SystemRescue 13.00: New tools for data recovery and analysis

SystemRescue 13.00 is here and brings a new LTS kernel, updated file system tools, and more tools for administrators. The project is a bootable Linux live distribution primarily for data recovery, system repairs, and forensic analysis – for example, when an installed system no longer boots or a storage medium needs to be examined separately.

With the LTS kernel 6.18.20, the project jumps from the previous 6.12 series (as of December 2025) to a significantly newer base. In addition to security fixes, the new kernel primarily brings support for current hardware. The still young bcachefs file system also receives an update: Tools and the kernel module are now available in version 1.37.3. It was introduced in SystemRescue 12.00.

Updated and New Tools

GParted has been updated to version 1.8.1. The graphical partitioning tool is one of SystemRescue's central components and covers standard tasks such as moving or resizing partitions. New in the toolbox is yq, a command-line tool for structured data formats like YAML, XML, and TOML. This is particularly useful in the context of Kubernetes, Infrastructure-as-Code, and CI/CD: Administrators can use it to evaluate configuration files directly in the live system, for example, to extract container images from deployment files.

The previously Python-based iotop is replaced by the C implementation iotop-c. It is more resource-efficient and runs more robustly in minimal environments like SystemRescue. fatsort, a specialized tool for FAT file systems, is added to optimize the physical order of files on storage media – relevant for certain embedded or boot scenarios, for example. Also new is nss-mdns for name resolution via Multicast DNS. This allows systems in the local network to be addressed directly via hostnames like server.local, without needing a DNS server.

Readability is improved on high-resolution displays: The system now uses a suitable default font from the kernel, instead of the often too small display previously used. A new script also adjusts the scaling factor to the respective configuration, which noticeably increases usability, especially on 4K displays. Furthermore, the new version fixes errors in the yay-prepare script, which is used when preparing packages and previously aborted in certain cases.

All information about the new release can be found on the project's website.

(fo)