Requiem for a prophetically named Linux distribution
I have been using the curiously named RIP (recovery is possible) Linux distribution for a few years now. It has been useful for working on broken Linux and Windows machines including things like resetting the Windows administrator password. So I was a bit shocked when I heard “This will be the last release from me, it should be useful for awhile. It’s licensed under GPL, anyone can do whatever they want with it without my permission. My email address is closed.” – from the creator, Kent Robotti…
Apart from rescuing systems, it’s possible to recover data from old systems, run memory checkers on questionable machines, resize NTFS partitions and probably lots of other things. I have shared my RIPLinux disk at work and it’s been gratefully received whenever needed.
It looks like that terse message at the top of the minimal RIPLinux website is all that fans and grateful users have to go on. It’s a shame because if it isn’t the best command-line boot disk, I don’t know what is. Apart from that, I don’t think there is a community as such, so the likelihood of it being developed further is small.
I did wonder once before about working on RIP but an email to the author went unanswered.
A distribution is so much more than a bunch of releases, there is QA, testing, patch management, links to upstream projects, advocacy, a build system. I know it’s too much for one person, even if one person can manage the technical aspects of building and releasing every so often. Even so I wish there was a better way than turning a really good albeit niche product into abandonware. RIPLinux R.I.P?
french user of this distribution for several years, I have thought that a resurection is possible if several motivated fans took the project in hand.
Loan to be taken part, did you know users likely to assemble a small community.
It is necessary to try to continue this marvellous work…
chrisr87
3 Nov 08 at 11:05 pm