Tell me your favourite rescue USB image and why!

Also rescue tips and tricks as that’s always interesting.

I have been using a Debian installer USB as I had it to hand (DVD image IIRC) but if I boot into a shell without mounting another root FS the number of utilities is quite limited (just busybox basics). For example just now I wanted gzip but it only had gunzip…

I feel like a shell started from the installer USB should have access to a lot more utilities because the files are there on the disk!

Does anyone know a way to set up a kind of USB like the debian installer where you can install packages from the installer into the live environment?

  • onoEnglish
    5·
    1 year ago

    I just use whatever live image I last wrote to a flash drive, because it requires zero extra effort or storage, and they all have what I would need from a rescue environment anyway.

    • AlpacaChariot@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      So what would you do if you needed gzip like in my example? In this example I was able to mount the root FS of the existing system to use it but that isn’t always possible.

      • onoEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        I use full desktop live images. They have gzip, among many other things, including the ability to install more packages into the live environment’s RAM disk.