Hi,
GRML is very nice work, my new favorite distro. I'm not a heavy sysadmin; but GRML almost matches some needs here. Since you ask for feedback and wishes...mine relates to grml2hd and the user scenario.
The grml-small release is great for USB flash sticks. Thank you for providing that.
Consider another scenario with grml-big. Think of a "mobile Linux desktop" on this type of device,
http://mobilemag.com/content/100/334/C3401/ http://castle.pricewatch.com/s/search.asp?s=WD+passport&srt=t&his=0&...
These drives have lots of room for less money than flash, without lifespan problems. They sell around US$120 and get cheaper all the time. They allow a mobile user to carry his entire desktop and data between home, work, school, friends, hotel. Let other people carry laptops around, you can boot them too.
GRML doesn't load down heavy stuff in advance, which I like. After GRML installs, I can add GNOME or KDE per user requests.
So, I ran grml2hd to a drive and rebooted...but got a kernel panic. No SCSI, I guess. Next I followed verbatim FAQ instructions, to test the FAQ. Nothing worked.
grml2hd makes the same assumption of all installers: if the OS is going to hard disk, it can ditch drivers and keep only the running system. For example even yaird boasts of doing "a better job of deciding which modules are needed for your system, so it produces smaller images." Culling is evil for the mobile scenario.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but...
Ideally a mobile user boots like the CD-ROM (same ramdisk-based autodetection?), but without compressed CD images, ISOLINUX, or loopback tricks. The mobile user just needs Debian with full hardware auto-detection and all hardware modules.
I would prefer h/w autodetection even on IDE drives inside tower PC cases. That way I can swap boards, memory, ethernet, etc. without breaking configs. I can drop the IDE drive into a USB enclosure for instant mobility.
A few other other ideas:
- the status line at bottom of screen shows date/time *twice* (?!?)
- show IP on the status line (w/ flag for DHCP or static)
- grml2hd could offer multi-partition features, e.g. a separate boot partition
- grml2hd could set up secure partitions -- http://mareichelt.de/pub/texts.cryptoloop.php -- optional choice for all top-levels /home /var and such, except /boot
- grml2hd's X question for the mobile scenario is puzzling; yes the user needs X, but not for a specific PC
- grml-big won't fit on CD-RW media or older (650 MB) CD-R; would be nice to fit on CD-RW, could trim a little to fit
Thanks...GRML is super and I like it.
Mark