Also rescue tips and tricks as that's always interesting.
I have been using a Debian installer USB as I had it to hand (DVD image IIRC) but if I boot into a shell without mounting another root FS the number of utilities is quite limited (just busybox basics). For example just now I wanted gzip but it only had gunzip...
I feel like a shell started from the installer USB should have access to a lot more utilities because the files are there on the disk!
Does anyone know a way to set up a kind of USB like the debian installer where you can install packages from the installer into the live environment?
I have a drive with Ventoy on it and ISOs for Hiren's, Rescatux, and NixOS, along with a custom ISO of NixOS with some tools pre-installed. Super easy to generate.
I did, instructions are here! I don't remember off the top of my head, but I think it's mostly network related tools like nslookup and nmap. You can easily add anything you can find on their package search.