BG-Rescue Linux


Requirements Contents Downloads Installation TODO Special-Thanks FAQ Links

Version: 9.0.0   -   Released: 2021/12/30   -   Take a look at the Changelog

For other releases please take a look at our Release Page.


BG-Rescue Linux is a very small Linux distribution (download-size < 20MB) which is intended mainly for rescue purposes.


Features

The system runs entirely in ram and can be booted either from usb-stick or cdrom. It can be booted either on BIOS or UEFI hardware. Besides i386 it also includes a 64bit Linux kernel generating the possibility to chroot into a 64bit (amd64) userspace environment. The system can serve as a full rescue / backup / restore system for Linux or Windows based computers or to facilitate the installation of a recent Debian oder Ubuntu Linux via debootstrap.

All the relevant major filesystems and many network cards are supported as well as mounting samba (cifs) and nfs shares over network. A wide range of disk- and filesystem utilities as well as strong compression tools are integrated, including a 64bit version of lrzip. Encrypted disks including LUKS are supported and there is limited BitLocker support. A graphical frontend (ytree) is also included.


Rescue-Boot Mode

BG-Rescue Linux can also be used as an initramfs (initrd) image to boot virtually any amd64/i386 Linux system. This feature can be useful in case of a failing boot loader. BG-Rescue Linux can serve its kernel and initramfs to prepare and mount the system's root partition and finally to run init/systemd.


Requirements

You need at least a 586 machine (BIOS or UEFI) with 64 mb ram to run BG-Rescue Linux.
If running a 64bit (amd64) system booting a 64bit SMP kernel is supported.
To use the optional VESA graphic modes You need a VESA 2.0 compilant VGA card.

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Contents

The system is a BusyBox and musl libc based rescue system with Linux kernel 5.15.
The user can choose between 32 different (including swiss) keyboard layouts.
If an executable script "bgrescue.rc" or "bgrescue/bgrescue.rc" on the usb-stick or cdrom exists it is executed at bootup.
If using the 64bit kernel an optimized 64bit version of lrzip is available.
USB-stick images will expand to the full size of the usb-stick on the first usage.
The system includes debootstrap with a custom script to facilitate the installation of a recent Debian/Linux.
Customisation using boot parameters is possible, please see: boot_parameters.txt
Customisation is also possible with the configuration file bgrescue.cfg or bgrescue/bgrescue.cfg
Encrypted disks including LUKS are supported and there is limited BitLocker support.

Supported Hardware:



Included Software:



Supported Filesystems: btrfs, exfat, ext4 (with ext2 / ext3), hfs, hfs+, iso9660, minix, ntfs3 (ntfs), ntfs-3g, reiserfs, tmpfs, udf, vfat (msdos), xfs

Network filesystems: cifs (samba / smbfs), nfs


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Downloads

FileSizeDescription
BG-Rescue Linux images:
bgrescue-9.0.0.iso.xz18MBG-Rescue Linux bootable image for USB-Stick or CDROM
bgrescue-9.0.0.iso.zip35MBG-Rescue Linux bootable image for USB-Stick or CDROM
Additional downloads:
bgrescue-9.0.0-src.zip35MBG-Rescue Linux Source-Archive (Customisation / Sources)
7-ZipFile archiver with a high compression ratio (Windows)
The UnarchiverGraphical archive extraction program (macOS)
Win32 Disk ImagerTool for writing images to USB sticks or SD/CF cards (Windows)
sha1sums.txtSHA-1 hashes to verify download-integrity

Download problems: "RIGHTCLICK" and "Save link as..."

Alternate download location: https://sourceforge.net/projects/bgrescuelinux/files/

For direct linking (of the current version) please use:


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Installation on a usb-stick (or sd-card)

You can use BG-Rescue Linux to boot from a usb-stick or a sd-card if your system supports it. During the installation process ALL DATA on the usb-stick will be erased.


Installation on cdrom




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TODO...




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Special-Thanks to...


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Frequently asked Questions


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Links

Another excellent mini distribution is maintained by Christian Perle - Hal91.

The ONE-DISK-LINUX of the ONE-DISK-LINUXes is maintained by Tom Oehser - tomsrtbt.

A really interesting article: How Linux Saved My Files and My Job - PDF-Version.

Please visit also our page at Sourceforge - BG-Rescue Linux.

Please visit also our page at Freecode - BG-Rescue Linux (stalled).


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