launching hg.grml.org
The grml-team uses Mercurial and we are providing public repositories via hg.grml.org. Documentation regarding our setup and how to work with mercurial can be found at grml.org/mercurial/.
grml2hd: support for customization
grml2hd has a new feature: starting with version 0.8.12 it’s possible to customize grml2hd’s execution via a configuration file named /etc/grml2hd/customization. Using this feature you can toggle which functions of grml2hd should be executed when running grml2hd.
grml.org running on new server
Notice that grml.org moved to a new server (more space, RAM, power,…). The new ip address of grml.org is 88.198.6.110, JFYI.
new grml-develrelease: 0.8-3
We have a new develrelease. grml 0.8-3 is available for beta-testers and grml-developers. Quoting the main changelog:
* added acx100, drbd8, spca5xx and truecrypt (for 2.6.18-grml)
* new script random-hostname (print random hostname to stdout),
integrated within grml2hd as well:)
* grml-setlang: support all languages defined in
/etc/grml/language-functions. Don't set $LC_ALL and $COUNTRY by
default anymore. Support non-interactive use via 'grml-setlang'.
* rebuildfstab/scanpartitions:
- added support for /dev/md*
- improved fs-detection
- support bootoption nolabel (don't generate label based fstab
entries but plain, old style); use 'NOLABEL=1 grml-rebuildfstab'
if you want to regenerate fstab without labels; force usage
of labels via 'LABEL=1 grml-rebuildfstab' if you booted with'nolabel' but want to use labels anyway
- support /etc/fstab.local (will be appended to end of
/etc/fstab if the file exists)
Please take a look at /etc/fstab and report any problems you consider!
* hwinfo: using new release from Debian's pool, if you notice any
problems with grml-x you didn't have until now, please report
them!
* new scripts (under development):
- grml-bridge: set up your box as bridge
- grml-router: set up your box as NAT-router
- grml-ap: set up access point on your box
* added /etc/skel/.irbrc ($HOME/irbrc), new shell aliases,...
packaged ssdeep, ptfinder and afflib
Today I packaged ssdeep (detect similarities between files based on hash values), ptfinder (extract process information from a Windows memory dump) and afflib (utils for the Advanced Forensic Format [aff]).
grml 0.8 in 'Linux-Magazin Sonderheft: Netz und System'
grml 0.8 is shipped with the german Linux-Magazin Sonderheft 04/06: Netz und System!
grml-small in Linux-User 2006/10
grml-small 0.2 is shipped with the german Linux-User magazin, edition 2006/10.
grml in c't 21/2006
grml is mentioned in the well known and popular german computer magazine c’t, edition 21/2006 in an article named “Systemdiagnose und -wartung mit Linux” (page 130++ ). Great. :-)
quality management: checking for new upstream releases
I’m working on quality management those days. Today I checked 284 (a*-dillo) out of 2470 packages shipped with grml for new upstream releases and got 13 hits which I reported to Debian’s BTS of course. I’ll continue with this (awful boring) kind of work in the next days…
new grml-develrelease: 0.8-2
Hurray, we have a new develrelease! grml 0.8-2 is available for beta-testers and grml-developers.
Quoting the main changelog:
* Features brand new kernel 2.6.18-grml
Notice: the fglrx and nvidia modules are available at
http://dufo.tugraz.at/~prokop/grml-kernel/2.6.18-grml/
Notice2: not all modules are available yet; the missing ones are:
reiser4 (not yet in kernel), acx100, adp94xx, bcm5700, dazuko,
drbd8, lufs, nozomi, spca5xx, qc-usb, sl-modem, thinkpad,
truecrypt
* grml2hd checks whether you're installing to something like
/dev/hdb3 and if /dev/[sh]da are harddisks, the lilo-dialog
provides the possibility to install lilo into MBR of /dev/[sh]da
instead of /dev/hdb3 or /dev/hdb. (Thanks for idea and code-base
goes to Alexander Bernauer!)
* Unicode support!
/archives/178-basic-unicode-support-for-grml.html
What does this mean? You can use something like 'grml
lang=at-utf8' to set environment variable for unicode.
Just use "lang=$YOURLANGUAGE-utf8" to use this feature.
The script grml-setlang allows to configure environment
variables through /etc/default/locale. (Some more documentation
will be available as soon as I upload the packages to the
grml-repos.)
* Split grml-etc into grml-etc-core: this provides the possibility
to use grml-etc-core (which ships only some core config files
for zsh, vim,...) on *plain* Debian (stable/testing/unstable)
systems without interference.
* Support truecrypt in our reboot/shutdown scripts (make sure no
mapped volumes are left behind).
* Check whether a swap partition is in use already and display
info message during boot process (instead of an error message).
* When running pump finished (which happens in background during
bootup) it writes "finished_running_pump" into
/etc/network/status/$DEVICE so you/we can check for it.
* Bugfixes, improvements in rebuildfstab and other grml-packages...
* Fixed the "Booting from external devices (SCSI/USB/Firewire)
does not work" issue.
Get it as long as it’s fresh and hot! :-)
2.6.18-grml: grml-kerneladdons
I wrote a buildsystem for grml-kerneladdons which allows me to build the appropriate package for every single kernel version of grml much faster now. So you can grab grml-kerneladdons for the first release of 2.6.18-grml already. Notice that the package is named grml-kerneladdons-2.6.18. This provides the possibility to install several kernelpackages at the same time without any conflicts. The package includes tpm-emulator and ipw3945 as well now.
basic unicode support for grml
Today I completely rewrote the language stuff in grml-autoconfig. After designing a much more capabable and cleaner system I rewrote the code (e.g. removed the functions config_environment and config_keyboard which are integrated more smoothly in config_language now) and added support for Unicode/UTF-8. Now you just have to boot using ‘grml lang=$LANG-utf8’ and all the environment stuff is adjusted without any further manual input for you! Thanks to a new shellscript named grml-setlang it’s also possible to adjust language related environment variables when booting your harddisk installation. grml-setlang also allows you to *interactive* configure your language stuff on grml. After running lots of tests I couldn’t notice any problems so far - the new code should be completely backwards compatible. But I’ve to do some more regression testing and test X-related stuff before the new packages are going into the grml-repos (including some documentation). Expect to find the new features in the next grml develrelease (and of course in grml 0.9 afterwards ;-)).
2.6.18-grml: first version available
A first version of 2.6.18-grml is available:
grml@grml ~ % uname -a
Linux grml 2.6.18-grml #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Sep 22 20:37:07 CEST 2006 i686 GNU/LinuxNotice: the current version does not include ipw3945 and reiser4 yet. Due to API changes several external modules don’t build yet, I’m working on it. Please report any problems you notice and if you have feature requests for the grml-kernel feel free to contact me!
fglrx-driver 8.29.6 for 2.6.17-grml available
The ATI fglrx-driver version 8.29.6 for 2.6.17-grml is available in the grml-repository. Just run ‘apt-get update ; apt-get install fglrx-driver fglrx-kernel-2.6.17-grml’ to update/install it.
new team-member: Ulrich Dangel
We have a new team-member: Ulrich ‘schula’ Dangel. Welcome in the team, Ulrich!