Finnix

Finnix is a Debian based Live CD Linux distribution, developed by Ryan Finnie and intended for system administrators for tasks such as filesystem recovery, network monitoring and OS installation.[2] Finnix is a small Linux Distribution, with an ISO download size of approximately 100 MiB.

Finnix
Finnix 100 boot screen
DeveloperRyan Finnie
OS familyUnix-like
Working stateCurrent
Source modelOpen source
Initial releaseMarch 22, 2000 (2000-03-22)
Latest release125[1] Edit this on Wikidata / 28 March 2023 (28 March 2023)
Marketing targetSystem administrators
Available inEnglish
Update methodAPT
Package managerdpkg
Platformsi386, x86-64, PowerPC, UML, Xen
Kernel typeMonolithic (Linux)
Default
user interface		Console
LicenseVarious
Official websitewww.finnix.org
Finnix 88.0 default startup

History

Finnix was created in 1999, making it one of the oldest Linux distributions with the intent of being run completely from a bootable CD (the other Live CD around at the time was the Linuxcare Bootable Business Card CD, first released in 1999).[3] Finnix 0.01 was based on Red Hat Linux 6.1, and was created to help with administration and recovery of other Linux workstations around Finnie's office..

On 23 October 2005, Finnix 86.0 was released. Earlier unreleased versions (84, and 85.0 through 85.3) were "Knoppix remasters", with support for Linux LVM and dm-crypt being the main reason for creation. However, 86.0 was a departure from Knoppix, and was derived directly from the Debian "testing" tree.[4]

Usage

Finnix is released as a small bootable CD ISO. A user can download the ISO, burn the image to CD, and boot into a text mode Linux environment. Finnix requires at least 32MiB RAM to run properly, but can use more if present. Most hardware devices are detected and dealt with automatically, such as hard drives, network cards and USB devices. A user can modify files nearly anywhere on the running CD via UnionFS, a filesystem that can stack a read-write filesystem (in this case, a dynamic ramdisk) on top of a read-only filesystem (the CD media). Any changes made during the Finnix session are transparently written to RAM and discarded upon shutdown. In addition, Finnix uses SquashFS to keep distribution size low.[5]

Finnix can be run completely within RAM, provided the system has at least 192 MiB RAM available.

VersionRelease dateKernelPackagesCode name
0.03 Archived 2008-07-06 at the Wayback Machine22 March 20002.2.12242none
86.0 Archived 2008-07-06 at the Wayback Machine23 October 20052.6.13336none
86.1 Archived 2008-07-06 at the Wayback Machine21 November 20052.6.14346/336none
86.2 Archived 2008-07-06 at the Wayback Machine8 January 20062.6.15343/336none
87.0 Archived 2008-07-06 at the Wayback Machine31 March 20062.6.16356/347none
88.0 Archived 2008-07-06 at the Wayback Machine2 August 20062.6.17359/349Pulaski
89.0 Archived 2008-07-06 at the Wayback Machine22 January 20072.6.18366/359Oshkosh
89.1 Archived 2008-06-12 at the Wayback Machine13 April 20072.6.18365/359Sheboygan
89.2 Archived 2008-07-06 at the Wayback Machine27 July 20072.6.18365/359Crivitz
90.0 Archived 2008-06-16 at the Wayback Machine23 October 20072.6.22367/362Kaukauna
91.0 Archived 2008-06-22 at the Wayback Machine29 January 20082.6.24370/366Seymour
91.1 Archived 2008-07-06 at the Wayback Machine4 March 20082.6.24364/354Crivitz

Notes:

  • "Code names" in Finnix refer to the development cycle leading up to the release, and not the release itself. Releases are signified by version number.
  • Versions with two package counts in the table above represent x86 and PowerPC package counts, respectively.

References
  1. "Finnix 125 released". 28 March 2023. Retrieved 28 March 2023.
  2. Linux Complete Backup Recovery and HOWTO
  3. Linux.com - A tale of two Linux bootable business cards
  4. "Finnix project history". Archived from the original on 2008-06-15. Retrieved 2008-06-15.
  5. "Finnix frequently asked questions". Archived from the original on 2009-02-16. Retrieved 2008-06-15.

Other websites
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