The Overclockix Release Record

Eight rows cover twelve years. That is the complete release record DistroWatch keeps for Overclockix, and this page reads it the way a bench reads a log: date first, number second. Every figure below comes from a document with its own date, chiefly a DistroWatch page last updated February 8, 2026 and read here September 5, 2026. Where the documents disagree, this page keeps the disagreement.

One name, two eras

ArchiveOS attributes the first versions, built on Knoppix, to Arkaine23 in 2003. DistroWatch describes the original as a KNOPPIX-based live CD featuring tools for network security, low-level hardware tweaking, burn-in applications, and distributed computing clients. Version 3.2, the first dated row, is November 11, 2003.

The project went dormant in 2005. Phoronix, reporting eight years later, wrote that it fell apart that year, two years after its debut, and was resurrected in 2011 by mbentley, on a Debian base with GNOME as the default desktop. The final row, 7.8.0, is dated June 1, 2015.

What DistroWatch records

The table reproduces the eight rows in the order DistroWatch presents them. The page around them adds the frame: Linux, Debian-based, SysV init, deb packages, a 700 MB image size for 7.8.0, and a status of Discontinued.

The columns carry the era split without comment. Every 3.x row is KDE on i486, multilingual in German and French, an office suite on the disc. Every Debian-era row is GNOME on i386 and x86_64, English only. A live CD that shipped KOffice and OpenOffice.org in 2003 ends its record as a stripped toolkit.

Why does 3.79 come after 3.8?

Because the table sorts by date, not by number. DistroWatch places 3.79 (August 25, 2005) after 3.8 (April 2, 2005) because it classifies releases by date, not by version number. By number, 3.8 is the highest label of the Knoppix era; by date, 3.79 is its final release. Anyone quoting one of the two as the last of the line is choosing a definition, and the record does not choose for them.

Do the eight rows hold every release?

They do not. The Internet Archive index of overclockix.com shows image filenames running from .012 to .018, then 7.6.0 and 7.8.0, in both architectures. Phoronix announced version .017 on May 7, 2013, calling it the first release on a Debian Wheezy base. None of .012, .017 or 7.6.0 appears in DistroWatch's rows. The table records what DistroWatch verified, not all that shipped.

The project's source repository was created on June 10, 2013, between the .016 and .018 releases, and its last push is dated May 31, 2015; DistroWatch dates release 7.8.0 the following day.

The LiveCD List, in a record updated December 21, 2013, calls .018 the last stable version, still lists the state as Active, and gives the image as 621 mebibytes; its download link pointed at a thread on the overclockers.com forum, not at overclockix.com.

What the disc carried

The purpose held steady across the base change. DistroWatch describes the revival as aimed at overclockers for stress testing, distributed computing and as a general Linux toolkit, and Phoronix names MPrime and Y-Cruncher among the load tools.

A disc like this boots the machine without touching the installed system; this desk treats a diagnosis from a live system separately. The tools answer a narrower question: load placed on particular hardware under particular conditions is a question about that run, not about the disc that carried it. That distinction is what the page on what a stress test proves works through.

Did a dedicated disc still make sense in 2013?

Phoronix asked and answered that in the same report: the distribution's own appeal had shrunk, since anyone could take the live CD of a preferred distribution and install the test suite of their choice on it. The judgment dates the moment the specialized disc stopped being the obvious answer.

The argument has an edge. A chosen suite on a general live CD moves the assembly work onto the reader and says nothing about which toolkit stays usable years later, which is why this desk keeps toolkits still maintained on a separate page.

How a release shipped

The archive index preserves the project's own tree, captured between 2005 and 2016: a releases directory split into i386 and amd64, with dev and testing subdirectories, torrent folders, an RSS feed, a magnet page, and a README. Images came as .iso and .img, each next to its own .md5 and .torrent. The repository's build trees hold the same four-way split, iso-hybrid and usb-hdd for each architecture.

This desk republishes the listing and none of the files: no image, no checksum, no torrent, no mirror. The rest of the index, about 1300 addresses from 2019 to 2025, belongs to later occupants of the domain and has nothing to do with the distribution.

What the repository still documents

The archived repository's README describes the build mechanism: the README strongly suggests building with live-build on a Debian 7 wheezy amd64 system, and it states one hard limit, an i386 host cannot build the amd64 images. A Dockerfile runs the same build in a container that must be privileged for debootstrap to work. The create_hard_links script restores the hard links that share files across the four build trees, because those links do not survive the transfer to GitHub and live-build rejects symlinks; after it runs, files under common/i386 and common/amd64 show three links, those under common/all five.

Two neighboring repositories under the same account, aptitude-gui and shred-gui, are described there as Debian packaging of applications by Stratus_ss for Overclockix. The project kept a small orbit: 86 commits, 7 stars, archived.

Use the record the way this page assembled it. The number alone places nothing: 3.8 is older than 3.79, .018 is newer than both, 7.8.0 is the end. When a forum post hands you a number without a date, set it against the table above before repeating it; when it sits outside the table, name the document it came from rather than guessing its year.