August 2007 - Grml - lists.mur.at

Re: [Grml] Why does the speech system like to spell instead of readwords?
by Martin McCormick 22 Aug '07

22 Aug '07

Michael Prokop writes: > No, that's not an option (due to maintenance and space reasons) for > us, sorry. Especially as speakup (which provides the speech feature) > does not work any longer with kernels >=2.6.22. Let's see what > future will bring us. I certainly understand. I did subscribe to the announcement list in case either a different speech engine is used or there is some other way that software speech becomes an option again in grml. In the mean time, it looks like the last Oralux disk works properly on the laptop in question but I sure would have rather used a Debian-based distribution since all my other Linux systems are pure Debian. Thank you. Martin McCormick WB5AGZ Stillwater, OK Systems Engineer OSU Information Technology Department Network Operations Group

1 0

Problems booting GRML via fromhd
by Philipp Richter 22 Aug '07

22 Aug '07

Hi, We use GRML as rescue system on our machines. The /boot partition (which sits on a software raid1) of the main system includes the GRML-Kernel, initrd and squashfs so in case someone unintentionally removes libc6 or does some other bad things it's possible to recover the machine via the grml boot option in grub. the good thing is that this works if the /boot partition is on ide devices because the ide drivers are compiled into the kernel and the raid code in the kernel autostarts the raid. the bad thing: it doesn't work with our new dell boxes with mpt fusion controllers. the second problem here is that these boxes don't have ps/2 keyboard connectors and grml doesn't recognise the usb keyboard when it puts me into the rescue shell ... argh. here is what i did to fix these problems: - when grml loads the usb kernel modules it also tries to insmod usbhid.ko but this one has unknown symbols because ff-memless.ko has to be loaded first. so i copied ff-memless.ko to the initrd and added it to the list of usb.modules. cool. now i have a keyboard. - the next thing was that the sysfs-scsi-detection code did not find my fusion mpt controller. after reading /modules/scsi/scsi-modules.txt i knew why: because it was missing from there. after adding the entries for it i ended with a correctly detected controller but without a raid. how is the scsi-modules.txt file created? by hand? maybe it would be better to generate it from /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/modules.{dep,pcimap} because in these files the mpt drivers where referenced ... - ok so after having the devices i needed to start the raid1 to access the filesystem. unfortunately there is no mdadm in the initrd image of grml so i had to compile a static version of mdadm and put it in /static. after this i added some code to assemble all arrays in case there exists a boot option fromhd=/dev/md* ok so now everything works. great! btw: grml is a really cool tool cheers, -- : Philipp Richter Tel +43-1-8178292-51 : : LINBIT Information Technologies GmbH Fax +43-1-8178292-82 : : Vivenotgasse 48, A-1120 Vienna/Europe http://www.linbit.com :

2 3

VMware tools on grml guest OS
by Lars Schimmer 22 Aug '07

22 Aug '07

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi! I setup a grml 1.0 VMware server host system and a few grml 1.0 vmware guest systems til yet. But the time on the guest systems runs absolutely wrong, so I try to install the vmware-tools packages on the guests. I grabbed VMware workstation and grabbed VMwareTools-6.0.0-45731.tar.gz out of them. Now I try to install these tools on the guests systems with 2.6.20, but every kernel module fails to built. The any-any patch is just for the host, not for the guests. Anyone managed to built the vmware-tools kernel modules on grml 1.0 guests? MfG, Lars Schimmer - -- - ------------------------------------------------------------- TU Graz, Institut für ComputerGraphik & WissensVisualisierung Tel: +43 316 873-5405 E-Mail: l.schimmer(a)cgv.tugraz.at Fax: +43 316 873-5402 PGP-Key-ID: 0x4A9B1723 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFGypclmWhuE0qbFyMRAhf+AJ0RdzV+IaBqaCWcAhc+/BTSdO9IYACffhH8 5emBIphKBopEiHYOOBBZbuY= =ELSa -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

2 2

Chroot using
by Frank Lehmann 22 Aug '07

22 Aug '07

Hello everybody, the other day I wanted to use "chroot" to access a XFS-partition (hda2) from grml, but it did not work. The failure notice was: "chroot: cannot run command '/bin/zsh': No such file or directory". True, zsh was not installed on the partition I tried to get chrooted - but is that necessary? And if yes, can I switch to another shell? (Entering the word "bash" before trying to chroot leads to the same result.) PS: Of course I am riding the "Meilenschwein"... :-) Thanks in advance, Frank

3 3

Re: [Grml] Why does the speech system like to spell instead of readwords?
by Martin McCormick 21 Aug '07

21 Aug '07

"Tom Moore" writes: > The reason for Speakup spelling words has to do with the preempt kernel > option being turned on in the default Grml kernel. > If you compile a kernel with the Grml sources and turn this option off > this > will go away and Speakup will operate as you expect. I am quoting a message from the archives that was posted last March. I downloaded the live CD grml_1.0.iso image and am experiencing this very problem with software speech. Before reen venting any more wheels than necessary, is there any ISO image of this live CD that has the kernel compiled without the preempt option turned on? Does this, itself cause any other side effects? I am not afraid of building kernels but haven't built any ISO images before other than to use mkisofs to enshrine directories on a CDROM. Another idea might be to have 2 kernels on the live CD and boot from, say, grml or grml-alt. Judging from the present size of this image, there might not be enough room for that, but it is a thought. I tested the live CD on a Dell Enspiron2600 with a 1-gig Celeron CPU and 256-megs of RAM, and a ten-year-old Gateway Pentium with only 64 megs of ram and a 400-MHZ processor. Both had the spelling torture response and, surprisingly, both spoke at about the same speed. The Gateway probably would have worked just fine if not for the preemption issue. It probably wouldn't have had much memory left over for doing work with just the 64 megs. The laptop delivered little bursts of good speech and then lapsed in to slow spelling any time it was doing other work such as scrolling the screen. Thanks for any advice. Martin McCormick WB5AGZ Stillwater, OK Systems Engineer OSU Information Technology Department Network Operations Group

2 1

Upgrading Grml-Small0.4 HD install
by - Tong - 13 Aug '07

13 Aug '07

Hi, Ever since I did 'apt-get upgrade' in my Grml-Small v0.4 HD install, I can't use 'shutdown now' or 'reboot' properly any more. E.g., reboot will complain that '/etc/init.d/grml-reboot' not found. I looked into the problem, learned that /etc/init.d/grml-reboot is from grml-etc, but I have grml-etc installed. Finally I found that somehow the 'apt-get upgrade' installed the '/etc/init.d/grml-reboot' file as '/etc/init.d/grml-reboot.dpkg-new'. I don't understand why apt-get/dpkg is doing this, ie, deliberately breaking my working system. I remember lots of packages have been updated, I don't know how many those .dpkg-new files are out there breaking my system. So, - how to fix the problem? - how to prevent it from happening again? thx a lot -- Tong (remove underscore(s) to reply) http://xpt.sourceforge.net/techdocs/ http://xpt.sourceforge.net/tools/

2 3

Installing X in Grml-Small0.4 HD install
by - Tong - 12 Aug '07

12 Aug '07

Hi, I've done Grml-Small v0.4 HD install, and now I want to install X to it. when I 'apt-get install grml-x', I was informed that 'acpid grml-autoconfig grml-etc hwinfo libhal1 libhd13 rungetty' packages will be installed. The problem is the acpid: Setting up acpid (1.0.4-7.1) ... Loading ACPI modules.... Starting Advanced Configuration and Power Interface daemon...acpid: invoke-rc.d: initscript acpid, action "start" failed. As the consequence: dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of grml-autoconfig: grml-autoconfig depends on acpid | apmd; however: Package acpid is not configured yet. Package apmd is not installed. dpkg: error processing grml-autoconfig (--configure): dependency problems - leaving unconfigured dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of grml-etc: grml-etc depends on grml-autoconfig; however: Package grml-autoconfig is not configured yet. dpkg: error processing grml-etc (--configure): dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of grml-x: grml-x depends on grml-etc (>= 0.5-20); however: Package grml-etc is not configured yet. Errors were encountered while processing: acpid grml-autoconfig grml-etc grml-x Q1: How can I overcome the "acpid: invoke-rc.d: initscript acpid, action "start" failed" problem? I continued on ("grml-x -force -nostart fluxbox"), but startx failed with font fixed not found. I used to solve such problem by installing xfonts-75dpi, but noticed that there is no such xfonts-75dpi packages any more. So, Q2: How to solve the "font fixed not found" problem? thanks -- Tong (remove underscore(s) to reply) http://xpt.sourceforge.net/techdocs/ http://xpt.sourceforge.net/tools/

2 6

GRML at the Froscon 2007
by Alexander Wirt 09 Aug '07

09 Aug '07

Hi folks, as you may already know Mika and I will be at the Froscon [1] in Sankt Augustin (near Bonn) in Germany which will take place on August 25th and 26th. Today I got the offer of a development/talk room for sunday. It would be nice if we could be able to give some talks and maybe some demonstations about GRML. Unfortunatly Mika and I have talk on Sunday ([2],[3]) and I also belong to the organisation team. So I would invite YOU (yes! we need you! [4]). If you use or develop GRML and if you want to show or tell others about GRML let me know so I can provide you with a slot. If you are fast I would also be able to declare you as booth personal which means a sleeping place (you need a sleeping bag) and breakfast for no cost :). Thanks in advance for your attention. [1] http://www.froscon.org [2] http://programm.froscon.org/2007/events/102.en.html [3] http://programm.froscon.org/2007/events/27.en.html [4] http://www.cumas.org/images/weneedyou.jpg -- Alexander Wirt, formorer(a)grml.org CC99 2DDD D39E 75B0 B0AA B25C D35B BC99 BC7D 020A

1 0

serial kernel config, network and ssh
by Andri Handoko 09 Aug '07

09 Aug '07

Hi Mika and Grml team, I have a request and two questions :) Request: I was just looking at "http://hg.grml.org/grml-kernel" and noticed that the link "Initial config for 2.6.22-grml64" to the kernel configuration, still have the serial configuration set to 4. CONFIG_SERIAL_8250_NR_UARTS=4 CONFIG_SERIAL_8250_RUNTIME_UARTS=4 In the "grml configuration changes for 2.6.22:" link, the CONFIG_SERIAL_8250_NR_UARTS is set to 16, and the CONFIG_SERIAL_8250_RUNTIME_UARTS is set to 4. I was able to recompile the grml-small 0.4 kernel with CONFIG_SERIAL_8250_NR_UARTS=16 CONFIG_SERIAL_8250_RUNTIME_UARTS=8 and did the test to the serial ports. They are good to go :) Since I'm using 6 ports, I set the CONFIG_SERIAL_8250_RUNTIME_UARTS to 8 so I don't have to create the ttyS4..ttyS7 manually. A request, can you set the CONFIG_SERIAL_8250_NR_UARTS to 16, and CONFIG_SERIAL_8250_RUNTIME_UARTS to 8 in the grml small, grml and grml64 kernel configurations. Thanks. Question 1: I set "/etc/init.d/ssh start" to bootlocal.last file to run ssh deamon automatically. Is there proper way to run the ssh daemon, when grml-small boots? Question 2: The PC that I'm using has an ethernet card and a wifi card build in. I also use a SMC usb-ethernet adapter. How do I set grml small when it boots up, the ethernet card is set as eth0 with static ip 192.168.xx.xx, and wifi as eth1 with dhcp, and usb-ethernet adapter as eth2 when it is plug-in. In Fedora OS, at "/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/" I configured them in ifcfg-eth0, ifcfg-eth1 and ifcfg-eth2 (usb-ethernet) files. Currently I have to run the ifconfig ethX ip_address manually. Thanks a bunch. Cheers Andri ____________________________________________________________________________________ Fussy? Opinionated? Impossible to please? Perfect. Join Yahoo!'s user panel and lay it on us. http://surveylink.yahoo.com/gmrs/yahoo_panel_invite.asp?a=7

2 1

Controlling CPU Frequency
by - Tong - 09 Aug '07

09 Aug '07

Hi, I rebooted my PC the other day, and only then I know that my CPU is overheated, because I saw a BIOS warning. The fact that my CPU might have been overheated for months made me consider seriously to control my CPU frequency (My AMD cpu has that feature available in bios). I've tried to make use powernowd before, but never able to. I should feel lucky this time since the latest kernel that grml 1.0-1 uses, support cpu frequency control by default: http://kernelnewbies.org/Linux_2_6_20 "Grand unification of ACPI based speedstep-centrino and acpi-cpufreq drivers. It combines functionality of these two driver into acpi-cpufreq driver." But the problem is that googling "acpi-cpufreq" didn't come up much result. The closest is from http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=256607 "... you should try the 'acpi-cpufreq' module. My favorite governor is the 'conservative' one. Under load, it will ramp up the frequency, but it will generally keep it as low as possible." But there is no details. So I'm wondering if anyone can help me here? thanks a lot! -- Tong (remove underscore(s) to reply) http://xpt.sourceforge.net/techdocs/ http://xpt.sourceforge.net/tools/

3 8