support) if you have Rescatux 0.31 beta 5 there’s no need for you to download this version.
Of course, you are welcome to download it so that you can give us feedback so that we can improve it.
Fixed bugs:
Networking detection improved (fallback to network-manager-gnome)
Bottom bar does not have a shorcut to a file manager as it’s a common practice in modern desktops. Fixed when falling back to LXDE.
Double-clicking on directories on desktop opens Iceweasel (Firefox fork) instead of a file manager. Fixed when falling back to LXDE.
Improvements:
Super Grub2 Disk is no longer included. That makes easier to put the ISO to USB devices thanks to standard multiboot tools which support Debian Live cds.
Rescapp UI has been redesigned
Every option is at hand at the first screen.
Rescapp options can be scrolled. That makes it easier to add new options without bothering on final design.
Run option screen buttons have been rearranged to make it easier to read.
RazorQT has been replaced by LXDE which seems more mature. LXQT will have to wait.
WICD has been replaced by network-manager-gnome. That makes easier to connect to wired and wireless networks.
It is no longer based on Debian Unstable (sid) branch.
Known bugs:
Handling of directories with spaces when detecting Windows SAM files is not optimal
Rescatux logo is not shown at boot
Boot entries are named “Live xxxx” instead of “Rescatux xxxx”
Pending features or bugfixes for 0.32 stable release:
Select keyboard from Grub2 boot or Isolinux boot so that you can type your correct password when resetting Gnu/Linux password. (Or type password without masking it).
New option: Easy Grub fix: Runs both Restore Grub and Update Grub options
New option: Easy Windows Admin that runs: unlock user, promote user to admin and blank admin user password so that you can straight-forward as a windows admin user.
Rewriting of Windows chntpw based options so that source code is not repeated
Feedback welcome:
I’ve tried myself the distro in my dev environment for the new options, not the old ones and they seem to start ok. Another thing is doing a full test about their complete functionality. Please test the ISO and report back if something that worked on previous stable versions no longer works in this beta version.
I am very busy right now at work. So you should expect two, three or four months of Rescatux development stalling. These are some of the funny tasks that anyone can easily contribute to:
Making a youtube video for the new options.
Make sure documentation for the new options is right.
Translate the documentation of new options to Spanish.
Make snapshots for new options documentation so that they don’t lack images.
I am proud to announce Super Grub2 Disk 2.00s2 stable.
Super GRUB2 Disk is a live cd that helps you to boot into most any Operating System (OS) even if you cannot boot into it by normal means.
A new stable release
The former Super Grub2 Disk stable release was 1.98s1 version and released on October 2010 (more than three years ago). So as you might guess this release has many new features and supports more Operating Systems to boot.
We are going to see which are the complete Super Grub2 Disk features with a demo video, where you can download it, the thank you – hall of fame and some thoughts about the Super Grub2 Disk development.
Please do not forget to read our howtos so that you can have step by step guides (how to make a cdrom or an usb, how to boot from it, etc) on how to use Super Grub2 Disk and, if needed, Rescatux.
Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 rc2 Main Menu
Tour
Here there is a little video tour in order to discover most of Super Grub2 Disk options. The rest of the options you will have to discover them by yourself.
Features
Most of the features here will let you boot into your Operating Systems. The rest of the options will improve the Super Grub2 Disk operating systems autodetecting (enable RAID, LVM, etc.) or will deal with minor aspects of the user interface (Colours, language, etc.).
Change the language UI
Translated into several languages
Spanish / Español
German / Deutsch
French / Français
Italian / Italiano
Malay / Bahasa Melayu
Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 rc2 Spanish Main Menu
Everything option to detect most Operating Systems
Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 beta 3 – Everything menu making use of grub.cfg extract entries option functionality
Everything plus option to detect most Operating Systems also in special devices or filesystems
Boot manually
Operating Systems
grub.cfg – Extract entries
Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 beta 3 grub.cfg Extract entries option
grub.cfg – (GRUB2 configuration files)
menu.lst – (GRUB legacy configuration files)
core.img – (GRUB2 installation (even if mbr is overwritten))
Bootable ISOs (in /boot-isos or /boot/boot-isos
Extra GRUB2 functionality
Enable GRUB2’s LVM support
Enable GRUB2’s RAID support
Enable GRUB2’s PATA support (to work around BIOS bugs/limitation)
Mount encrypted volumes (LUKS and geli)
Enable serial terminal
Extra Search functionality
Search in floppy ON/OFF
Search in CDROM ON/OFF
List Devices / Partitions
Color ON /OFF
Exit
Halt the computer
Reboot the computer
Supported Operating Systems
Basically apart from custom kernels from university students Super Grub2 Disk can autodetect and boot most every Operating System. Some examples are written here so that Google bots can see it and also to make more confident the final user who searchs his own special (according to him) Operating System.
Windows
Windows Vista/7/8/8.1
Windows NT/2000/XP
Windows 98/ME
MS-DOS
FreeDOS
GNU/Linux
Direct Kernel with autodetected initrd
Super Grub2 Disk – Detect any Operating System – Linux kernels detected
vmlinuz-*
linux-*
kernel-genkernel-*
Debian / Ubuntu / Mint
Mageia
Fedora / CentOS / Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
openSUSE / SuSE Linux Enterpsise Server (SLES)
Arch
Any many, many, more.
FreeBSD
FreeBSD (single)
FreeBSD (verbose)
FreeBSD (no ACPI)
FreeBSD (safe mode)
FreeBSD (Default boot loader)
EFI files
Mac OS X/Darwin 32bit or 64bit
Super Grub2 Disk 2.00s2 rc4 Mac OS X entries (Image credit to: Smx)
Support for different hardware platforms
Before this release we only had the hybrid version aimed at regular pcs. Now with the upcoming new EFI based machines you have the EFI standalone versions among others. What we don’t support is booting when secure boot is enabled.
Most any PC thanks to hybrid version (i386, x86_64, x86_64-efi) (ISO)
EFI x86_64 standalone version (EFI)
Additional Floppy, CD and USB in one download (ISO)
coreboot
i386-efi
i386-pc
ieee1275
x86_64-efi
Additional standalone versions
coreboot (IMG)
i386-efi (EFI)
ieee1275 (IMG)
Supported Media
Compact Disk – Read Only Memory (CD-ROM)
Universal Serial Bus (USB) devices
Floppy (1.98s1 version only)
Downloads
Recommended download (Floppy, CD & USB in one) (Valid for i386, x86_64, and x86_64-efi):
New Everything option that lets you find all your Operating Systems in your computer.
New Everything + option . It loads: LVM, RAID, PATA, USB and mounts encrypted volumes and then tries to find everything
UI was completely redesigned
Move all “Enable …” options to a submenu
Add “Return to main menu” option to submenus
Now every option from ‘Enable extra GRUB2 functionality…’ comes back to main menu after a 5 seconds delay (just in case there are any bugs)
Show floppy and cdrom status after toggling their value. Wait 5 seconds before return to main menu
Floppy and CDROM search toggle options go into their own submenu: Enable extra search functionality
Boot manually submenu let’s you boot into different operating systems manually
Added a submenu_title function to make all submenus to have the same title design
Sleep after menu entries which print to the screen. This way you can read what these options say.
Use gfxterm by default but allow the user to prevent the use of gfxterm by holding shift during boot. This allows the display of non-ASCII characters
Show Super Grub2 Disk and its version at main page
Added colours and a colour toggle option
Now Super Grub2 Disk is built for different Target + Platform combinations. Currently is based on binary Debian packages from testing.
(Hybrid) x86_64+efi and i386+pc
i386 – pc
x86_64 – efi
i386 – efi
x86_64-efi
i386-efi
i386-coreboot
i386-ieee1275
Additional Operating Systems detected
Add option to detect GRUB legacy menu.lst files
Add new option for mounting encrypted volumes (LUKS and geli)
Added options to force floppy and / or cdrom search globally. The reason is that now floppy and cdrom search are ignored by default.
Loopback detection now also detects: /bootisos, /boot/booisos, /BOOTISOS and /BOOTISOS directories so that FAT file name compatibility is assured
Added support for chainloading EFI files.
Added x86_64-efi support so that EFI files are detected and can be booted
Added default boot loader entries for FreeBSD at OS detection script
Added support for Gentoo kernels (genkernel) to OS automatic detection option
Added extra boot parametres for OS X kernels
Added new option ‘CFG – Extract entries option. This makes easier to workaround grub configuration files with zero seconds timeouts.
Added Fedora’s path that include /boot/grub2 instead of /boot/grub on cfg detection
Added Exit menu so that you can halt or reboot your machine.
Added a dummy grub.cfg so that it loads main.cfg. That makes easier to reuse Super Grub2 Disk in multi OS devices.
New translation system based on gettext and po files
New translations
English
Spanish
Added French translation. Thank you goes to Daniel_KM.
Added Italian translation. Credits to Davide Depau
de,fr,it and ms translations were regenerated to reflect new translation strings. They need to be checked by translators
Development improvements
Most Super Grub2 Disk options were rewritten as libraries to make development easier and have a consistent UI.
Add new vmtest script to ease testing of new code. Vmtest is a bash script which will generate an SG2D iso, configure it to take input from and output to serial, then test it using kvm with kvm’s -nographic option.
Added new AFD boot technology.
SG2D scripts were rewritten from LUA language to new grub scripting language.
Miscelanea fixes
FIXED – [ Bug #18907 ] isodirs=$1 in scan_isos
FreeBSD boot wasn’t working ok. Fixed.
Fix gfxterm trigger. Now translation work as expected. Special characters are shown ok
Fix OSX Boot
Finally you can check all the detailed changes at our GIT commits.
If you want to translate into your language please check TRANSLATION file at source code to learn how to translate into your language.
Thank you – Hall of fame
I want to thank in alphabetical order:
bfree (Niall Wash): For his work in rethinking how Super Grub2 Disk grub script might be rewritten although we never used that code. For adding code for EFI chainloader, helping on building and testing Super Grub2 Disk EFI releases.
Jordan_U (Jordan Uggla) (jordan.uggla AT gmail DOT com): For his work in rewriting Lua Super Grub2 Disk into new Grub2 scripting. Also for his work in translation system based on gettext and po. And also I want to thank him for all this work in Super Grub2 Disk in many many ways.
nox (Juergen Lock) (nox AT freebsd DOT org): For his work in fixing *BSD boot entries and helping adding new *BSD boot entries and testing.
Smx (Stefano): For his Mac OS X / Darwin boot fixes and testing. He has also worked in redesigning some of the menues and probably his work will be included in next Super Grub2 Disk versions. He has also worked in a keyboard selection menu on his own too. That will be also included in next versions.
The person who writes this article is adrian15 and is proud of being responsible among other things for the rewriting of options as if they were libraries. And also for the User Interface (UI) complete redesign.
And I cannot forget about thanking bTactic, the enterprise where I work at and that hosts our site.
Some thoughts about Super Grub2 Disk development
Stable Super Grub2 Disk being very old
The last four years I have been focused on bTactic, the enterprise where I work and also in Rescatux. On february or march of this year (2014) I decided to release an stable Rescatux release. But this stable Rescatux release did not make sense without an stable Super Grub2 Disk base.
Another fact was that the newest stable Super Grub2 Disk was very old. More than this Jordan Uggla, which was very active two years ago seemed not very active lately.
So… there was an actual need for releasing stable Super Grub2 Disk.
Amazing Super Grub2 Disk development
One thing that I have liked about this recent Super Grub2 Disk development apart from upstream Grub2 improvements is the many people that have contributed to it.
Usually I was developing Super Grub2 Disk alone with the great help of Jordan Uggla which deals with upstream Grub2 and testing (he did the vmtest script) much better than I.
But now a few people have come around helping in various ways. Sometimes it was about testing EFI (bfree), sometimes it was about fixing FreeBSD (nox) which I don’t use myself so I cannot test it. And finally there was Smx which focused on Mac OS X / Darwin boot entries and testing but that promises a lot because in his own supergrub2 repo he has added some new features: beautify disk / partition menu and keyboard layout menu.
So to all of you, even if you are already mentioned in Hall of fame: Thank you!
New features to come
I still check old Super Grub Disk for new features. One I would like to implement is the hard disk live swap although it’s only useful for old computers. But I won’t probably implement it.
The other features are based on Smx work:
Boot individual partitions
keyboard layout menu (so that you can write a french, spanish, or whatever keyboard layout in grub shell).
Another apparent great feature is using Grub 2.02 capabilities for releasing a floppy image that fits into a floppy (not like the current ones that are floppy compatible but as you know there aren’t 12 MB size floppies).
I have even thought about adding a bunch of Linux kernels (and initrd) into Super Grub2 Disk so that you even boot into your system even when you don’t have a kernel, but I’m not sure about this move.
It would be interesting also to apply into Distrowatch because now Super Grub2 Disk would have not only a Grub kernel but also a Linux kernel… but you know, having a Linux kernel and just using it to boot another distribution I don’t think it applies as a distribution to be listed on Distrowatch :).
What I don’t plan to support at all is secure boot.
Rescatux development
As I have said the stable Super Grub2 Disk release was only a mere excuse for releasing an stable Rescatux release. Now I’m thinking about not making stable 0.31 based on Razor-qt and trying to use LXQT instead. So to release an 0.32.
Not sure what I’m going to do. I think it’s going to depend on third party razor-qt ppa status.
Anyways I’m quite busy at work so you won’t probably see neither a Super Grub2 Disk nor a Rescatux release in the next months.
Many of you have complained about the howtos being too complex.
Too many links to open in order to find useful information.
Too many links that were not links because some of the pages were meant to be in progress.
So…
Thanks to a plugin that now let’s me include any page inside another one I have managed to rewrite the howtos.
I am still including pages but somehow the howtos are much more simple. The maximum number of links to click in order to find useful information is two.
Please spread the word. We need people to hard test this release so that we can release as an stable one !!! Hopefully in one month time. Latest RC2 version already did it by finding a new bug and fixing it in less than 24 hours.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTR7Pkrd-1g
This is a release candidate release so please comment any issue you find at the bug tracker.
Recommended download (Valid for i386, x86_64, and x86_64-efi):
As the Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 or 2.02 stable version is going to be released soon (less than two months I think) I have recorded (adrian15) a Super Grub2 Disk tour.
This is a beta release so please comment any issue you find at the bug tracker. If you have non standard pc hardware please check Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 beta 2 release so that you can give us feedback.
This is a beta release so please comment any issue you find at the bug tracker. If you use any of the images for the specific hardware please comment in this same post.
Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 beta 1 – Redesigned Main menu
Changelog:
New option: ‘Everything‘ to boot most anything with a single enter
Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 beta 1 – Everything option in action
UI redesign of final boot options so that they are clearly distinguished
UI redesign of extra options into submenu
UI redesign of manual options into submenu
New script: supergrub-meta-mkrescue for building several target+platform combinations
New boot technology based on conditional AFD
Improved build documentation
If you want to translate into your language please check TRANSLATION file at source code to learn how to translate into your language.
Development miscelanea:
Expect to come two new options:
Everything + Extra functionality
Everything + Extra functionality + Extra Search
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