Grml Blog

Debian based Linux Live system

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.

grml 0.8-2

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!

new develrelease: grml 0.8-1

I just uploaded a new develrelease for beta-testers and grml-devs. All the mounting-stuff as discussed on the grml-user mailinglist has been implemented. Quoting the main part of the Changelog:

* Fixed the issues of grml 0.8 mentioned on
  http://wiki.grml.org/doku.php?id=grml_0.8 (only the bt-net stuff
  does not work yet, Gebi is working on it)
* /mnt/usb-sd* feature - see Thread "RFC: handling of external usb
  devices" on grml-user mailinglist for details =>
  http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.distributions.grml.user/466/focus=466
* grml-rebuildfstab (that's an shell command now as well, just run'grml-rebuildfstab' to rebuild /etc/fstab!) supports fs-LABELs and
  UUIDs; rebuilfstab now takes care of /mnt/*-directories as well - see
  http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.distributions.grml.user/466/focus=507
  http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.distributions.grml.user/508
  and "man rebuildfstab" for details.
  Notice: Running "apt-get update ; apt-get install grml-autoconfig \
  grml-rebuildfstab grml-scanpartitions udev" should bring you the
  /mnt/usb-sd* and new fstab features to your harddisk installation
  of grml.
* Removed the bitmap-fonts packages xfonts-100dpi-transcoded and
  xfonts-75dpi-transcoded. I couldn't notice any font-related
  problems, if you do notice some please let me know!
* Added FreeDOS 1.0 from the Balder project; boot into it using the
  bootoption 'dos'
* Updated the adp94xx scsi kernel module [also in the initrd]
  (thanks, jimmy)
* Extended grml-tips: several new tips regarding mdadm, lvm-stuff,...
* Updated packages to debian-pool by 2006-09-11
* New packages (excluding lib*):
  aria2 ccontrol cdrskin classpath-gtkpeer ddccontrol ddccontrol-db
  firmware-qlogic iwatch medusa openbsd-inetd python-jaxml
  python-selinux python-semanage queuegraph reniced smap stealth
  unionfs-modules-2.6.17-grml wodim xen-utils-common xmms2
  xmms2-client-cli xmms2-core xmms2-plugin-alsa xmms2-plugin-id3v2
  xmms2-plugin-jack xmms2-plugin-mad xmms2-plugin-vorbis
* Removed packages (excluding lib*):
  jaxml netkit-inetd ppmtofb python2.4-selinux scanerrlog
  xfonts-100dpi-transcoded xfonts-75dpi-transcoded

grml @ german live-radio

Today (2006-09-03) grml will be part of the german Ulmer CCC /dev/radio. Listen to the live-stream/podcast or grab the mp3/ogg from the archive afterwards!

packaged smap and iwatch

I packaged smap (nmap like SIP scanner) and iwatch (a realtime filesystem monitoring program). Both programs are worth a try - as usual get the Debian package from the grml-repository.

grml netboot package for grml 0.8

A grml netboot package for grml 0.8 is available for Booting grml without grml-terminalserver. Credits go to Stefan Himpich, thanks!

grml 0.8 released

grml 0.8 codename Funkenzutzler is available. More information can be found in the official release announcement.

grml 0.8 - release candidate 2 available (update)

Just a short message from the devel-desk: grml 0.8-rc2 is available. Please help hunting bugs! Known issues can be found at the release-candidate webpage in the grml-wiki. Update: we have two mirrors: grml.gwendoline.at (thanks, Alfie!) and modprobe.de (thanks, Nion!)

grml 0.8 - release candidate 1 available

I’m proud to be able to present a first release-candidate of the upcoming grml 0.8 release.

#####################################################
Notice: This is a pre-release and *not* yet the final
stable release! Whereas we do consider this release
as quite stable there might be some issues left.
Please report any bugs you notice!
Thanks for helping us improve grml!
#####################################################

The full changelog is available online. Please contribute to our testing section in the grml-wiki! Download: the release-candidate is available on the following mirrors:

2.6.17-grml in the grml-repository, fglrx-driver 8.27.10

Kernel 2.6.17-grml just hit the grml-repository, so you can run ‘apt-get update; apt-get install linux-image-2.6.17-grml $MODULES_YOU_LIKE’ to install it.

The brand new fglrx-driver version 8.27.10 is available as well, just run ‘apt-get update ; apt-get install fglrx-driver fglrx-kernel-2.6.17-grml’ to install it.

If you notice any problems please feel free to report them!