grml 2009.05 released

Hi grml fans,

on behalf of the grml team, I'm proud to be able to announce a new
stable release:

grml 2009.05 with codename Lackdose-Allergie, available in flavours
grml, grml-medium and grml-small and all of them as 32bit and 64bit
version has been released.

The official release announcements providing all the relevant news
are available at:

  grml          => http://grml.org/changelogs/README-grml-2009.05/
  grml64        => http://grml.org/changelogs/README-grml64-2009.05/
  grml-medium   => http://grml.org/changelogs/README-grml-medium-2009.05/
  grml64-medium => http://grml.org/changelogs/README-grml64-medium-2009.05/
  grml-small    => http://grml.org/changelogs/README-grml-small-2009.05/
  grml64-small  => http://grml.org/changelogs/README-grml64-small-2009.05/

Issues regarding the releases can be found in the grml-wiki at:

  grml          => http://wiki.grml.org/doku.php?id=grml_2009.05
  grml64        => http://wiki.grml.org/doku.php?id=grml64_2009.05
  grml-medium   => http://wiki.grml.org/doku.php?id=grml-medium_2009.05
  grml64-medium => http://wiki.grml.org/doku.php?id=grml64-medium_2009.05
  grml-small    => http://wiki.grml.org/doku.php?id=grml-small_2009.05
  grml64-small  => http://wiki.grml.org/doku.php?id=grml64-small_2009.05

If you're interested in the main changes between rc1 of 2009.05 and
the stable release:

Still no start of the CD on my desktop machine

Hi,
just downloaded and burned the latest GRML CD, and I had to notice that I 
still cannot start it on my desktop machine like all the others since 
2008-11.
So has anything changed regarding this bug?
Hermann

Re: The installed GRML boots very slow

* Hermann <meinelisten <at> onlinehome.de> [20090522 16:14]:

> while checking out your list archive, I found that this was brought up
> some months ago, but I repeat it:
> I installed the release candidate of GRML 2008-11 on my desktop machine,
> and since that I had to observe a slow boot process.
> My hard drive start spinning and then stops for a long time till it
> starts moving again. I guess that in the meantime there runs the
> hardware detection. But why lasts this procedure so long?
[...]
> Anything wrong with that entries?
> What can I change? I remember that deactivating udev detection is no
> good idea.

When booting with noudev the problem isn't visible?
If so try finding out which driver takes so long to initialize.
Look at output of lsmod of a system running without the use of
noudev and manually load the drivers. Also check out dmesg and the
timing information at the beginning of each line.

regards,
-mika-
--

-- 
 http://grml.org/            # Linux for texttool-users and sysadmins
 http://wiki.grml.org/       # share your knowledge
 http://grml.supersized.org/ # the grml development weblog
 #grml  <at>  irc.freenode.org    # meet us on irc

* Hermann <meinelisten <at> onlinehome.de> [20090522 16:14]:

Re: Why does GRML mix up the stable and teh unstable branche in apt?

* Hermann <meinelisten <at> onlinehome.de> [20090526 13:48]:

> a few weeks ago, I installed Gnome on my GRML 2008-11.
> Since Gnome shipps a lot of updates, I got a lot of stuff from the
> unstable branche of the repo.
> This results in screwing up my system, especially Gnome.
> So I commented out the unstable branche and removed comment chars from
> the testing branche; the stability was much better.
> But due to the lack of performance I finally got rid of Gnome.
> But the question stays: Why is stable and unstable mixed up on GRML,
> instead of including the testing branche?
> With one exception, this mixing caused no problem on the text console.

grml is based on plain Debian/unstable.

That stable/testing might look more stable to you is because
you're using an older release which used packages at that time from
Debian/unstable which are part of Debian stable/testing nowadays.

regards,
-mika-
--

-- 
 http://grml.org/            # Linux for texttool-users and sysadmins
 http://wiki.grml.org/       # share your knowledge
 http://grml.supersized.org/ # the grml development weblog
 #grml  <at>  irc.freenode.org    # meet us on irc

* Hermann <meinelisten <at> onlinehome.de> [20090526 13:48]:

Re: Strange messages when performing "modprobe"

* Hermann <meinelisten <at> onlinehome.de> [20090526 14:29]:

> when I perform a "modprobe", I get the following strange messages:

> WARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/rng-tools, it will
> be ignored in a future release.
[...]
> What does this mean?

It means what it says: the config file need to be renamed in the
long run for a future release of module-init-tools.
See http://blog.bofh.it/debian/id_236

regards,
-mika-
--

-- 
 http://grml.org/            # Linux for texttool-users and sysadmins
 http://wiki.grml.org/       # share your knowledge
 http://grml.supersized.org/ # the grml development weblog
 #grml  <at>  irc.freenode.org    # meet us on irc

* Hermann <meinelisten <at> onlinehome.de> [20090526 14:29]:

> when I perform a "modprobe", I get the following strange messages:

> WARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/rng-tools, it will
> be ignored in a future release.
[...]
> What does this mean?

Re: Still no start of the CD on my desktop machine

* Hermann <meinelisten <at> onlinehome.de> [20090601 15:50]:

> just downloaded and burned the latest GRML CD, and I had to notice that I 
> still cannot start it on my desktop machine like all the others since 
> 2008-11.
> So has anything changed regarding this bug?

According to the output of lspci you sent to me it's:

| IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06)

Did you try booting via 'failsafe'?

regards,
-mika-
--

-- 
 http://grml.org/            # Linux for texttool-users and sysadmins
 http://wiki.grml.org/       # share your knowledge
 http://grml.supersized.org/ # the grml development weblog
 #grml  <at>  irc.freenode.org    # meet us on irc

* Hermann <meinelisten <at> onlinehome.de> [20090601 15:50]:

> just downloaded and burned the latest GRML CD, and I had to notice that I 
> still cannot start it on my desktop machine like all the others since 
> 2008-11.
> So has anything changed regarding this bug?

According to the output of lspci you sent to me it's:

Re: grml2hd udev

* markus <markus <at> lauffilm.com> [20090524 17:27]:

> i have installed the latest grml (schluchtenscheisser). everything was 
> working out of the box and i upgraded (aptitude safe-upgrade) to the 
> latest packages. after a reboot everything was working.
> after another reboot udev doesn't work anymore (it hangs at populating 
> /dev) and i have to boot with 'noudev' to get it to start. but  now i 
> can't access any device like the nw-card, or usb-stick anymore. does 
> anyone know about that problem and how to fix it ?

Did you upgrade the kernel as well?
Try booting grml live system, check output of lsmod and try
to manually load the drivers on your harddisk installation
booted with noudev and figure out which driver might cause the
problem.

regards,
-mika-
--

-- 
 http://grml.org/            # Linux for texttool-users and sysadmins
 http://wiki.grml.org/       # share your knowledge
 http://grml.supersized.org/ # the grml development weblog
 #grml  <at>  irc.freenode.org    # meet us on irc

* markus <markus <at> lauffilm.com> [20090524 17:27]:

> i have installed the latest grml (schluchtenscheisser). everything was 
> working out of the box and i upgraded (aptitude safe-upgrade) to the 
> latest packages. after a reboot everything was working.

Re: I got Espeakup finally to work

* Michael Whapples <mwhapples <at> aim.com> [20090528 12:28]:

> Good to hear you've got it working. While you didn't ask for it, I can 
> imagine it would be useful, would you like the swspeak script to 
> identify your language and start espeakup with the correct -V option? My 
> idea is that all this stuff should be as transparent to the user as 
> possible (IE. you've set your language, the console may be using your 
> language, so why should you need to set extra for your speech to speak 
> your language). Or would it be better to be an espeakup enhancement to 
> auto detect your language? If I get time I may look at this.

> Any thoughts, personally I would have thought espeakup would be the 
> better place although swspeak script may be easier for me to modify.

grml has all the relevant options for handling language stuff, so if
espeakup just needs to be started with some special options when
using german settings (using lang=de) with swspeak this shouldn't be
a big deal, yes.

Michael, you seem to be very good at all the swspeak/espeakup/...
related stuff. Are you interested in helping us in better
integration of swspeak/espeakup/... at grml? I don't have any active
developers working on accessibility in grml (so far I'm doing all
that stuff on my own), so I'd highly welcome you as a contributor.

regards,
-mika-
--

-- 
 http://grml.org/            # Linux for texttool-users and sysadmins
 http://wiki.grml.org/       # share your knowledge

Re: The installed GRML boots very slow

On 01.06.2009 at 23:59:41 Michael Prokop <mika <at> grml.org> wrote:

> * Hermann <meinelisten <at> onlinehome.de> [20090522 16:14]:
>
>> while checking out your list archive, I found that this was brought up
>> some months ago, but I repeat it:
>> I installed the release candidate of GRML 2008-11 on my desktop machine,
>> and since that I had to observe a slow boot process.
>> My hard drive start spinning and then stops for a long time till it
>> starts moving again. I guess that in the meantime there runs the
>> hardware detection. But why lasts this procedure so long?
> [...]
>> Anything wrong with that entries?
>> What can I change? I remember that deactivating udev detection is no
>> good idea.
>
> When booting with noudev the problem isn't visible?
> If so try finding out which driver takes so long to initialize.

How can I change boot options on an installed system?

> Look at output of lsmod of a system running without the use of
> noudev and manually load the drivers. Also check out dmesg and the
> timing information at the beginning of each line.
>
I've checked taht, but I don't really understand what all the entries
mean?
May I send you the output?
Hermann

Re: Still no start of the CD on my desktop machine

On 02.06.2009 at 00:10:12 Michael Prokop <mika <at> grml.org> wrote:

> * Hermann <meinelisten <at> onlinehome.de> [20090601 15:50]:
>
>> just downloaded and burned the latest GRML CD, and I had to notice that I 
>> still cannot start it on my desktop machine like all the others since 
>> 2008-11.
>> So has anything changed regarding this bug?
>
> According to the output of lspci you sent to me it's:
>
> | IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06)
>
Something wrong with that?

> Did you try booting via 'failsafe'?
>
Yes, same result.
The CD hangs after a while, and if there's no way to pipe the output of
the screen to a file, I fear we can't clarify things.
Hermann