Within the GNU/Linux ecosystem there are all kinds of tools to diagnose the system, or rather, to check the state of the hardware, but there are few distributions specifically designed to perform this task, or at least that I know of, because the only distribution I know that is intended to diagnose the computer, (Or at least one of the components), is memtest86+, so I would like to know what other distributions exist in addition to the one mentioned above
Systemrescue is a pretty fine live system for such tasks. It’s mostly centered around data recovery, and recovering a fucked up distro by having firefox, keepass and such. It starts in a text terminal, but it only takes a
startxto start a graphical environment.It looks pretty good. I remember another distribution called kaspersky rescue disk, but it was mostly focused on malware analysis and removal, but it seems that it was discontinued
I can’t tell you what I would do for a remindme bot now to know to check back later
Don’t forget about this
Thanks! :)
SystemRescue and GParted live are the ones I always keep around on a Ventoy drive.
Also a live ISO for the distribution you’re currently using would be a good idea, if they make one. It can help a lot to attempt a rescue with something that knows where everything is on that particular distro. It makes it a lot easier to regenerate a Grub menu or recover a borked package manager or other distro-specific stuff like that.
Yeah you’re right, I even needed to use my distro’s live system (which is also the installer) a few times to reinstall grub after something overrode it, so that too.
What’s your use case for the gparted system, though? Systemrescue also contains gparted, and it also has a better quality environment (easier to switch keyboard layout, I think correct display resolution from the start, fewer questions on startup)
Belt and suspenders mostly, sometimes one ISO will boot on one PC where another won’t.
Back in the day we used Knoppix, I know it still exists, but no clue if it’s still viable?
Knoppix still exists, but it is not as used as before
Medicat USB has a few hardware diagnostics tools on it. It’s based on Ventoy, so it’s more like a collection of ISOs as opposed to a single distro.
Something like that I was looking for, not exactly a collection of ISOs, but a live iso that had several tools to make a diagnosis, rescue files, and do a malware analysis. Because there is malware that can hide at system startup. Already a conventional antivirus can make it very difficult to detect it.
You can sill use Medicare to create the USB and then add your favorite antimalware rescue CD to it, like the Kaspersky/Avira ones, but if it’s an unknown malware you’d have to use other analysis tools like Sysinternals RootkirRevealer, Autoruns etc. If you want to fix Windows stuff then it’s best to get a WinPE-based live CD with these tools, like Sergei Strelec, Gandalf etc.
Something like gparted ? It is specifically designed to manage disks and partitions from a live OS.
Parted magic
Gparted Live
Rescuetux
RefiFind < this one saves me alot when i brick my bootloader :)
Yeah +1 for Parted Magic - I’ve been using it for years, professionally.
Has hardware stress testing, SMART checking, etc.
It costs actual money, but that’s the fee for creating the whole thing, which I’m fine with… I could make something similar with a Live USB distro (I use Arch btw), but Parted Magic can run entirely in RAM, so after booting you can remove the boot stick - useful for machines with only 1 USB port - and I’ve not worked out how to do that with my own DIY live distro
What about systemrescueCD? https://www.system-rescue.org/
Those tools should be available in any major distro, so I’m not sure that you need a special one.
I do use the gparted live image relatively frequently though
