grml-live: ZLIB vs. LZMA
I just made some benchmarks between ZLIB and LZMA compression at squashfs, thanks to grml-live (which provides a commandline option and config option for switching) that’s a trivial task now:
- grml flavour: grml-medium
- using LZMA: 164MB ISO, build time 725 seconds
- using ZLIB: 183MB ISO, build time 254 seconds
So whereas the build time increases the benefit is a smaller ISO, which is quite important for live systems that want to ship as many useful tools as possible. :-)
New team member: Alexander Steinböck
Alexander ‘z3ttacht’ Steinböck joined the grml-team. Alexander contributed several patches (especially regarding configuration and documentation) over the last few weeks. Welcome in the grml team, Alexander!
news from the development front
No, we aren’t in holidays, instead we are busy working on a new stable release. Lots of development took place at the grml-live framework front, we have a big kernel upgrade (see grml-kernel repository for details or just grab the Debian packages from the grml-testing repository) which involves support for speakup (thanks to feadora’s speakupmodified.org). We also have support for lzma within squashfs in our toolchain now. A first release candidate of a new stable release of grml will be available soon….
Daily grml snapshots
In the last few weeks I’ve been busy working on grml-live (the build framework based on FAI for generating a grml and Debian based Linux Live system). As generating a new grml-ISO using grml-live can be done with one single command(!) we could finally build an autobuild system which generates daily snapshots of grml. Thanks to hosting by formorer and jimmy we can provide a wide range of different flavours of grml now:
- grml-small: as usual that’s the smallest version of grml; due to growing packages the ISO size is ~110MB currently - we are trying to reduce the ISO size further….
- grml-medium: a new grml flavour with the purpose of closing the gap between grml-small and normal/large/full grml. Currently it’s pending at about 140MB ISO, we want to keep the ISO size at a maximum of 200MB
- grml: as usual, the big, normal, large, full version of grml with a maximum ISO size of 700MB, providing all the grml features
That’s not all. We provide all these versions in a 32bit version (grml) as well as in a 64bit version (grml64). But stop! We even provide all the versions in a Debian/stable based and a Debian/unstable based version.
You can choose your favourite grml-ISO from a total of 3x2x2 = 12 different ISOs. They are available from daily.grml.org and are built full automatic on a daily base. This should help us in tracking down possible problems in Debian packages as well as keeping the truck factor in our team as low as possible and improve quality management furthermore. On the other side users can get brand new software for testing, or if they need a special feature (like a brand new kernel version) they can get it without the need for waiting for a new devel-/stable-release. So just grab the current snapshot for testing from daily.grml.org, or if you want to build your own Linux live-cd based on Debian and grml consider the use of grml-live.
kernel 2.6.23-grml
I just finished the first stable version of 2.6.23-grml. As usual grab the Debian packages from the grml repository (grml-testing, find the source in the mercurial repository. Check out the README for details on the patchset. If you are interested in the outstanding todos check out issue216 in our BTS.
VMware image of grml 1.0
Ja Bu mentioned on the grml mailinglist that there’s a ready-to-go VMware image of grml available at www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/899. I did not test it on my own yet but thanks to the uploader for providing that!
Hack of the day: remote-reboot
I had to clone a server to another server (1:1 copy using dd+netcat) but didn’t want to stay at the customer’s place until the task finished. So I executed ‘Start ssh; passwd’ to be able to login remotely. But how to reboot the server and get rid of the CD so the harddisk system boots instead of the grml-CD without manual interaction at customer’s place? Server systems usually don’t move in/re-insert an ejected CD on reboot - that’s nice for what we need. So all I had to do was:
eject &>/dev/null
umount -l /cdrom
eject /dev/cdrom
echo b > /proc/sysrq-trigger
grml-live - autobuild infrastructure
Thanks to the infrastructure provided by IBM’s x305 server donation and Jimmy’s work I just finished a first prototype setup of an autobuild system for building grml-ISOs using grml-live. Currently I’ve a working system for building “grml-medium” ISOs based on etch/stable and sid/unstable on a daily base. Normal/full grml ISOs (the ~700MB version) of etch/stable and sid/unstable will follow soon. I plan to provide new develreleases as soon as I finished the autobuild setup. Hopefully we’ll find ressources for a 64bit environment (so we can provide autobuilded ISOs of grml64) as well.
grml-live - first public release
Time for an update on the grml-live front. I just uploaded the first public version of grml-live to the grml-repos.
Lots of development took place. New features include support for local mirrors (thanks to Michael Schmitt for providing test infrastructure), new command line options and unified classes. Oh, and you ever wanted to use grub as bootloader instead of isolinux on your grml ISO? Now it’s as trivial as setting BOOT_METHOD=grub in /etc/grml/grml-live.conf before running grml-live itself, giving you something like:
grub as bootloader for grmlSo what are you waiting for? Grab grml-live, build your very own grml version and send me your feedback, feature requests and bugreports. :-)
grml-live: create your own grml-ISO
Ever wanted to build your very own grml-ISO without having to deal with all the remastering details? Want to include your very own kernel? Want to change configuration of some files? Then grml-live might be what you ever dreamed of. :)
Check out the grml-live documentation to get an idea what I’m talking about. As you might notice grml-live is based on FAI (Fully Automatic Installation), this will provide us the possibility to deploy grml even faster, better and more customized than we already do (using grml2hd, grml-debootstrap and grml-terminalserver).
Want to get an idea how fast you can build an ISO using grml-live? Check out:
So all I did was invoking ‘grml-live’. Not even 7 minutes later I’ve a working grml live-CD which is based on Debian-stable, providing kernel 2.6.22-grml and all the basic grml features:
Stay tuned for an official release of grml-live. We are working on reducing the todo list - like porting it to other architectures, providing different flavours, some more customisation hooks and finally providing a full-grml-built using grml-live.
new develrelease: grml 1.0-3
After the Froscon event took place we have a new develrelease. Quoting the main changelog for the new develreleases:
* several updated configuration files, bugfixes and
up2date Debian packages as of 20070905
* atl2 kernel driver added
* grml2hd: display '***' in password box so user gets feedback when
typing the password
* ctrl-alt-del triggers reboot instead of powerdown now
* use of live-initramfs: the biggest change inside 1.0-3 and the
one which will break everything. ;-) But: as a long-term
side-effect it will dramatically simplify customizing grml and
provide new options like including firmware for booting.
'ls -la /' looks completely different now as you will notice.
We have a new unionfs overlay layout. Let's see whether it's
working for us.
So please: test all the grml bootoptions and let us know what's
broken!
new develrelease: grml 1.0-1
Lots of development took place in the last weeks, finally we have a new develrelease. Quoting the main changelog for the new develreleases:
* featuring new stable kernel 2.6.22
See http://bts.grml.org/grml/issue216 for details regarding
development and progress.
* *no* further speakup patch inside the kernel, see
http://braille.uwo.ca/pipermail/speakup/2007-June/043478.html
for the reason
* update to libc 2.6; packages from Debian pool by 2007-07-13
* grml-x with multihead support using Xinerama ->
% grml-x -xinerama ...
Notice: this is limited to two monitors currently and I can test
it only on my intel based Samsung X20 laptop. Please report
feedback if you give it a try! Patches are welcome as well. :)
* some small improvements in bootsequence when running inside
VirtualBox
* grml2hd supports installation on LVM devices through
'LVM=/dev/mapper/target grml2hd'
* added bootoption startup=$script to startup the provided
$script/application instead of grml-quickconfig
* support LVM (logical volumes) in boot sequence:
- bootoption 'lvm' activates them
- no special bootoption just runs 'lvdisplay' and if something
can be found the user gets a hint to execute 'Start lvm2' to
set it up
- bootoption 'nolvm' completely disables the lvm code/checks
* Due to the emacs21 to emacs22 migration the following packages are not
yet available:
auctex: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=432206
python-mode: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=424973
Whereas the other removed packages "gnus gnus-bonus-el w3-el-e21
w3-url-e21" shouldn't be necessary with the new emacs version
AFAICS.
* the fluxbox theme (~/.fluxbox/styles/Sn33z) is broken with the
current version. Just delete it manually or choose another theme
from the fluxbox menu. Would be great if someone could take a
closer look at fixing this issue!
* the windows/ directory on the ISO has been renamed (currently
only for now) due to space problems....
* several bugfixes, updated configuration files,...
first version of 2.6.22-grml available
The first version of 2.6.22-grml is available for download (the debs are available via the grml-testing repository as well). Follow progress via issue 216 in our BTS or via the according mercurial repository.
% uname -a
Linux meilenschwein 2.6.22-grml #1 SMP PREEMPT Tue Jul 10 00:35:57 CEST 2007 i686 GNU/Linux
A new develrelease (1.0-1) providing this kernel build will be available very soon.
current development status report
I continued work on shortening our bugreports, wish- and todolist in the last few weeks. New features include:
- bootoption startup for starting a script when booting finished, usage example: ‘grml startup=netcardconfig’
- LVM (logical volumes) support in the booting process, providing bootoption ’lvm’ now
- grml2hd supports installation on LVM devices also in interactive mode, all you have to do is set up LVM is you want it to and then invoke ‘LVM=/dev/mapper/$target grml2hd’
- support dvorak keyboard layout via bootoption lang=dvorak and lang=dvorak-iso as well as keyboard=dvorak and xkeyboard=dvorak More to come in the next few days… going back to development now…
grml at FrOSCon 2007 and Linux User Group Moenchengladbach
My submission of contribution regarding a talk about grml for the Call for Papers has been accepted for FrOSCon 2007! FrOSCon 2007 takes place on 25th and 26th August at the University of Applied Sciences Bonn-Rhein-Sieg, in St. Augustin near Bonn, Germany. This means we will have grml hackdays at FrOSCon 2007! Oh and on 28th of august 2007 I’ll held another grml-talk at Linux User Group Moenchengladbach (thanks for the invitation, Spida!). On 29th of August I’m flying back to austria then…