May 2009 - Grml - lists.mur.at

grml-live vs. debian-live (vs. FAI)
by Darshaka Pathirana 14 May '09

14 May '09

Hi! The subject says it all: I was trying to find out a short outline why one should use the one or the other. As far as I can unsterstand it after a short evaluation is that both are able to do nearly the same. Both use debootstrap and are able to define hooks and afterwards a ISO is created. The advantage of grml-live seems to be the usage of the FAI-class concept but debian-live seems to be the more "official" way to do it. My motivation is a bit different than *-live and FAI provide. *-live are intended to build a Live-CD and FAI deploys a system on a running machine (by PXE or Boot-CD). I do NOT need a bootable ISO. I need the possibility to install Debian into a USB-Device or CF-Card. So I actually use the base.tar.gz (created by FAI or by an other installation) to untar it onto the target from my running system. Afterwards again some hooks are run and the bootloader is installed. I think this is ridiculous! There must be a better way. Any thoughts about this? Thanks && HAND, - Darsha

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Re: [Grml] question related to included Freedos in The GRML distro
by Maurice McCarthy 04 May '09

04 May '09

Dear Janusz, I've had a little time to look. I have 2 computers. one is an Acer laptop one year old. It would not boot freedos at all, initdisk had an opcode failure followed by a list of hex numbers which I do not understand. I tried with the grml cd and a freedos 1.0 live and installation cd. The other is an old Pentium II. It looks to me that freedos boots from CD as a floppy emulation whereas grml boots in non-emulation mode. This means that when you say > If i will type > dos > At The GRML live CD boot prompt, free DOS is sucessfully loaded. But > please, which keys should i press to activate A shell? Because when i > wanted to type > > a: > or c: > > Nothink has happened. Or is there only choice to install free DOS or only > graphical shell is included? then you should already have a prompt A:\> Freedos already thinks it is on the A drive so that if you type a: then nothing changes! When you type c: you ought to get an error message saying no such drive or similar. 2. When booting freedos did you choose the option with himem.sys and emm386 and shcdux (the cd driver?) Unless you have a very old system it is probably wise. 3. Perhaps you might get help from www.freedos.org as freedos on grml is kind of an added extra and I don't know if many people use it. 4. If you boot the grml cd and go grub - any key - down arrow once - enter then it boots freedos with a few utils including the dos port of testdisk. It lands on this prompt A:\TOOLS> Now if you go testdisk /list (perhaps without the backslash) then it will list all the current partitions which it can see from dos. This may give you some info as to why you cannot see the fat32 partition. 5. Lastly unless I find my old XP installation disk to try what you are doing for myself then I'm getting stuck on how else to help. Still if you have more questions then please ask. Best Wishes Moss PS I think you right that a bios by default ought to look at a usb device to boot then a cd and thirdly a hard disk. I cannot imagine that finding a usb sound system should present too much difficulty. Perhaps you should try Apple first. Might sound odd but as their EFI boot is vastly superior to the BIOS (which will be replaced in the not too distant future, I reckon) then it would be an enhancement for Apple above the competition. That is there is something in it for them!

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Can Grml tell (and repair) what Fedora did?
by Hubert Gabler 04 May '09

04 May '09

Dear experts, I have a mini-notebook Acer One with Linpus Lite installed. Playing around with this nice little toy I successfully installed Ubuntu 9.04 (replacing Linpus) and on USB-sticks Debian Live and grml 2008.11-rc1. Everything worked perfectly. Then I wanted to install Fedora 10, which semmed to take more time than expected and so I left the Acer unattended over night. Next day the display was frozen and I tried to reboot with the Grml-USB-Stick. Booting stopped quite soon, telling me "This grml image failed to boot" and "No supported filesystem images found at /live". Then came the prompt (initramfs). Hopefully I tried the (previoulsy working) Debian Live Stick. Same thing, booting stops at (initramfs). Now I decided to start from scratch and made a new setup with Acer's recovery disk. System works fine, but Grml and Debian Live still end booting with those error messages. Can it be that the unsuccessfull Fedora installation damaged for instance the buit-in RAM or did other nasty things? Can I find out with help of Ubuntu or Grml 1.1 (works both from CDROM and from a USB-stick) what is the reason and how to return to the original state? Thankful for any help, Hubert

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Re: [Grml] question related to included Freedos in The GRML distro
by Maurice McCarthy 03 May '09

03 May '09

Dear Janusz I've not been able to look too far yet but I'll make a few comments. 1. smartdrv does appear to be a legal download http://webinstituteforteachers.org/resources/software/BOOTDISKS-FOR-GHOSTIN… is hosted by the University of Chicago 2. From memory freedos boots to X: when launched from the grml disk. I'll try to reproduce your problem of moving to a: or c: when I've got time. 3. It is some time since I've used SBM but you may have to hide other drives to see the FAT32 partition as the first partion of the first hard drive. In grub you would use the map command to make it look like (hd0,0) 4. It is another learning curve but grub4dos is a customisation of grub for Windows with certain enhancements such as looking for bootable partitions and loading them automatically. Again I am not well versed in its use. 5. The legality of dos boot disks may be difficult to say but msdos is no longer supported and I think mscdex (? I think that was the name, MS cd driver) waspreviously given away by microsoft themselves. 6. A brief look at Nlite has me thinking it is a procedure allowing you to manipulate what you paid for and I cannot imagine how it would be illegal. 7. Up to Win XP it is usually best when dual booting to install Windows first and then Linux because XP is too stupid to be aware of other operating systems - hence the necessity of 3 above. All for now Moss On Sat, May 02, 2009 at 04:54:01PM +0200 or thereabouts, Mgr. Janusz Chmiel wrote: > Dear syr, > > I Am deeply and highly appreciating Your kind approach to me. I Am very, > very glad, that there are several Linux live CDS, because those live CDS > and installable Linux distros can be used like a standalone operating > systems. And, this is also very remarkable, those operating systems, if > they are including NTFS3g driver, can help people with no sight to rescue > important data, if those data are not accessible because of corrupted > Windows Xp or even Windows Vista installations. I Am trying to convince > core developers of Linux distros, if they would enable special boot option, > which would forcing The most complex HAL related algorithms, while special > application is communicating with BIOS and is searching for plug and play > devices to search only USB sound cart and ignore all integrated or PCi > connected sound carts. Why? It is inpossible to make live CD, which would > include all awaylable sound carts. There is too many various sound > manufacturers throught out The world. So my wisch is to neable visually > impaired users to choose autodetection algorithms, which would only search > sound devices throught The USB port. But it will probably stay only my > dream. Visually impaired user would become a fully valuable system > administrator, because he or she could access all computers with USB ports. > Eventhough there is theoretical possibility, that there would also be > problems with other hardware, for example with some of integrated chips on > The mother board for example, one of those chips, which can be rewieved by > using Windows XP control panel, device manager and by using system devices > group. > > But detecting USB sound cart would enable visually impaired users, that > specified USB sound carts would be usable on every computer with USB port. > > I will try to discuss it with author of father of all Linux distro, with MR > Klaus Knopper. He developed very complex knoppix and HAL algorithms, i will > looking forward to his opinion. > >

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question related to included Freedos in The GRML distro
by Maurice McCarthy 02 May '09

02 May '09

Dear Janusz I'll gladly try to help but it may be a few days before I can explore this for myself. I have forwarded your email to the grml list in case any one there may have a comment also. Best Wishes Moss ----- Forwarded message from "Mgr. Janusz Chmiel" <chmiel(a)phil.muni.cz> ----- Subject: question related to included Freedos in The GRML distro From: "Mgr. Janusz Chmiel" <chmiel(a)phil.muni.cz> Date: Fri, 1 May 2009 12:57:11 +0200 To: Maurice McCarthy <moss(a)mythic-beasts.com> Dear syr, You have been able to answer all my questions and thank's to You, i were able to install GRML to A harddrive, i also deeply understood The parted commands and other administrative tasks. But i would like to ask You for next question. If i will type dos At The GRML live CD boot prompt, free DOS is sucessfully loaded. But please, which keys should i press to activate A shell? Because when i wanted to type a: or c: Nothink has happened. Or is there only choice to install free DOS or only graphical shell is included? Is it possible to legally download smartdrv.exe or similar equivalent, which installation program for Windows Xp will detect like smartdrv? Thank You very much for Your answers. The program winnt.exe can be used for installing Windows XP from DOS, by using setupmgr.exe running from Windows XP which is fully functional, visually impaired user can make fully unattended Windows XP installation. But i Am experiencing methodological problems, for example, i can not boot To The FAT32 partition, which is containing installation files prepared by using setupmgr.exe application. I can access this partition by using Windows XP boot diskette or Windows 98 Se boot diskette, but i can not boot it by using smart boot manager. Eventhough i set The FAT32 partition as a primary, which is a condition to access this partition from DOS, fortunately, gparted is allowing this, that i did not had to use logical partition with FAT32. I could resize existing NTFS partition, and in The free space, i could specifi right start and end of this FAT32 one. Parted is using reliable and safe algorithms, if user knows, what he is doing with this tool. It is possible to boot DOS if this operating system is being installed by a first operating system, in this case, WIndows XP installation program is making officially supported activity to support booting betveen DOS or Windows XP. But i want to support visually impaired users, so they could perform unattended installation when their instalation of WIndows XP is being corrupted. There are even WEB pages with several DOS boot diskettes, which are having included CD ROM Drivers, but i do not know, if those boot disks are legal to use. And there is not many modern computers with floppy drive, and bioses are not setup by The way, so flash disk can beused for booting. And my algorithms are intended to be fully usable by non sighted users. If YOu would support me, i would be very glad. There is awaylable solution, Nlite, But i Am afraid, that Microsoft will force The author of this program to remove it from The Internet, may be, that he consulted licensing issues with The Microsoft CORP, because his WEB site and Nlite program is existing for many years. Â¨His solution is working very reliably, even sound drivers can be integrated to The .iso file. But i would like to support official tools for deploying Windows XP installation. Visually impaired users are not able to use partition manager included in Windows XP installation, this tool is also enough to make several partitions, but i like parted and Linux, because i can have full control and feetback from A screen reader. Parted is not supporting so many actions like included partition manager in Windows Xp installation. ----- End forwarded message -----

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