May 2006 - Grml - lists.mur.at

My Grml improvement suggestions
by HXC 09 May '06

09 May '06

Here are my idea to improve grml even more! 1 Base it on testing (etch) Forget about unstable. There are enough distro's out there that are based on debian unstable. I found them all extremely volatile. You never knew what happens next after a dist-upgrade. Debian Etch on the other is up to date and without much problems. Another benefit from switching to Etch would that the developers have more time on their hand to focus on grml instead of fixing the errors in the unstable branch. And grml would also stand out more in the excessive amount of debian distro's available. So I say remove all unstable repositories! ;-) Users who really want could add them themselves but _i think that debian etch shoul be default. _2 Add an option to install grub instead of lilo with grml2hd. 3 Less windowmanagers please Grml comes with a whole array of windowmanager most of which are in my opion not good enough. I think it will provide more clarity if the amount of windowmanger would be largely decreased. You seem focused on fluxbox and I would choose to make that one the default. Thanks to the debian apt-get system the other windowsmanagers are just an apt-get install away. You could make an oversight in the grml wiki of the available windowmanagers and their pro and cons. I hope this information is helpfull in making grml a better product. Good luck!

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kernel panic and slow start up
by Sean Kennedy 09 May '06

09 May '06

I've installed grml on a usb hard drive, and had success (except for it spending a lot - 10 minutes at least - of time "Loading kernel 2.6.16" if I remember the message properly). But after I did: apt-get update apt-get upgrade (which had some problems so I did apt-get -f install) I get a kernel panic during start up, it tells me to set the proper root when I start, or something like that. I suppose the first thing is how to resolve the kernel panic (I'm pretty sure that without doing a dist-upgrade my kernel shouldn't have been touched). If I can get that resolved, I'd like to know why my computer can boot faster from the CD than from the hard drive (it is a USB2 connection).

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Wireless help
by Chris Norman 09 May '06

09 May '06

Hi people, I'm stuck here doing bloody computing coursework, and I need Linux. I know GRML recognises my wireless card, but I need to connect to the wireless with it. It's an open unincripted network, is there a quick and easy to connect? Cheers, Chris Norman

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RAS Movie & CiscoVPN Problem
by Florian Keller 08 May '06

08 May '06

Hello, First of all you can watch the customized grml CD with ASCII Bootloader here: http://www.florian-keller.ch/grmlcustomized.avi To play this you will need mplayer with VMware Codec, or if you running windows you can download from VMware the right codec. Now to my Problem. I've compiled the Cisco VPN Client (4.7.00 (0640)) to my grml CD. I've network connectivity no firewall running or iptables activ but I cannot establish a VPN Session. Im using nothing special standard RJ45 Network with activ DHCP Server @ Router. All works well Internet works..., but I'm getting the follow message if I try to establish a VPN Connection: Initializing the VPN connection. Contacting the gateway at 194.x.x.x Secure VPN Connection terminated locally by the Client Reason: Failed to establish a VPN connection I don't understand why Im getting this message. Once after lot of try & error I could establish the VPN Session but didn't know why :). I thought, it could be a problem with the ifplugd but if I uninstall this daemon it also don't work :(. On google I found lot of guys that have same problem but that was on wireless connection, Im not using this kind of connection. Hope someone got a good idea or a way to find out what the problem could be. Strange is also if I look at netstat -ta I see the connection that should be established is not the Server its the grml localhost :( // From syslog: May 7 19:54:15 RASCDv121-1348526093 net.agent[5689]: Cannot raise interface cipsec0: interface lo did not appear! Also strange ist this message: tcp 1 0 grml:29746 grml:41439 CLOSE_WAIT tcp 17 0 grml:29746 grml:48560 CLOSE_WAIT Thanks, regards, Florian Keller

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Getting a shell on serial
by Mike 05 May '06

05 May '06

I'm trying to use grml as the base for a hardware validation USB key on a machine which has no video at all, and is accessible through a serial console. After yanking the boot.msg splash screen and adding console=ttyS0,11500n8 to the append line, things are promising (moreso than knoppix which had serial support as a module :( ) The issue that I'm having is that even if I use the 'serial' cheatcode (in addition to having added the console bit to the append line), I'm not getting a shell on the serial console. I get as far as: [ ok ]hing for device(s) labeled with GRMLCFG. * Floppy device detected. Trying to access floppy disk. (Disable this via boot option: noautoconfig) [ ok ]devices with label GRMLCFG found. [ ok ]hed execution of main grml startup. (minicom messes up the pretty formatting) And then nothing. This is the point at which I would normally be getting a prompt and be on my merry way. What's the trick to getting it going? (If I boot the same USB key on my desktop, using the same cheatcode and append line, I get no boot progress to screen [all going to imaginary serial], just the grml.org logo in the upper left, and then suddenly the normal shell) Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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Re: [Grml] How to use Splashscreen grml Scripts
by Keller Florian 05 May '06

05 May '06

Michael Prokop <mika <at> grml.org> writes: > > > To Output text on another TTY and to write it to a logfile :). And > > also customized some startup scripts for changes in progress bar > > like Splash Screen do. If you intrested how my customized grml > > look like I could post a little movie recorded in VMware. > > Of course! Please upload the movie and post the URL! :) > Okay, I will make and upload the movie @ weekend. Must first fix some settings and I've got lot of work to do right now. regards, Flo Unix Specialist

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Re: [Grml] How to use Splashscreen grml Scripts
by Keller Florian 05 May '06

05 May '06

Hello, >Do you mean this kind of modules? >http://slax.linux-live.org/modules.php >So to get the idea: you want to have a single file which includes a >specific software (let's say CitrixICA Client) and want to add this >to a running grml system, right? Yes thats one part that I miss :), but I dont care if the system state is running or down. It would be nice if the grml main release is also in Package Formats (like slax) the Current release looks like that: 01_kernel.mo (compiled kernel) 02_core.mo (Main System/Config files) 03_xwindow.mo (Xorg 7) 09_slax.mo (Slax Stuff) 11_popcorn.mo (XFCE Window Manager) Lets think about someone that didnt like XFCE remove easily the 11_popcorn.mo package and add 11_kde.mo package. Or if someone code stuff or need dev package to compile something could also temporary add the development_tools.mo package :). I would love such features :). >> Hm, I'm thinking about an ACII version of a bootscreen, maybe >> there's a nice-looking way to do this via ASCII only. Hmmm... :) I allready made such ASCII boot script (token from my slax-customized RAS CD). Im using it with Framebuffer @ size 800x600 cause some PC cannot show higher FB resolutions. The bad thing is that I had to customize: etc/grml/lsb-functions, /lib/lsb/init-functions To Output text on another TTY and to write it to a logfile :). And also customized some startup scripts for changes in progress bar like Splash Screen do. If you intrested how my customized grml look like I could post a little movie recorded in VMware. BTW: A dependecie in /etc/init.d/grml-autoconfig to the pumper debian package would be nice :). I asked myself yesterday why I had to start manual the dhcp client :) to get an IP address :). I found out that uninstall pumper package wasn't smart at all :) regards, Flo Unix Specialist

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Re: [Grml] grub?
by Martin Yazdzik 04 May '06

04 May '06

> Thanks for you patience... > > Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System > /dev/sda1 2 1403 11261565 7 HPFS/NTFS > /dev/sda2 1404 1534 1052257+ 82 Linux swap / > Solaris /dev/sda3 * 1535 5995 35832982+ 83 Linux > /dev/sda4 5996 6930 7510387+ 83 Linux > > > Currently, /boot/grub/ refers back to /dev/sda3. or hd0,2. > /dev/sdsa4 is grml, where I would like grub to look for the /boot file, as > I am going to remove /dev/sda3 as an OS and use it for data. > > Best, > M

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Re: [Grml] grub?
by Martin Yazdzik 04 May '06

04 May '06

On Thursday 04 May 2006 14:19, you wrote: Deat tw, partitions: sda1 -windows sda2 - swap sda3 old debian sda4 - grml current grub refers to the /boot on /dev/sda3, which I am going to remove, and I need it to refer to /dev/sda4/boot/brub and so on. Any ideas? Best wishes, M > does grub already work on your system? os is that the first install on > your system, sorry this part I haven't understand. > > 2006/5/4, Martin Yazdzik <yazdzik(a)nyct.net>: > > grub> root (hd0,3) > > Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83 > > > > grub> setup (hd0) > > Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... no > > Checking if "/grub/stage1" exists... no > > > > > > > > Error 15: File not found > > > > I know I am forgetting something.. > > > > sorry. > > > > MOn Thursday 04 May 2006 14:08, you wrote: > > > oh I forgot something :) > > > > > > >root (hd0,0) > > > >setup (hd0) > > > > > > on root you have to insert the position of the /boot partition. > > > > > > Best regards, > > > > > > Tony > > > > > > 2006/5/4, Martin Yazdzik <yazdzik(a)nyct.net>: > > > > Dear Friends, > > > > > > > > I have decided, probably against sane better judgement to go to grml > > > > as my main mission critical OS. > > > > > > > > Now, since I have been booting from grub on my other linux partition, > > > > I wish, obbviously, to boot from the grub files in /boot, as I am > > > > going to delete the other partition entirely. > > > > > > > > I need therefore, to make sure the computer boots from grml before I > > > > do anything else. > > > > > > > > Good old days; grub install /dev/sda > > > > > > > > response from grub: > > > > > > > > grub> install /dev/sda > > > > > > > > Error 12: Invalid device requested > > > > > > > > grub> install /dev/hd0 > > > > > > > > Error 12: Invalid device requested > > > > > > > > grub> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Have I done something to hurt its feelings? > > > > > > > > Best, > > > > Martin > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > Grml mailing list - Grml(a)mur.at > > > > http://lists.mur.at/mailman/listinfo/grml > > > > join #grml on irc.freenode.org > > > > grml-devel-blog: http://grml.supersized.org/ > > > > > > -- > > > Open Source - Open Mind -Try OS-Forge > > > http://os-forge.net | http://pacms.de > > > ----------------------------------------------- > > > Homepage: http://tony-wolf.os-forge.net > > -- > Open Source - Open Mind -Try OS-Forge > http://os-forge.net | http://pacms.de > ----------------------------------------------- > Homepage: http://tony-wolf.os-forge.net

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Re:Re: [Grml] How to use Splashscreen grml Scripts
by Keller Florian 04 May '06

04 May '06

>> What exactly are you missing? Or better: what do you want to do? :-) Yes, I want to make packages beside your Distro like CiscoVPN Client, CitrixICA Client and some others. In slax I could make for this Modules .mo files, compressed with SquashFS. If I change something (changed a lot of stuff @ moment :)), I've to to create whole GRML image. So if your image would be splitted it would be better for customizing :). Something Like that maybe: - Kernel - Kernel Source - X-System - Security Tools - Graphic Tools etc ... :) Thats all that I miss in your Distribution. Thanks for the infos about the Splash integration. I made a little Script for an ASCII Splash Screen :). regards, Flo Unix Specialist

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