DistroWatch.com: ShredOS

Last Update: 2026-05-22 13:42 UTC

ShredOS is a small live Linux distribution whose sole purpose is to securely erase the contents of disks. It can boot from a USB device, CD or DVD and it supports both BIOS and UEFI booting. The system boots directly into nwipe, a program that securely erases the contents of block devices; it can wipe a single drive or multiple disks in parallel. After booting the system, the user can select a disk to erase, together with one of the various erasure methods, such as “Fill With Zeros”, “Fill With Ones”, RCMP TSSIT OPS-II, DoD, Gutmann Wipe, PRNG Stream, Schneier Wipe, BMB21-2019 and others. The nwipe program automatically starts its ncurses-based interface in the first virtual terminal (ALT-F1), while other useful tools, such as hdparm, smartmontools and hexeditor can be run in the second virtual terminal (ALT-F2). ShredOS is available in “Standard” and “Lite” editions, with the latter able to run on computers with as little as 512 MB of RAM.

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