November 2006 - Grml - lists.mur.at

Boot USB sans IDE noise
by Mark 29 Nov '06

29 Nov '06

One user noticed that older IDE drives (CD, HDD) make noise, depending on age, case vibrations. His USB drive is very quiet. He boots grml from that. Can he boot from USB without powering IDE drives? Grml has an orderly IDE power-off procedure at shutdown. You hear the IDE hard drives click off one by one. The question is best method to invoke the commands at boot time. Of course he can always unplug the power cables manually :-) But customers don't like that. :-) Software control is better anyway.

2 8

A thought about modules
by Juergen Fiedler 28 Nov '06

28 Nov '06

Maybe it is already there and I just managed to miss it this far; if so, I apologize. Here is my thought, anyway: Wouldn't it be neat to have modules containing data and/or executables that can be added to or removed from the system at runtime? I tried the following from the 0.8 live CD with a HD mounted on /mnt/hda1: ------- root@grml:/root# mkdir -p /mnt/hda1/tmp/grml root@grml:/root# unionctl /UNIONFS --add /mnt/hda1/tmp/grml root@grml:/root# unionctl /UNIONFS --mode /ramdisk ro root@grml:/root# aptitude install mtx # [much output omitted] root@grml:/root# unionctl /UNIONFS --mode /ramdisk rw # [wait a few seconds for things to settle] root@grml:/root# unionctl /UNIONFS --remove /mnt/hda1/tmp/grml root@grml:/root# rm -rf /mnt/hda1/tmp/grml/var/ root@grml:/root# rm -rf /mnt/hda1/tmp/grml/root/ # [more cleanup, if necessary] root@grml:/root# mksquashfs /mnt/hda1/tmp/grml /mnt/hda1/tmp/mtx.squashfs ------- This creates a squashed filesystem image that can be added to /UNIONFS: ------- root@grml:/root# mkdir -p /mnt/hda1/tmp/mnt/mtx root@grml:/root# mount -o loop -t squashfs /mnt/hda1/tmp/mtx.squashfs /mnt/hda1/tmp/mnt/mtx root@grml:/root# unionctl /UNIONFS --add --after /ramdisk --mode ro /mnt/hda1/tmp/mnt/mtx ------- After that, mtx is available for use, just as if it was part of the real live CD. Would something like that be useful for grml? Useful enough to create an official set of scripts to create, add and remove such modules? Just wondering, --j

2 1

first release candidate of grml 0.9: grml 0.9-rc1
by Michael Prokop 28 Nov '06

28 Nov '06

Hoi, I'm proud to be able to announce the presence of the first release candidate of grml 0.9 (known as 0.9-rc1). For details about the new release take a look at the release announcement: http://grml.org/files/README-0.9-rc1.php Please give it a try and test all the stuff you usually need so we can provide a rocking stable 0.9 release soon. Known issues for 0.9-rc1 can be found at the grml-wiki: http://wiki.grml.org/doku.php?id=release_candidate Notice: get the ISO from the directory named 'devel' of the mirrors listed at http://grml.org/download/ regards, -mika- -- http://grml.org/ # Linux for texttool-users and sysadmins http://wiki.grml.org/ # share your knowledge http://grml.supersized.org/ # the grml development weblog #grml @ irc.freenode.org # meet us on irc

1 0

Console screen rotation
by Mark 27 Nov '06

27 Nov '06

Is there a way to boot grml with the screen rotated. Once X starts there is xrandr, but console is puzzling. M.

2 5

Nice alias - screenoff
by Mark 27 Nov '06

27 Nov '06

Maybe this could go into grml. We call it "screenoff" - it blanks the screen, saves LCD pixels from burn-in. Can be tied to a GUI button on the user desktop if desired. #! /bin/sh sleep 2 xset s activate

1 0

Sugestion - zshl logout
by Erich Minderlein 27 Nov '06

27 Nov '06

Hi Since my first Linux Day sometimes in 1997 I was a bash shell user, made a lot of scripting and was happy. Now I found grml and its zsh and it is sssssssssssuuuuuuuuupppppppppeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrr. Small suggestion : in the /etc/zsh/logout I added the small word "reset" which automatically leaves a clean console when logging out. I like that and nobody nosing around. also security concern. regards -- Erich Minderlein <erminderlein(a)locoware.de> MARC Mannheim Rail Commerce GmbH

4 6

grml-small on a usb stick
by Tube 26 Nov '06

26 Nov '06

hi list, hi mikap, is it possible to install a grml-small on a usb-stick from an ordinary grml2hd'ed system? my intention is not to waste a whole CD only for that installation. TIA tube

2 1

Debian repos based on locale
by Mark 26 Nov '06

26 Nov '06

Default apt sources for grml are .de & .at domains. For grml proper, ok. For external Debian packages, default apt sources based on locale would be nice. (Debian.org subdomains make this fairly easy, yes?) The user should get continental selection between Europe, Africa, Asia, North America, South America. The big problem is going over ocean cables for apt updates. No need for separate files. Have all repos listed in one file, commented out. Scripts like grml2hd can comment-in as appropriate to finalize. M.

2 1

[Grml] slow start of xserver , very poor responsiveness with nohwcap
by Erich Minderlein 25 Nov '06

25 Nov '06

Hello see also my contributions @ http://lists.mur.at/pipermail/grml/ where I followed before on this subject Hardware : Amilo Pro Notebook V2030 Inter celeron , 1,5 GHz, 256 MByte RAM, VGA Via <6>ACPI: Video Device [VGA] (multi-head: yes rom: no post: no) -- CGA/Mono Video supported ACPI supported USB Legacy supported AGP supported -- lspci -vvs 0000:01:00.0 >> 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. UniChrome Pro IGP (rev 01) (prog-if 00 [VGA]) Subsystem: Fujitsu Siemens Computer GmbH Unknown device 109b Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 10 Memory at f0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=64M] Memory at d1000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M] Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 2 Capabilities: [70] AGP version 2.0 I was wondering why this beast was slower in starting X than my (with display mechanically broken Toshiba Portege 3110CT) Subnotebook with PentiumII 300Mhz, 192 MByte and a 7 GB HDD. from the last millenium. (I use it as xterminal right now!) sw: a system mixed from unstable and the grml distro kernel 2.6.17-grml I did init 5 (for Xserver ) ps ax and checked PID for the gdm processes strace -f ... PID (2*) ALT F7 login in with my $USER $PASSWORD CTRL ALT F1 init 2 I found that 427 accesses for /etc/ld.so.nohwcap were happening, and no file there. touch /etc/ld.so.nohwcap and it maked 822 accesses, but slightly faster. I think this is a performance killer. Mailingliste grml recommended to report it to debian-x, so here we go. Please feel free to ask more, also that I did deinstall this Xorg server now. regards -- Erich Minderlein <erminderlein(a)locoware.de> MARC Mannheim Rail Commerce GmbH

1 0

amilopro slow : solution (part if it)
by Erich Minderlein 25 Nov '06

25 Nov '06

Hello during a login to the x-server the strace reveals that 472 file accesses to /etc/ld.so.nohwcap result with -1, because the file is nowhere and also not there. touch /etc/ld.so.nohwcap helps partly, it would even be better, if the file is not a million times asked for. best regards -- Erich Minderlein <erminderlein(a)locoware.de> MARC Mannheim Rail Commerce GmbH

3 2