Finnix Blog

Finnix 251 released

Mon, 17 Nov 2025 10:00:00 -0800

Finnix is a Linux-based utility live distribution. Write it to a USB flash drive or burn it to a CD, boot it, and you’re seconds from a root prompt with hundreds of utilities available for recovery, maintenance, testing and more. Finnix 251 has been released today, including new official OCI / Docker images, and containing new packages, features and fixes.

Finnix 251 is the first release to distribute official OCI container images. The official Finnix container contains all the same software as the ISO release, and may be launched from Podman, Docker, Kubernetes, etc.

docker run -it --rm finnix/finnix

podman run -it --rm docker.io/finnix/finnix:latest

kubectl run finnix-$(uuidgen | cut -b -4 | tr A-Z a-z) --image=finnix/finnix --restart=Never -it --rm

This is particularly useful for Kubernetes users, giving you a quick utility shell in the namespace of your choice. The finnix/finnix:latest container currently includes architecture support for amd64, arm64 and riscv64.

Otherwise, Finnix 251 is a regular semiannual utility release:

Linux kernel 6.16 (Debian 6.16.12-2)
Added packages: dc3dd
Upstream Debian package updates
Many minor fixes and improvements

Please visit finnix.org to download Finnix 251 today!

finnix-251.iso • 577 MiB ISO image • AMD64
Release data
BitTorrent download
OpenPGP signature
SHA256 checksum: a635a75a155d8640956c5640fc49268b4a89ce7013fdc7d19f1dfdc8529e9a9e

Finnix 250 released

Sat, 22 Mar 2025 10:00:00 -0700

Today is a very special day: March 22 is the 25 year anniversary of the first public release of Finnix, the oldest live Linux distribution still in production. Finnix 0.03 was released on March 22, 2000, and to celebrate this anniversary, I’m proud to announce the 35th Finnix release, Finnix 250!

Besides the continuing trend of Finnix version number inflation (the previous release was Finnix 126), Finnix 250 is simply a solid regular release, with the following notes:

Linux kernel 6.12 (Debian 6.12.17-1)
Made automatic per-user shared ssh-agent functionality more reliable
Added packages: util-linux-extra
Removed packages: reiserfsprogs, reiser4progs (ReiserFS removed from Linux kernel)
Boot initramfs now checks for build-specific media (will no longer load the first thing it sees which looks vaguely Finnix-like)
htop display improvements (primarily better display of large numbers of CPU cores)
Upstream Debian package updates
Many minor fixes and improvements

Please visit finnix.org to download Finnix 250 today!

finnix-250.iso • 528 MiB ISO image • AMD64
Release data
BitTorrent download
OpenPGP signature
SHA256 checksum: 37920e858f2339f0602ee07624ccf6fc2b38e27c2822c4be367eb118045f367a

Finnix 126 released

Thu, 04 Jul 2024 10:00:00 -0700

Today marks the release of Finnix 126, the original utility live Linux distribution. Finnix 126 includes a number of fixes, new packages and new features:

Linux kernel 6.8 (Debian 6.8.12-1)
New packages: libc6-i386 (finnix/finnix#35; not directly usable but allows for running certain i386 binaries in Finnix’s amd64 userland)
Added 0 kernel command line option which does the same as the 0 (locale-config) utility, but during early boot and before shell prompts
Upstream Debian package updates
Many minor fixes and improvements

This is the first Finnix release to contain additional “supply chain” assurances. The release was built on a public CI platform (GitHub Actions), with the ISO (.disk/build_info) pointing to the URL of the build run which lists a SHA256 checksum of the ISO and links to the exact commit used to build it. Additionally, the build provides an attestation of the build artifacts through GitHub’s new attestation functionality.

Note that this release was made a few days after the OpenSSH CVE-2024-6387 vulnerability announcement, and to be clear, Finnix 126 does include a fixed version (Debian 9.7p1-7).

Please visit finnix.org to download Finnix 126 today!

finnix-126.iso • 498 MiB ISO image • AMD64
Release data
BitTorrent download
OpenPGP signature
SHA256 checksum: a74173bdf1198eafb01e52de35e08e0096587baaef8f258dd2ed66348b3fb3a1

Finnix 125 released

Tue, 28 Mar 2023 12:23:00 -0700

Today marks the release of Finnix 125, the original utility live Linux distribution. Finnix 125 includes a number of fixes, new packages and new features:

Linux kernel 6.1 (Debian 6.1.0-6)
New packages: 2048, aespipe, iperf3 (finnix/finnix#37), ncdu, netcat-traditional, ninvaders, vitetris
- Note that netcat-openbsd continues to be included and is the default nc
apt update will now download both “testing” and “unstable” indices, to allow for installing packages which may currently be hinted out of testing. Apt pinning is configured so testing will continue to be preferred to unstable, however.
Updated to memtest86+ 6.10, which now includes a UEFI version which is included in the “Utilities” boot submenu when booting on a UEFI system. Note that this is not signed and will not work with Secure Boot.
7z will invoke the installed 7zr program, unless the user explicitly installs “p7zip-full”
Upstream Debian package updates
Many minor fixes and improvements
Note for people who embed Finnix in other systems: boot=live is no longer needed to be passed as a kernel boot command line.

Please visit finnix.org to download Finnix 125 today!

finnix-125.iso • 489 MiB ISO image • AMD64
Release data
BitTorrent download
OpenPGP signature
SHA256 checksum: d7f6b845c39ba0ee41075fa9a5defa4ef449f9f4fc0877bdb6afb74b8bfefb6b

Finnix 124 released

Tue, 22 Mar 2022 10:10:00 -0700

Today marks the release of Finnix 124, the original utility live Linux distribution. Expanding on Finnix 123 from six months ago, this release also celebrates the 22 year anniversary of the first public release of Finnix, version 0.03 on March 22, 2000.

Finnix 124 includes a number of fixes, new packages and new features:

wifi-connect helper utility will now display nearby access points if invoked without any command line options.
ip= kernel command line network configuration now supports netmasks in addition to prefix lengths.
Added a pure Python strings implementation. Explanation from the commit: I had avoided including strings because, while it’s incredibly useful, it’s the only desirable utility in the binutils package, which otherwise includes a bunch of compilation-related utilities, and the package itself is quite large. So in the words of the “my mechanics” YouTube channel, I make a new one! It’s not a 100% complete reimplementation of GNU binutils’ strings, but is fine for casual binary checking. This is also set up so that if you do apt install binutils in the live environment, its strings will take precedence over the Python version.
RISC-V (riscv64) unofficial build support added, in addition to amd64, i386, arm64, armhf, ppc64el, s390x. (Though as a reminder, AMD64 is the only officially supported architecture with released ISOs. For more information, see Platform support on Finnix.)
Replaced the running systemd finnix.target with the more traditional multi-user.target. This is not noticeable in regular live environment use, but makes it easier for people expanding upon Finnix.
Added new packages:
- inxi (finnix/finnix#23)
- rmlint (finnix/finnix#24)
- nwipe (finnix/finnix#25)
- rename (finnix/finnix#26)
- gdu (finnix/finnix#27)
- pwgen
- sntp
- lz4
- lzip
- lzop
- zstd
Removed packages:
- pppoeconf (Buggy, removed from Debian)
- crda (Obsolete, removed from Debian)
Upstream Debian package updates
Many minor fixes and improvements

Please visit finnix.org to download Finnix 124 today!

finnix-124.iso • 455 MiB ISO image • AMD64
Release data
BitTorrent download
OpenPGP signature
SHA256 checksum: ecc019eb2fb1cc6612021e3b0108801367baadc5b2704852ab0f3fb373932287

Finnix documentation, release data available

Sun, 13 Feb 2022 16:13:17 -0800

As a quick follow-up to the previous post in October, a promised update of documentation and release data is now available. The finnix-docs repository has a number of pieces of current documentation which have been ported over from the old Finnix wiki.

In addition, release data is now available in a consistent machine-parsable JSON format. When Finnix releases are made, a number of third party new and review sites would pick up on the announcement, and extract data from the release notes and software package lists on the wiki. (And in the package lists’ case, it was literally a text dump inside a wiki article.)

This new system should be more useful for data aggregators. It is expected that the blog post will be the canonical announcement page, and all additional data can be extracted programatically from the finnix-docs repository. This includes all prior Finnix releases, going back to Finnix 0.03 in 2000.

Finnix 124 will likely be released in the next few weeks, likely in March, but I wanted to make this announcement ahead of time to allow sites which relied on the old wiki site to switch over their processes ahead of the Finnix 124 release.

New Finnix web site launched

Fri, 01 Oct 2021 18:42:42 -0700

For the past 15 years, the main Finnix web site, finnix.org had been a MediaWiki site, being used as a CMS. Actually, for the first few years, it was a public wiki which anyone could edit, but spammers ruined that. But as of today, the site has been relaunched, as a single, simple HTML page which provides the essential information to download and use Finnix.

There were a few reasons I wanted to do this:

The vast majority of the information on the old site just wasn’t used. Almost all people visiting finnix.org were just there for one purpose: to download Finnix. The new site puts that front and center.
The vast majority of the information on the old site just wasn’t useful. A lot of it pertained to old Finnix releases, especially releases before the relaunch in 2020. Some of it was bordering on archaeological, such as User Mode Linux information, or how to make USB thumb drives bootable by emulating USB Zip drives.
The old site was the last remaining PHP site I was maintaining, and moving to a static site means one less bit of third-party software to maintain.

I do plan on utilizing the (currently placeholder) finnix-docs repository on GitHub to add back some (relevant) documentation in the future. I will also be using the repository to have a source of machine-readable Finnix release information, including package information in each release. There are several sites which track Finnix releases and I want to make it even easier for them. Expect that update sometime before the release of Finnix 124 early next year.

As for the previous site, all content has been preserved as a MediaWiki dump on archive.org, as well as via the Wayback Machine.

Finnix 123 released

Mon, 06 Sep 2021 08:00:00 -0700

Today marks the release of Finnix 123, the LiveCD for system administrators. Expanding on Finnix 122 from six months ago, this release includes a number of fixes, new packages and new features. From the Finnix 123 release notes:

Added kernel command line “sshd” and “passwd” options, example: “sshd passwd=foo”, “sshd passwd=root:foo passwd=finnix:bar”
The machine ID is now, when possible, stable across reboots and being generated from the DMI. This is used for e.g. the DHCP client ID, so multiple reboots should no longer cycle through dynamic IPs on a network.
The finnix command now has instructions for how to enable ZFS support
Added a basic command-not-found handler; e.g. trying ftp will point out lftp, and will provide instructions for installing if desired explicitly.
Added manpages for Finnix-specific commands (wifi-connect, locale-config, etc).
Added packages: jove
Removed packages: ftp, ftp-ssl, zile
Includes package updates from upstream Debian. Normally Finnix tracks Debian testing, but as Finnix 123 was released shortly after Debian 11 “bullseye”, it is being used as upstream directly.
Plus many minor fixes and build enhancements.

Please visit finnix.org to download Finnix 123 today!

finnix-123.iso • 412 MiB ISO image • AMD64
BitTorrent download
OpenPGP signature
SHA256 checksum: dd79a5419385a8cee5c3c7692abef80e76ad4c548fdb504c2ad4a9b25d48be8f

Finnix 122 released

Tue, 09 Feb 2021 08:00:00 -0800

Today marks the release of Finnix 122, the LiveCD for system administrators. Expanding on Finnix 121 from six months ago, this release includes a number of fixes, new packages and new features. From the Finnix 122 release notes:

Improved USB flash drive boot compatibility on older BIOSes
Improved boot speed
Lowered ISO size
Added finnix getting started command
Added wifi-connect helper script
Manpage cache is now being generated, allowing for man -k/apropos (finnix/finnix#9)
Redesigned boot splash screen
Increased boot splash timeout from 15 seconds to 30 seconds
Added packages:
- iozone3 (finnix/finnix#8)
- rover
- iw
- crda
- wireless-regdb
- mscompress
- apg
- ftp
- ftp-ssl
- keyutils

Please visit finnix.org to download Finnix 122 today!

Finnix 121 released

Mon, 10 Aug 2020 10:00:13 -0700

Today marks the release of Finnix 121, the LiveCD for system administrators. This release expands upon Finnix 120, and includes a number of fixes, new packages and new features. From the Finnix 121 release notes:

Switched back to building against Debian testing
Added packages:
- ranger (finnix/finnix#2)
- cpu-checker
- edid-decode
- ipmitool
- lldpd
- oathtool
- sdparm
- sipcalc
- socat
- xorriso
- zfs-fuse
Removed packages:
- sl (can be annoying; finnix/finnix#4)
- cdbackup, dvd+rw-tools, wodim (replaced by xorriso)
- lilo (removed from Debian testing due to GCC-10 FTBFS)
- udisks2-vdo (removed from Debian; obsolete)
serial-getty consoles are now usable
Non-zero exit codes are now displayed in PS1
Added “0” command for easier access to keyboard configuration (finnix/finnix#3)
GRUB is now being used for both BIOS and UEFI booting
Removed GRUB initial boot beep
Re-added shared per-user SSH agents
Fixed SSH remote access
Enabled zram swap compression, 50% of physical RAM
Release ISOs layouts are again being optimized for CD-ROMs
- This has no negative (or positive) effect when the ISO is written to a USB key, but speeds up CD-ROM booting by placing all known files used during startup sequentially toward the end of the ISO

Please visit finnix.org to download Finnix 121 today!