- -

Release Notes for grml-small 2010.04 - codename Grmlmonster

- -

About

- -

Grml is a bootable live system (Live-CD) based on Debian. It - includes a collection of GNU/Linux software especially for system - administrators and users of texttools. Grml provides automatic hardware - detection. You can use Grml (for example) as a rescue system, for - analyzing systems/networks or as a working environment. It is not - necessary to install anything to a harddisk; you don't even need a - harddisk to run it. Due to on-the-fly decompression Grml includes about - 2 GB of software and documentation on the CD.

- -

Whereas Grml provides about 2 GB of software on a 700 MB ISO, grml-small is a flavor with only ~100 MB - ISO-size (~275 MB uncompressed). It does not provide a lot of software - but the essential stuff for being a rescue system on a business card - CD-ROM or a small USB device. You can use the Debian package management - system to install software on the fly (assuming you have network access - to a Debian mirror). Take a look at the 'Debian-Information'-section if you are searching for - the package list.

- -

New features

- -

Special new features:

- -

dmraid related bootoptions: nodmraid to not - enable present dmraid devices, - dmraid=on to automatically enable any present dmraid devices and - dmraid=off to actively try to stop any possibly present dmraid - devices. - -
New bootoption bootid for improving reliability - of boot process. The specified argument to the bootoption is matched - against a token on the ISO to make sure that only the correct Grml - version gets booted.
More robust network booting: The last Grml - release (2009.10) already invented the ethdevice= bootoption which - allows you to specify a specific NIC for booting. The bootoption - ethdevice and its surrounding code has been extended so it is possible to specify - multiple devices at once that should be configured. If you don't have - any specific configuration all present NICs will be used for - configuration via DHCP automatically. Visit the - Grml developer blog for further information - -
Providing an improved default configuration for - top(1) utility when running as (non-root) user - -
Improved serial console handling through - /etc/inittab*. Using normal getty instead of mgetty and several baud - rate settings (115200,57600,38400,19200,9600,4800,2400,1200) to let - getty figure out which mode should be used. - -

- -

New features in Grml's Zsh

- -

new function changed() - -
zshrc: map backtab to reverse-menu-complete - -
smarter C-z shortcut - -
Switch `minimal-shell()' from ksh93 to mksh - -
Use wrapper functions for changing title/screen - -
Some minor bugfixes and code enhancements - -

- -

Major changes in grml-scripts:

- -

grml-quickconfig: rewritten from scratch with proper customisation support, now being shipped through - new Debian package grml-quickconfig - -
Remove deprecated bt-audio script - -
grml-setlang: do not set LC_CTYPE any longer - -
grml-hostname: address xauth issue - -
zsh-login: do not disable grml-quickconfig for serial console - -
grml-info: improve support for customisation - -

- -

grml2usb (install Grml ISO(s) on usb device for booting):

- -

Mount vfat devices with explicit iocharset option -
Support bootid bootoption -
Also set GRML_DEFAULT when running with --dry-run -
Make sure that --grub-mbr requires --grub -
... some minor bugfixes - -

- -

Visit the usb webpage - in the Grml wiki and grml.org/grml2usb for - more details regarding grml2usb.

- -

grml-debootstrap (wrapper around debootstrap for installing plain Debian via Grml):

- -

Add support for specifying filesystem + provide /etc/network/interfaces.examples -
Introduce option --nopackages -
Display executed debootstrap cmdline when running it -
Introduce --pre-scripts to be executed before chroot-scripts -
Remove cached debs by default to reduce diskpace during bootstrap -
Support and enable per default --keyring option -
... plus some bugfixes and minor enhancements - -

- -

Visit grml.org/grml-debootstrap/ for more - details regarding grml-debootstrap.

- -

Kernel

- -

Based on vanilla kernel 2.6.33.2 including several patches and the aufs module.

- -

Visit grml.org/kernel/ for more details - regarding Grml's kernel.

- -

Bugfixes

- -

Fixed several bugs and issues reported on grml-small_2009.10 @ - grml-wiki and in the bug - tracking system.

- -

Important Changes

- -

Bootoption home has been dropped, the persistency - feature present since 2009.10 replaces this option.
Grml uses lang=en as default instead of lang=us - if no 'lang' bootoption has been specified.
Grml's udev package has been dropped in favour of Debian's plain - version and adding Grml specified configuration and scripts through - Debian package grml-udev-config.
As the bootoption bootid is used as default - bootoption you need to make sure that you've an according and valid - bootid=... entry in your kernel cmdline or use the ignore_bootid - bootoption to skip the boot id check. This is especially relevant for - grml2usb installations (make sure to use a recent grml2usb version) as - well as booting with isofrom/findiso bootoptions from harddisks.

- -

Packages / Software

- -

Details about shipped packages and their versions on grml are - available at the Debian section. Visit dpkg_get_selections - for a main package listing and dpkg_list for a more - detailed list of packages shipped with Grml 2010.04.

- -

Updates

- -

Updated all packages to Debian Unstable branch by 24st of march - 2010 (plus some further selected updates).

- -

Removed 2 packages (excluding lib* and *2.6.31-grml*) - please - notice that some of them are available under - different names/in different packages:

- -

-  *2.6.31-grml* lib*
-
-  gcc-4.3-base grml-scanpartitions
-

- -

Added 10 new packages (exluding lib* and *2.6.33-grml*):

- -

-  acpi-support-base gettext-base grml-quickconfig 
-  grml-quickconfig-standard grml-udev-config 
-  jfsutils kexec-tools mksh slsh ufsutils
-

- -

Major changes since release 2009.10 (20091031)

- -

Grml goes microblogging.
New Grml developer mailinglist.

- -

Known issues

- -

Take a look at grml-small_2010.04 @ grml-wiki. - Please report problems using information on grml.org/bugs/.

- -

Download grml-small 2010.04

- -

grml-small 2010.04 can be downloaded from the mirrors listed on grml.org/download/.

- -

Feedback

- -

Your comments, bug reports, patches, and suggestions will help - fixing bugs and improving future releases. If you find a problem with - the release please check grml-small_2010.04 @ - grml-wiki and report problems using information on grml.org/bugs/. Please send your feedback and - feature requests to the grml-team!

- -

Thanks

- -

Many thanks (alphabetically) in this release go to - Alexander Menk, - Andras Korn, - Axel Beckert, - Christoph Biedl, - Christian Hofstaedtler, - Daniel Borkmann, - Gregor Perner, - Jordan Uggla, - Mark Jonas, - Moritz Augsburger, - Pawel Sadkowski, - Richard Hartmann, - Sedat Dilek, - Stefan Weiss, - Suhanov Maxim, - Timo Boettcher, - Thomas Arendsen Hein, - Tong Sun, - XuÃ¢n Baldauf and - Zoran Dzelajlija - for their contributions.

- -

More Information

- -

You can find out more about grml on our website, IRC channel, and wiki. - -

To sign up for future Grml announcements, please subscribe to Grml's - announcement list.

- -

If you are interested in development releases grab the daily ISOs - from daily.grml.org.

- -

Further Questions?

- -

Please feel free to contact us.

- -