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Kernel

The kernel 2.6 provided by the grml system is based on the latest stable(!) vanilla kernel (taken from kernel.org) we consider as 'useful and working'. The grml-kernel includes several patches and modules. If you experience any problems please don't hesitate to contact us!

grml 1.1 / grml-medium 0.1

Releases grml 1.1 and grml-medium 0.1 provide kernel 2.6.23:

grml@grml ~ % uname -a
Linux grml 2.6.23-grml #1 SMP PREEMPT Sun Dec 16 17:36:58 CET 2007 i686 GNU/Linux

The kernel configuration of 2.6.23-grml is available online.

grml64 0.2 / grml64-medium 0.1

Releases grml64 0.2 and grml64-medium 0.1 provide kernel 2.6.23:

grml@grml ~ % uname -a
Linux grml64 2.6.23-grml64 #2 SMP PREEMPT Sat Dec 15 16:33:51 CET 2007 x86_64 GNU/Linux

The kernel configuration of 2.6.23-grml64 is available online.

Notice: grml64[-medium] does not provide speakup support.

grml-small 0.4

Release grml-small 0.4 provides kernel 2.6.20:

grml@grml ~ % uname -a
Linux grml 2.6.20-grml-small #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri May 4 00:07:07 CEST 2007 i686 GNU/Linux

The kernel configuration of 2.6.20-grml-small is available online.

Notice: grml-small does not ship any further extra kernel packages besides the core kernel packages and lacks speakup support.

Kernel Patches of 2.6.23-grml[64]

Find more information about the patches used in the grml-kernel in the grml-kernel repository.

Speakup

Speakup is a screen reader/speech access system for the GNU/Linux Operating System, used by people who are blind.

Modules shipped with grml 1.1

Additionally to the patched kernel you'll find some extra modules on your grml-system.

Package grml-kerneladdons

This package contains release specific kernel modules where no extra debian package exists yet. The following drivers are included:

acx100

Drivers for Texas Instruments' ACX100/ACX111 wireless network chips. This includes DWL-[G]520+ PCI, DWL-[G]650+ CardBus, GL-2422MP mini-PCI, DWL-120+ USB, etc.

at76-usb

Driver for the Atmel AT76 based USB WLAN adapters. Currently, the driver has no promiscous, monitor or station mode and no support for libpcap, i.e. it does not work with Kismet or Airsnort and it cannot act as an WLAN access point. This is a restriction imposed by the current firmware.

atl2

atl2 is the Linux Base Driver for the Atheros(R) L2 Fast Ethernet Adapter. The the Atheros(R) L2 Fast Ethernet Adapter is present in a few low cost Asus laptop systems, such as the Asus Eee PC.

aufs

Another Unionfs implementation, check out the feature section on the project homepage for further details.

bcm5700

Linux driver for the Broadcom BCM5700 series Ethernet Network Controllers.

drbd8

RAID 1 over TCP/IP for Linux. Drbd is a block device which is designed to build high availability clusters by providing a virtual shared device which keeps disks in nodes synchronised using TCP/IP. This simulates RAID 1 but avoiding the use of uncommon hardware (shared SCSI buses or Fibre Channel). It is currently limited to fail-over HA clusters.

exmap

Exmap is a memory analysis tool which allows you to accurately determine how much physical memory and swap is used by individual processes and shared libraries on a running system. In particular, it accounts for the sharing of memory and swap between different processes.

Notice: exmap isn't shipped by the grml 0.7 Live-CD because it requires too much space. Run 'apt-get update; apt-get install exmap' to install it.

gspca

The gpsca video for linux (v4l) driver, provides support for webcams and digital cameras based on the spca5xx range of chips manufactured by SunPlus, Sonix, Z-star, Vimicro, Conexant, Etoms, Mars-semi, Pixart and Transvision. The gspca driver is a rewrite of the well known spca5xx v4l kernel module from the same author, Michel Xhaard.

iscsitarget

The aim of the project is to develop an open source iSCSI target with professional features, that works well in enterprise environment under real workload, and is scalable and versatile enough to meet the challenge of future storage needs and developements. We provide this kernel module for backwards compability, you might want to use the iscsi driver named stgt of 2.6.20 as well.

ipw3945

The Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection driver. grml ships ipw3945d (Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Daemon) and ipw3945-ucode (microcode for Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection Adapter) as well. (Notice: the driver is not an extra module package but has been patched into the grml-kernel itself.)

ivtv

The primary goal of the IvyTV Project is to create a kernel driver for the iTVC15 familiy of MPEG codecs. The iTVC15 family includes the iTVC15 (CX24315) and iTVC16 (CX24316). These chips are commonly found on Hauppauge's WinTV PVR-250 and PVR-350 TV capture cards. (Take a look at 'Hauppauge PVR250' in the grml-wiki.)

kqemu

The QEMU Accelerator Module increases the speed of QEMU when a PC is emulated on a PC. It runs most of the target application code directly on the host processor to achieve near native performance. It is very useful when you want to run another Operating System (for example Windows) on a Linux desktop.

linux-wlan-ng

linux-wlan-ng is a set of drivers and utilities that is intended to provide the full range of IEEE 802.11 MAC management capabilities for use in user-mode utilities and scripts. The package currently supports the Intersil 802.11b Prism2, Prism2.5, and Prism3 reference designs for PCMCIA, PCI, and USB. Additionally, the package includes support for the PLX9052 based PCI to PCMCIA adapter with a few different PCMCIA cards.

loop-aes

loop-AES can be used to encrypt disk partitions, removable media, swap space and other devices. It provides measures to strengthen the encryption: Passphrase seeds, multiple hash iterations, MD5 IV and use of alternating encryption keys.

lzma

LZMA is a compression algorithm, based on the famous Lempel Ziv compression method. The main characteristics of the algorithm are very good compression, fast decompression, use of lot of RAM for compression and low usage of RAM for decompression. LZMA provides high compression ratio and very fast decompression, and is used in combination with Squashfs at grml.

madwifi(-ng)

Driver for Atheros-based Wireless LAN devices - the Multiband Atheros Driver for WiFi (madwifi). (The madwifi drivers are the ones known as madwifi-ng)

ndiswrapper

Some vendors do not release specifications of the hardware or provide a linux driver for their wireless network cards. ndiswrapper provides a linux kernel module that loads and runs Ndis (Windows network driver API) drivers supplied by the vendors.

nozomi

kernel driver for the GlobeTrotter 3G EDGE PC Card (HSDPA-prepared). Serial Numbers can be used to identify this model. Look for SNR: NZ. Driver and PC Card are provided by Option Wireless Technology.

openafs

The AFS distributed filesystem. AFS is a distributed filesystem allowing cross-platform sharing of files among multiple computers. Facilities are provided for access control, authentication, backup and administrative management.

Notice: the module is named libafs.ko on grml 0.7. Running 'modprobe openafs' works because of a symlink, but the loaded module is named libafs anyway so run 'rmmod libafs' to remove it.

qc-usb-modules

The qc-usb-modules package contains a kernel module to drive Logitech's USB-based QuickCam Express webcam and other cameras with similar chipsets.

realtime-lsm

Scripts for handling the realtime Linux security module. It sets up the system to grant realtime permissions to applications in the realtime group.

r6040

This is a linux device driver for RDC Semiconductor R6040 PCI Fast Ethernet Controller which can be found in Vortex86SX - Fault Tolerance x86 System-on-Chip.

rt2x00

Linux driver for wireless 802.11b and 802.11g cards that are based on the Ralink rt2400 and rt2500 chipsets. grml provides drivers for rt2400, rt2500 and rt73.

sl-modem

Low-level drivers for the software modems produced by Smart Link Ltd. It supports PCI and USB models.

Squashfs

Squashfs is a compressed read-only filesystem for Linux. Squashfs is intended for general read-only filesystem use, for archival use (i.e. in cases where a .tar.gz file may be used), and in constrained block device/memory systems (e.g. embedded systems) where low overhead is needed.
Via using the module loop it is possible to mount a filesystem file. squashfs is a "loop" with (de)compression (Compressed Loopback Device) and it is possible to mount a compressed filesystem like a block device and seamlessly decompress its data while accessing it.
Whereas Knoppix uses the cloop mechanism, grml is based on the newer mechanism squashfs. The filesystem has been compressed into the file "/live/grml.squashfs" and is mounted by the initial init process using squashfs.

sysprof

Sysprof is a sampling CPU profiler that uses a Linux kernel module to profile the entire system, not just a single application. Sysprof handles shared libraries and applications do not need to be recompiled. In fact they don't even have to be restarted.

tp-smapi

The tp_smapi kernel module exposes some features of the ThinkPad hardware/firmware via a sysfs interface. Currently, the main implemented functionality is control of battery charging and extended battery status. The underlfying hardware interfaces are SMAPI and direct access to the embedded controller.

truecrypt

TrueCrypt manages encrypted TrueCrypt volumes, which can be mapped as virtual block devices and used as any other standard block device. All data being read from a mapped TrueCrypt volume is transparently decrypted and all data being written to it is transparently encrpyted.

Any further wishes, feedback, bug reports? Please contact us!