Trinity Rescue Kit or TRK is a free live Linux distribution that aims specifically at recovery and repair operations on Windows machines, but is equally usable for Linux recovery issues. Since version 3.4 it has an easy to use scrollable text menu that allows anyone who masters a keyboard and some English to perform maintenance and repair on a computer, ranging from password resetting over disk cleanup to virus scanning
It is possible to boot TRK in three different ways:
-as a bootable CD which you can burn yourself from a downloadable isofile or a self burning Windows executable
-from a USB stick/disk (optionally also a fixed disk), installable from Windows or from the bootable TRK cd (which is easier and safer)
-from network over PXE: you start 1 TRK from CD or USB and you run all other computers from that one over the network without modifying anything to you local network.
Ever since version 3.4, TRK has received an easy to use textmenu but has equally kept the commandline.
Here 's a sumup of some of the most important features, new and old:
-easily reset windows passwords with the improved winpass tool
-simple and easy menu interface
-5 different virusscan products integrated in a single uniform commandline with online update capability
-full ntfs write support thanks to ntfs-3g
-winclean, a utility that cleans up all sorts of unnecessary temporary files on your computer.
-clone computers over the network via multicast.
-wide range of hardware support (kernel 2.6.35 )
-contributed backup utility called "pi", to automate local machine backups
-easy script to find and mount all local filesystems
-self update capability to include and update all virusscanners + local changes you made to TRK.
-full proxyserver support.
-run a samba fileserver (windows like filesharing)
-run a ssh server
-recovery and undeletion of files with utilities and procedures
-recovery of lost partitions
-evacuation of dying disks
-full read/write and rpm support
-UTF-8 international character support (select keyboard language from the scrollable textmenu at startup)
-2 rootkit detection uitilities
-most software updated to recent versions
-literally thousands of changes and bugfixes since version 3.3
-elaborated documentation, including manpages for all commands (also TRK 's own)
I dare to say it: this is the
BEST TRK EVER!
It is higly recommended you leave alone older versions of TRK and download the latest 3.4, except for maybe some (quite) older machines with limited resources.
The idea behind Trinity Rescue Kit
Back in 2001, I had this great bootable dos cd I created, packed with all great utilities for offline PC operations called "The Vault".
Unfortunately, the Vault consisted for 90% of software you should pay for. So distributing it in a legal way was certainly no option and I 'm not the guy that wants to spend his time in maintaining something that 's illegal anyway.
So I brewed on the idea of creating a free bootable Linux CD containing all available free tools that can help you in any way of rescueing your Windows installation.
And eventually, this is how far it has gotten now, with thousands of hours of work gone into it. All this for you, for free.
Trinity Rescue Kit is based on binaries and scripts from several other distributions, like Timo 's Rescue CD, Mandriva 2005 and Fedora Core 3 and 4, as well as many original source packages and tools from other distros.
Startup procedure and methods, several scripts and concept is completely selfmade or at least heavily adapted.