Kind of Magic: Parted Magic 4.4 Halves RAM Usage, Dial-Up Available
The Parted Magic LiveCD provides numerous tools for partitioning and data backup and recovery. The newest version 4.4 runs on systems with just 256-MByte RAM and now supports dial-up networking.
The close-to-midnight August 12 release of version 4.4 of the partitioning and data rescue distro Parted Magic not only fixes countless bugs and updates many core components, but comes with a few useful feature enhancements.
Its RAM usage being cut in half to 256 MBytes, Parted Magic can run completely from RAM and thereby free up the CD-ROM drive and USB stick. Network support now also includes dial-up service and Parted Magic starts the SSH daemon on bootup while generating public keys to spare users the configuration.
Among the less obvious enhancements are the integration of ALSA sound drivers and core programs to keep you media-entertained during longer file formatting periods. The project recommends Slackware 12 packages for media playing.
Parted Magic 4.4 requires an i586 class processor and at least 128 MBytes RAM for Live mode. It supports the ext2, ext3, fat16, fat32, hfs, jfs, ntfs, reiserfs, reiser4 and xfs filesystems. Tools provided include GParted, Clonezilla, Ddrescue, Testdisk and Super Grub Disk. The 96-MByte ISO is available for download as a zip archive on the project page.
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