Linux in The News 5-20-24

Last Updated on May 20, 2024 by KC7NYR

Rescuezilla 2.5 System Recovery Distro Is Out Now Based on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

This release introduces an experimental command-line interface (CLI).
Rescuezilla 2.5

Rescuezilla 2.5 has been released today as the latest stable version of this Ubuntu-based “Swiss Army Knife of System Recovery” distribution based on the popular Clonezilla open-source disk imaging/cloning software.

Arriving a little over 9 months after Rescuezilla 2.4, the Rescuezilla 2.5 release is based on Canonical’s latest Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (Noble Numbat) operating system series. To provide users with the best possible support for new hardware, the Rescuezilla devs also provide builds based on Ubuntu 23.10 (Mantic Minotaur) and Ubuntu 23.04 (Lunar Lobster).

Rescuezilla 2.5 also includes updated components like the latest Partclone 0.3.27 backup utility, which should improve issues with Btrfs filesystems as it supports Btrfs 6.3.3, and adds a new mechanism that prevents laptops from going to sleep during a recovery operation when the lid is closed.

An experimental command-line interface (CLI) has been implemented in this release as well. However, the devs note the fact that it’s considered unstable Rescuezilla 2.5, only supports images created by Clonezilla and Rescuezilla, and only supports backup, verify, restore, and clone operations.

Other than that, this release improves the backing up of Linux MD RAID devices containing MBR partition tables, improves restore and clone operations when booting Rescuezilla into the Portuguese language, and adds a workaround for a small group of users by installing the hashdeep package.

Starting with this release, Rescuezilla now continues image scanning after an error, so that permission denied warnings on irrelevant folders no longer block the operation from populating the image list. Also, Rescuezilla was integrated into the automated integration test suite scripts to enable faster project iteration.

Check out the release notes on the project’s GitHub page for more details about the changes implemented in Rescuezilla 2.5, which is available for download as live ISO images from the same page.

The Rescuezilla devs warn users who experience a blank screen issue to try the “Graphical Fallback Mode” option from the Rescuezilla boot menu. If that doesn’t work, they recommend trying the alternative ISO image, which uses different video drivers and Linux kernel versions.