ClearOS 6.1 Alpha 1

Dave Loper has announced the availability of the first alpha release of ClearOS 6.1. Previously ClearOS was a small distribution for network and gateway servers, but starting with this release, it is now a full-featured operating system for servers and workstations built from source packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. From the release announcement: "ClearFoundation announces the release of ClearOS Core 6.1 Alpha 1. This release is intended for testing and proof of concept for the new line of operating systems for servers and workstations. ClearOS Core is an enterprise Linux distribution for server and desktop environments. The goal is to provide near binary equivalence and functionality that exists in the upstream distribution, including bugs. Additionally, ClearFoundation strives to release versions, updates and patches in a timely and professional manner (the goal for updates is 48 hours or less)." Download: clearos-core-6.1alpha1-x86_64.iso (3,616MB, SHA256, torrent).

SystemRescueCd 2.2.0

François Dupoux released an updated build of SystemRescueCd, a Gentoo-based live CD with a collection of utilities for data rescue and disk management tasks. Version 2.2.0 comes with a long list of updated packages: "Updated standard kernels to Linux 2.6.38.8 (rescuecd + rescue64); updated alternative kernels to Linux 2.6.39.1 (altker32 + altker64); updated 'Offline NT Password & Registry Editor' ('ntpasswd' boot entry); updated NTFS-3G to 2011.4.12 (driver that provides read-write access to NTFS); updated Python from 2.6 to 2.7; updated Gentoo Portage to 2.1.9; updated GParted to 0.8.1; updated Samba to 3.4.12; Updated Perl to 5.12.3; added xfce4-session package (new menu entry to leave Xfce)." Read the full SystemRescueCd changelog for more information. Download the live CD image from here: systemrescuecd-x86-2.2.0.iso (321MB, SHA256).