[Grml] Installing/configuring plain-Debian system with grml-specific kernel/Speakup/other options

[Michael Whapples]

OK, I'm not fully sure whether what I will suggest will work, but worth 
suggesting it.

I guess you could just add the GRML repositories to the debian system 
and install the desired GRML packages. I imagine for you to do this it 
will require you to chroot into the new system before rebooting.

The one question which possibly needs raising is which branch of debian 
do you intend to use (stable/testing/unstable)? I ask this because I 
think all GRML packages are against unstable.

I think now debian provides speakup and espeakup in unstable (speakup 
may have been provided for some time in stable). As for the wireless, 
well I would imagine the debian kernels to have the same drivers 
available. As for grml-network, while nice may be not the perfect 
solution for an installed system (I don't think it supports network 
profiles, etc for people who move about), may be another tool like wicd 
would be suitable or even better (wicd has a command line, curses and 
gnome interface and is reasonably accessible with a screen reader, could 
be better in some areas for accessibility).

Michael Whapples
On 01/-10/-28163 08:59 PM, Keith Hinton wrote:
> Hi,
> I have read all documentation available throughout http://www.grml.org itself.
> Despite all this, I am presented with a situation that I'm trying to figure out.
> The GRML kernel for quite sometime now (beginning with release 2009.10
> and above) has continued to provide excilent support for my wireless
> card in a new laptop computer that I recently aquired.
> I happily have been executing grml-network to configure the wireless
> card, enable WPA-encryption, and everything else needed to launch
> primary networking on the GRML CD with the Speakup Linux screen
> reader, and as of right now am using present available stable release
> of GRML LiveCD.
> What I am trying to do is:
> 1. Install a Debian system (rather than GRML directly to hard-drive) however:
> 1. Somehow I need grml's kernel (the one compiled for 64-bit support)
> the present available version to somehow be used in the Debian
> environment on my hard-drive, because you folks have already taken
> care of the Speakup modules, and the CPU frequency scailing and other
> options.
> I'm trying to figure out to do that, and the second thing I am asking
> for assistance in doing is:
> How to insure that WPA works out of the box with the given wireless
> network I'm trying to use (or that grml-network) will be able to make
> use out of the Debian system to assist me with this task.
> That's specifically what I'd like to do-I just don't want to have to
> spend millions of hours trying to fight the grml-specific stuff to get
> what I'm trying to get working.
> GRML's kernel is half the battle; the rest of this fight is in getting
> grml-network to work from within the plain Debian system on top of
> having GRML's 2.6.whatever kernel installed rather than the standard
> kernel that Debian would use-because that kernel would then require
> possible manual configuration-and I am not even sure if Speakup itself
> is a Debian package-I assume the GRML team uses Speakup from Debian
> Cid/Unstable.
>
> If anyone from the GRML team could assist me in this matter or if
> anyone else using GRML specifically has any specific ideas on this
> process, I'd appreciate whatever assistance possible.
> While plenty of GRML documentation does exist, there isn't anything
> specific to what I'm trying to have done so that's why I'm asking here
> for any possible suggestions.
> (The hardware works perfectly fine on the GRML LiveCD system.)
> I'm just trying to figure out how to make sure that when I reboot,
> GRML's present kernel will run, along with
> Speakup/espeak/espeakup/etc, along with grml-network etc.
> I could of course install GRML itself via grml2hd, but would rather
> install a plain-Debian system instead.
> Thanks for helping.
>
> Regards, --Keith
>
>