live linux for rescue and maintenance

In my previous post about Linux live sessions ("low-cost linux, no commitment"), I mentioned that many distros have live sessions that are great for system maintenance, data recovery, drive partitioning, etc. An article at linuxandubuntu.com ("Top 5 Linux System Rescue CDs") mentions Hiren's Boot CD, Rescatux, Ultimate Boot CD, Tiny Rescue Kit, and SystemRescueCD.

For partitioning, sometimes I like to download the latest GParted Live.

Quite a few other distros ship a lot of useful tools with their live sessions -- Ubuntu, MX, and BunsenLabs, to name a few.

For example, in BunsenLabs (bl-Hydrogen-amd64_20160710.iso), I find:

defualt file manager: Thunar
default text editor: Geany
default web browser: Firefox ESR 45.2.0
default terminal emulator: Terminator

Also present are gparted and the usual collection of command line tools like parted, rsync, fdisk, cp, dd, nano, man pages, etc.

Some tools under the System submenu:

Some online info under the Help submenu:

With tools like these and more, live sessions from distros like Ubuntu, MX, BunsenLabs, and many others can be very nice to have sitting around on a flash drive for when you need to do some serious system work.