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virtual x windows server, possible or not?
by Doug Smith 24 Feb '07

24 Feb '07

This is a really strange question, but I feel that it must be answered, either in the positive or negative in order that I might know if I will be able to continue to compute for the forseeable future. What is the possibility of building a kind of x windows server that is really not a window system at all? What I mean is this: For the past 21 years, as of August 18, 2006, I have used computers, and have done so successfully. I have done it all with text-only systems, on which I have been able to run any program that I have wanted to run. Now, we have a problem, and I mean a big one. It is called the graphical user interface. I do not mean to put anyone down, or show disrespect, for the ways in which other people choose to use computers. What I need is a way to make the programs written for the graphical user interface work on the console so that I will not have to make that change in the future to an interface which I really do not like. Is it possible to take those programs and make them work as I want them to, without losing anymore of their functionality, than the graphical part? For example, a javascript-enabled browser such as mozilla or firefox should be able to render its output as text, while still able to perform all of its functionality with the exception of that which directly involves images. Is this possible? What if I want to use an office application, or some kind of video-intensive program, but I only need the messages and other text stuff they put out? What I am asking is this: Since the x-windows libraries, support applications, and other components are on grml, is it possible to use these to make a kind of virtual x server that will render things on the console so that I can continue to use speakup? Speakup is the best speech interface I have used in all the time I have been using computers, and I like it. If there are any takers on the list, that is, sighted people who want to work with me so that we can get this project going, please feel free to contact me. Most sincerely: -- I use grml (http://grml.org/)

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problem with swspeak on amd 64 X 2 dual core.
by Doug Smith 24 Feb '07

24 Feb '07

Ok, here we go again. I have a question to ask you before my wife buys me a new system. She told me that she would get me a new AMD 64 X 2 dual core, and that I can get it in any configuration I want. Of course, I want the media center edition with the radio/tv tuner card, the a/v in and out, and the big drive and boat-loads of memory, but I need to ask you about this: Ok, when I go into any store, this has happened two times in the last couple or three weeks. When I put the disk into the drive on one of the display models and start it back up, right there, in front of everyone in the store, and I am supposed to know what to do with a computer, the swspeak fails. Here's what happens, to the best of my understanding. First of all, my wife along with the store employee are watching to see if the thing will work. Neither of them knows jack swish about a talking computer. Well, everything, as far as the hardware is detected, and it tells me to just run swspeak when the boot sequence is finished, though I never hear this. Well, I just run swspeak when everything is finished. I get a message about having "failed to write 128 samples." Does this have to do with the kind of on-board sound hardware on the machine, or not?:"Should I have this disabled in the bios when I buy the machine, and just put my soundblaster live ls in it or what? Should I run a sound configuration program in GRML to detect this new sound hardware? I just want to know. I hope that there is nothing totally fatal in the system that makes GRML not boot on one of these machines. I really like GRML and plan to use it. Should I not get a system like this, or is there sopme simple fix? Thank you very much. -- I use grml (http://grml.org/)

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Grub on USB Stick
by Patrick 23 Feb '07

23 Feb '07

Hi Together I'm trying to boot from my USB-Stick. I have an CF-USB adapter 512MB and a 4GB Stick. Both have the same problem. After an grml2usb my Genode-System won't boot. So I mad it with Grub. My /boot/grub/menue.lst: title Grml minirt root (hd0,0) kernel /boot/vmlinu root=/dev/sda1 ro acpi=off ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us usb apm=power-off vga=791 nomce BOOT_IMAGE=grml initrd /boot/minirt.img boot I had to make an initrd.img and I made it like wirtten in the wiki: #update-initramfs -u -t -k $(uname -r) I got: Could not stat the resume device file.... /scripts/init-bottom |no such file or directory /root/sys |no such file or directory /proc |no such file or directory so I tried it again with the original minirt26.gz. after a #gzip -d minirt26.gz and renamed as minirt26.img i can boot with grub but I got now only: Could not stat the resume device file.... /scripts/local-bottom |done Begin: Running /scripts/init-bottom... mount: Mounting /root/dev on /dev/.static/dev faild: No such file or directory

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Pondering a mid-size grml...
by Juergen Fiedler 20 Feb '07

20 Feb '07

Wouldn't it be nice to have a grml that would fit on an 8cm CD? I'm playing around with adding things to grml_small (being that stipping the big one down seems rather intimidating), but having an official release in the 200M size range would be even nicer. I'm envisioning something that still has the man pages and some basic X tools. The big hurdle for me right now are actually the man pages, being that reinstalling everything just to get the accompanying man pages is a pretty big project - but then again, remastering a Live CD is pretty much supposed to be big. Is there any chance of there being an official release somewhere between grml_small and grml (regular)? Even just a version of small without stuff being stripped post install would be a mightily cool thing. Thanks for a cool distribution :) --j

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Why does the speech system like to spell instead of read words?
by Doug Smith 15 Feb '07

15 Feb '07

Hello, once more, and probably for the last time for a while. I know I am really bothering people on here, so I will leave it alone after this one. I have to use the speech on here so I have to make sure that it is really working well. It is except for one minor thing. How do I keep the speech system from jumkping into this strange mode where it likes to spell everything letter by letter, and, rather slowly, at that, rather than just read the words. Is there a way to correct this? I will get it done. Thank you. -- I use grml (http://grml.org/)

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remastering a live cd, Can someone explain it to me?
by Doug Smith 15 Feb '07

15 Feb '07

I knownow this is a real strange one. I am, however, feeling more and more comfortable on this list, and I thought it might be possible to understand something that I have wondered about for a couple of years. What I want to know is how do you actually make a live cd? What I mean is this, and I will explain what I mean in more detail. Ok, starting from a running grml system on your development machine, all the programs are on there, the bugs are out, to the best of your knowledge, and you are ready to make a new release. What is done to get from that to the iso file system with its large compressed file system, and the other files that are with it. I know how to make an iso-9660 file system, at least, well enough to make a cd, but how do you make the thing bootable? How does the technology work that is used to compress the software and documentation down? How does the thing know which parts of this large file to use when accessing programs? Why I wonder this is, I like to add in a few packages that I use. I would like to have my own disk with config files, new packages and more so that I can just set up on any machine and rock and roll. If you don't have the time to explain this to me in full detail, do you know of a good reference where I can just read about it and get all the detæils? I really appreciate this, because the person who tried to explain this to me before, didn't put on a lievl where I could understand it. I am sorry to come on here with such strange questions, but I hope there is a simply-understood answer for this one. Thank you. -- I use grml (http://grml.org/)

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txt2tags
by Mark 15 Feb '07

15 Feb '07

http://txt2tags.sourceforge.net/docs.html definitely a text tool..related, http://txt2tags.wordpress.com/2007/02/03/wixi-a-desktop-wiki-powered-by-txt…

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vim, grml 0.9 on hd - strange characters after using backspace
by Frank Eisenblaetter 12 Feb '07

12 Feb '07

I have a strange problem with vim. When I use backspace to delete some characters while I am in instering mode, there appear blanks or other characters which I definitely not typed. example: [a], [backspace], [a] results in the folowing character å Maybe it has something to do with unicode. I use unicode_start in /etc/zsh/zlogin. Regards, Frank

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One more question I have to ask, sorry.
by Doug Smith 12 Feb '07

12 Feb '07

- Ok, let's try this one again. This time, a little more careful with vim and it should be fine. Now, I believe I can get the vim problem solved here. I will just be careful with it. I have one more question, rather couple of questions to ask about the mkpersistenthome script. It appears to me, and I may be totally wrong, that the mkpersistenthome script does not work. When I try to make my persistent home directory on the usb device I have, I cannot get past the part of the script where it asks you for the partition to put the image file onto. How do I move and select the item in the menu for the partition /dev/sda1 and make it go on past that? Now, the only other question I have is this. I used to use a knoppix knock-off. This is what the Oralux distribution is based on. However, there appear to be many more packages here than in this version. The good thing I miss is this: On Oralux, and you can try it by downloading the file: http://oralux.rs.sr/Oralux_0.7.iso You have this program called knoppix-mkimage, which allows you to create this kind of virtual hard disk image of your entire system. Then, through the wonders of unionfs, you can have the usb device mounted, boot the cd, and you can have this image where you can install your favorite packages on the hard drive, and the unionfs will bring it all together and put the files into the right directories. Does grml do this with þhe mkpersistenthome script? Thank you for your information. I look forward to hearing from you about this. Thank you. - I use grml (http://grml.org/)

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Well, blast, I'll have to try that one again.
by Doug Smith 11 Feb '07

11 Feb '07

To whom it may concern: My name is Doug Smith. I just want to let you know that I am really enjoying my new grml system. However, I have a few quick questions I need to ask you so that I can still get more out of it. First of all, I wish to thank you for including speech output in the system. This is the only way I have of using computers at all. I am blind, and, of course, a monitor will do me no good at all. You solved that one for me. I would also like to thank you for including brltty in here as well. This is very good for people who like to use computers by means of a braille monitor. This is the message I meant to send out last night, but, wow, I found myself trapped inside the editor with no way out. I discovered, much to my surprise, that the environment variable EDITOR is set to vim which is fine with me, except for the small problem I have of not knowing how to use vim. How, when using vim with mutt, the mail client I use, do you get into the menu which allows you to send the message. I wrote the last night's message with nano, which I can use, then tried to send it out and found myself trapped inside vim with no way to get back into mutt. Well, now that you know why you received a blank message last evening, let me continue. The next question concerns the install I did, with grml2hd, on a usb hard drive. When I did the install, I made the initrd as instructed. Now, there was something in a previous message about which file in the initrd needs to be edited to make the usb boot work as it should. Which file is that, and what needs to be changed. I have never done this before. Now, the third and final question I have has to do with the compression technology used to make the compressed GRML file. How does that work? How can so much data be put onto the cd and, then, the system know which parts to decompress to get the programs you want to use? This leads me to a new idea. Is it possible to make a new way to install software into the system? The way it would work is this: Just put the system onto the hard drive with grml tohd. Now, we need to boot with grml fromhd and we can get started. Ok, let's select a piece of software to install, for this example, the missing binary codecs for mplayer. Can this somehow be done? Why can't the image file on the hard drive have the relevant parts decompressed, just as in memory, written back to the drive, the new files introduced into these directories, then the compressed image file re-made just as it was before, except with the new files. Is this possible, using the same decompression scenario as is used with the decompression of needed programs in memory for use? Well, that's about it for now. I hope to get this one out with no problems. I appollogize for the messiness of this letter. Until I can use mutt with vim, I have to use the emulated mailx composition mode and try to press returnin the proper positions before running off the lines and losing data. Once more thank you for such a wonderful system. I am more than glad to have it. I just want to learn more about it to be able to use it better. Thank you. Doug Smith

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