booting grml via firewire
grml boots via firewire. Thanks to Martin Buchleitner for helping me to locate the problem, now we will officially support booting grml via firewire starting with the upcoming release(s).
BTW: I renamed the usb-cheatcode to scandelay and slightly improved it. Now it’s possible to add a delay of some seconds to the boot sequence so the modules in the initrd have enough time to access the devices. Currently scandelay uses a default of 10 seconds, using a parameter makes it more flexible - e.g. scandelay=3 will add a delay of only 3 seconds.
grml and bootchart
I just booted grml via a new bootparam called ‘bootchart’ inspired by an article on debian-administration.org.
To generate the picture you will have to save /var/log/bootchart.tgz and copy it to the same location on a system where bootchart-view is available. As you can see in the picture it takes 54 seconds to boot the grml(-large).iso via CD-ROM using default options on my laptop.
release-decisions, packaged kexec-tools and several updates
We decided to release grml 0.5 as soon as the config-framework is “finished” (I’m still working on it). In the meanwhile kernel 2.6.13 should be released. 2.6.12-grml is working quite well on grml-small, (the still unreleased) grml-usb and grml(-large). SMP is causing some troubles with cpufreq and ACPI :-(( - so it will be deactivated in the next release. BTW: Tobias is doing a great job with packaging udev (currently version 0.065) for the grml-system, thanks to him! Yesterday I packaged kexec-tools so we can test it with 2.6.13 as soon it is available. As usual it’s available in the grml-repos.
Yesterday I wrote a small script named grml2usb to install a grml-iso to an usb-stick. The script should work on any linux-system and reduces the necessary manual steps. Testing and feedback welcome! Several updates, bugfixes and improvements have taken place in grml-autoconfig, grml-scripts and grml-etc. And I just implemented the bootoption ‘startx’ so grml can boot directly into the X window system using grml-x.
grml2hd-utils 0.1 available
grml2hd-utils is a collection of some scripts which might be useful for people who installed grml to harddisk. For example remove-packages-server is a script which will remove server packages on your grml-system, useful for people who want to use grml as a plain workstation-system. grml2hd-utils itself is a frontend for the provided scripts. Just take a look at it (it’s available via the grml-repos) and report feedback. Suggestions for additional scripts you would like to see are welcome too of course.
integrity of grml-packages via apt 0.6
I just activated the integrity-testing of grml-packages via the apt-0.6-mechanism. See the debian-section in the grml-wiki for further information.
plans for upcoming releases
I’m busy working on the new grml-config-framework. As soon as it’s finished and work on 2.6.12-grml too I’ll release grml 0.5. To make the progress more transparent I created a new page in the grml-wiki: ‘Plans for upcoming releases’ - there you will also find a list of packages which will be removed in the upcoming release. Please let us know if you think a package should not be removed. If you have any special wishes just write it down in the wiki-wishlist-page.
packaged minised
I just packaged minised (a smaller, cheaper, faster SED implementation), as usual it’s in the grml-repos.
packaged ncp and nat-traverse
I packaged ncp (a utility for copying files in a LAN) on request by wuehlmaus a few days ago. Today I packaged nat-traverse (establish connections between nodes behind NAT gateway). You can find them in the grml-repos.
working on grml-usb
grml-small (the 50MB-ISO) is already available, now I’m working on grml-usb. The goal is to provide a grml-ISO with less than 250MB which fits on a 256MB usb stick. Please provide feedback which tools you would like to see on grml-usb. Take a look at the package list to see what’s current status.
some more modules for 2.6.12-grml
While doing kernelrelated work I just built packages for lufs, fuser, eagle-usb, thinkpad and vaiostat against 2.6.12-grml. Again, get them from the usual place. (BTW: I just created a new category for the develblog named kernel.)
ivtv-module and utils for 2.6.12-grml
Someone requested the ivtv-kernelmodule for grml-kernel and I just built the necessary packages (thanks to Eduard Bloch for his source-packages). As I do not have the necessary hardware any testing is welcome of course. Get the ivtv-package at the usual place.
grml-small 0.1 available
I’m proud to be able to announce ‘grml-small 0.1’ with codename ‘Zugschlus’ (because it was inspired by Marc ‘Zugschlus’ Haber.) It’s a ~50MB-ISO which fits on a business card CD-ROM. For more details take a look at the release announcement. Please report feeedback!
wiki available
Thanks to Jimmy, we now have the grml-wiki available online (wiki.grml.org). Please share you knowledge and contribute!
devel release grml 0.4-2
We have another devel release for grml-developers and beta-testers: grml 0.4-2. Main features are:
- kernel 2.6.12-grml including several additional modules (see grml.org/kernel-devel/) and an updated udev-package (version 060) [thanks to Tobias!]
- replaced hotplug with hotplug-light
- new grml-autoconfig infrastructure Now I’ll finish my work on grml-small and hope to be able to upload grml-small 0.1 really soon…. (hmpf)
kernel 2.6.12-grml up and running
Release 0.4-1d is running here with kernel 2.6.12-grml now. The patchset includes:
iteraid.allinone
reiser4_2.6.12_allinone
patch-2.6.12.1
squashfs2.1-patch
linux-2.6.11-mppe-mppc-1.3.patch
1900_pci-driver-typo.patch
1905_mm-BUG.patch
2100_e1000-spinlock.patch
4900_speakup-20050622-dsd.patch
4901_speakup-parport.patch
4505_vesafb-tng-0.9-rc6-r2.patch
4330_svw-broadcom.patch
4325_promise-pdc20619.patch
4320_promise-pdc2037x.patch
4305_dm-bbr.patch
4300_via-vt6410.patch
3c509-device-support.patch
2300_qla2xxx-initialization.patch
2305_sata-bridge-lockup.patch
grml_logo.diff
Kernel 2.6.12-grml and several modules are available online.