FAQ for grml

grml is a bootable CD (Live-CD) once based on Knoppix and nowadays based on Debian. grml includes a collection of GNU/Linux software especially for users of texttools and system administrators. grml provides automatic hardware detection. You can use grml as a rescue system, for analyzing systems/networks, or as a working environment. It is not necessary to install anything to a harddisk. Due to on-the-fly decompression grml includes about 2.1 GB of software and documentation on the CD.

Where do I get grml?

You can download grml of course: take a look at grml.org/download/. If you want to get an original grml-CD including the grml-cover, need a special amount of CDs or want your own special grml-CD (including your logo, your software and/or special settings) please don't hesitate to contact us! Take a look at grml-solutions for more information regarding our offers.

What does grml mean?

grml is short for 'grummel' and comes close to 'argl' or 'grrr' in English. People use this when they want to express their dissatisfaction/discontentedness with software (amongst other things):

$ grep -ch grml .centericq/**/history | xargs echo | \
  sed 's/[0-9]*/& + /g' | sed 's/+ $//g' | bc -l
3746

How do you pronounce grml?

% flite -o play -t gremel

What about the release name?

Codename of grml 1.0 is Meilenschwein. 'Meilenstein' is german for milestone. Schwein is german word for pig/pork. (Thanks for the idea to Frank 'ft' Terbeck.)

Codename of grml-small 0.4 is Springinkerl. Springinkerl as austrian word for an uneasy child.

Codename of grml64 0.1 is LiveShell. grml64 is the 'shell of life' and can be used in Live mode.

Requirements for running grml

Intel-compatible CPU (i586 or later, preferably Pentium class or higher)
at least 64MB of RAM (for stable use with ramdisks for unionfs and udev and running X window system we recommend at least 128MB)
grml-small: at least 32MB RAM should be available
bootable CD-ROM drive (or a boot floppy and standard CD-ROM [IDE/ATAPI or SCSI]) [or network - see grml-terminalserver]

Why another Linux distribution?

There already exist "some" distributions. We decided to base our work on the existing infrastructure of Debian and Knoppix because we don't want to reinvent the wheel. Some admins already use their own rescue-CD and Knoppix works but does not bring that many important tools for admins and users of texttools out of the box, so we decided to share our work with others.

What's the license of grml?

Anything written by the grml team is published under the GPL (GNU General Public License). You don't have to pay anything for running grml. Donations and feedback are welcome of course. If you want a special LiveCD or need support, take a look at grml-solutions.

What's the difference between grml and $OTHER-DISTRIBUTION? What are your main goals?

The main goal of grml is to be a distribution well suited for users of texttools and sysadmins. grml includes many important texttools (of course awk, sed, grep, ... but also zsh, mutt[ng], slrn, vim and many others) and useful programs for admin's daily work. grml uses the existing infrastructure of Debian. grml was once based on Knoppix (see 'What's the difference between grml and Knoppix?' for more details). We are also merging useful things from other distributions/live-cds to provide a perfect environment.

What's the difference between grml and Knoppix?

grml comes with a vastly different set of software. Missing KDE and OpenOffice provides the opportunity of shipping more than 800 packages which Knoppix does not provide on its CD version. grml boots a 2.6.x kernel but no X for faster startup. Knoppix is based on Debian/testing-experimental (using apt-pinning), but grml is basically based on plain Debian/unstable providing more current versions of software and less painfull upgrades. grml was once based on Knoppix but nowadays (except for a similar initial ramdisk) has nothing in common with Knoppix:

# locate knoppix
# find / -iname \*knoppix\*
#

We consider Knoppix as a brand name for live-cds nowadays and provide most of Knoppix' features as well. grml uses (mostly) the same cheatcodes for booting as Knoppix and even provides some extra ones. So if you are used to the basic Knoppix features you might find them on the grml-system as well. Ripping out the Knoppix stuff makes it possible to create a grml system out of a Debian system and vice versa. Running 'apt-get install grml' on a Debian box will be officially supported in an upcoming version of grml.

What does accessibility at grml mean?

The grml kernel includes support for speakup and provides software like brltty (using bootoption 'grml blind brltty=type,port,tbl'), emacspeak and flite.

Is it possible to run grml with $EMULATOR?

VMware should work without any problems. It's also possible to run grml with QEMU, an emulator for various CPUs which works on Linux, Windows, FreeBSD and Mac OS X. Running grml with QEMU has been tested successfully on Windows and Linux. Take a look at the QEMU-grml-webpage.

How do I boot grml from a USB stick?

Take a look at the script grml2usb. For more details, take a look at the usb-webpage in the grml-wiki.

Is it possible to store my settings?

Yes. grml provides a powerful config framework. See grml.org/config/, /usr/share/doc/grml-saveconfig/grml-config.html and 'man save-config restore-config mkpersistenthome' for more details.

grml64?

What is grml64?

grml64 is a 64bit-version of grml, based on the amd64 port of Debian.

What is the difference between 32 bit grml and 64 bit grml?

The main difference of course is that grml64 is a 64bit-version whereas (normal) grml is 32bit-only. grml64 provides a 64bit kernel which supports 32bit userspace applications. grml64 also provides libc6-i386, libc6-dev-i386, several lib32* packages and ia32-libs. Due to space reasons and because some packages aren't available for amd64 yet some packages are missing on grml64 compared to (normal, 32bit) grml. For more details please take a look at the grml64 webpage in the grml-wiki.

grml-small?

What is grml-small?

Whereas grml provides about 2.1 GB of software on a 700 MB ISO, grml-small is a flavor with online ~58 MB ISO-size (~200 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.

What is the difference between 'normal' grml and grml-small?

The 700 MB-grml brings more than 2500 packages of software and a full-featured kernel. grml-small includes about 215 software packages, lacks documentation and manpages on the ISO, has a stripped-down kernel (but still provides hardware detection of course) and does not provide a X server. grml-terminalserver is not available/supported on grml-small.

What is the difference between grml-small and DSL?

DSL and grml-small have different target audiences. Damn Small Linux (DSL) uses kernel version 2.4 whereas grml-small provides a recent version of kernel version 2.6. DSL provides the X window system which grml-small does not. grml-small provides the most important packages for sysadmins and ships the original Debian package management which allows you to install packages of the Debian pool with no modifications.

grml-medium?

What is grml-medium?

grml-medium is an upcoming grml-flavour currently being worked on. Its target is to close the gap between grml-small and normal/large/full version of grml. grml-medium will be an ISO with a maximum ISO size of 200MB. Stay tuned for more details...

System

Which tools exist to configure grml?

grml provides several scripts and tools which should make life easier. See 'dpkg -L grml-scripts' to get an overview of some main scripts. Run 'grml-config' to get a dialog interface for the most important scripts and tasks. Or just type 'grml-' and press tab-key to get a completion menu.

What are the passwords of users on grml?

There are no default passwords. All accounts are locked by default. Even local logins are not possible (unless you set a password or create new user accounts as root). You can create valid passwords using "sudo passwd [username]" from the shell individually.

How do I find out the version of grml

Run 'grml-version' or use the following command:

$ cat /etc/grml_version

Is it possible to run LiveCD and eject CD-ROM?

$ sudo umount -l /cdrom
$ sudo eject /dev/cdrom # now don't run any new programs ;)
$ mount /dev/cdrom      # mount it again if needed ;)

How do I change the language/keyboard settings?

By default grml uses English settings. But it is possible to change the settings via using either the bootparam(s) lang, keyboard and xkeyboard or via running grml-lang when grml is already running. Usage examples:

grml lang=de      # enter this at the bootprompt and you will get
                  # German keyboard layout and German $LANG, $LC_ALL,
                  # $LANGUAGE...
grml keyboard=de xkeyboard=de lang=at # enter this at the bootprompt
                  # and you will get German keyboard and Austrian
                  # language variables
% grml-lang de    # enter this in the shell to switch keyboard layout
                  # and $LANG settings in a running grml-system

If you are running grml from harddisk (using grml2hd) you have several options how to set language options:

adjust /etc/default/locale to configure global language and environment settings
set environment variables like $LC_ALL, $LANG, $LANGUAGE in your personal configuration files (like ~/.zshrc.local, see grml zsh reference card for details) if you do not want to use them system wide/global
adjust /etc/sysconfig/keyboard to configure keyboard layout on console, or run 'loadkeys $KEYTABLE' manually
add "setxkbmap $LANGUAGE" to the keybindings section in your ~/.xinitrc to configure keyboard setup for the X window system (deactivate the xmodmap lines if necessary)

Notice: run grml-setlang to get a dialog based frontend for /etc/default/locale and grml-setkeyboard to get a dialog based frontend for /etc/sysconfig/keyboard.

KDE, Gnome, $FOO and $BAR

Why isn't KDE, Gnome, $FOO or $BAR part of grml? grml is a distribution for users of texttools and sysadmins. If you would like to run KDE with Debian use e.g. Sidux, Knoppix or Kubuntu. Gnome users might find Ubuntu useful. If you would like to see a specific (software) package added to grml please report it to us!

Which window managers can I use?

grml is shipped only with window managers which are lightweight and fast - so well suited for a live-CD. At the moment, grml provides the following window managers: dwm, evilwm, fluxbox, fvwm, fvwm-crystal, ion3, jwm, pekwm, ratpoison, twm, w9wm, windowlab and wmii.

If you are new to grml and/or prefer an easy-to-use-desktop run 'grml-x wm-ng' for starting fluxbox with idesk and gkrellm.

How do I mount a USB device / USB stick?

Run 'mount /mnt/usb-sda1' for example if you want to mount /dev/sda1. udev on grml does multiplexing for USB block devices, so /dev/usb-sda1 (device for mountpoint /mnt/usb-sda1) is a symlink to /dev/sda1.

Which ways exist to boot grml?

The most common way to boot grml is, of course, running from CD-ROM, but grml provides many more ways to boot grml:

It is possible to boot grml via USB (e.g. USB stick or harddisk), firewire, or running from a Compact Flash disk. It works out of the box; you don't need to modify anything. If accessing the device fails, use the 'scandelay' cheatcode on bootprompt. So, boot with 'grml scandelay'. If the timeout is still not long enough add the time to wait in seconds as parameter: 'grml scandelay=15'. See usb-webpage in the grml-wiki for more details.

Your computer can not boot from CD-ROM but provides a floppy disk? Take a look at btmgr, ubcd4win or sbm. They provide support for booting from CD-ROM via a special floppy disk.

grml-terminalserver makes it possible to boot your system via network. If you have a floppy drive, you can even boot your system over network when your network card does not provide PXE-support! For more information, refer to the grml-terminalserver-webpage.

How do I configure timezone on my grml system?

Available bootoptions relevant in live-cd mode:

utc: set UTC, if your system clock is set to UTC (GMT)
gmt: set UTC, if your system clock is set to UTC (GMT) [like bootoption utc]
tz=$option: set timezone to corresponding $option, usage example: tz=Europe/Vienna

Configuration options relevant on harddisk installation:

Run:

# dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

to adjust /etc/timezone and /etc/localtime according to the provided information.

/etc/default/rcS: set variable UTC according to your needs, whether your system clock is set to UTC (UTC='yes') or not (UTC='no')

/etc/localtime: adjust zoneinfo according to your needs:

# ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/$WHATEVER_YOU_WANT /etc/localtime

The zoneinfo directory contains the time zone files that were compiled by zic. The files contain information such as rules about DST. They allow the kernel to convert UTC UNIX time into appropriate local dates and times. Use the zdump utility to print current time and date (in the specified time zone).

/etc/adjtime: This file is used e.g. by the adjtimex function, which can smoothly adjust system time while the system runs.

If you change the time (using 'date --set ...', ntpdate,...) it is worth setting also the hardware clock to the correct time:

# hwclock --systohc [--utc]

Remember to add the --utc -option if the hardware clock is set to UTC!

Still problems?

Check your current settings via:

cat /etc/timezone
zdump /etc/localtime
echo $TZ
hwclock --show
grep hwclock /etc/runlevel.conf
grep '^UTC' /etc/default/rc

Further information:

Manpages: hwclock(8) tzselect(1) tzconfig(8); Debian GNU/Linux System Administrator's Manual Chapter 16 - Time and TimeZoneChanges in the Debian-Wiki.

I have problems with UTF-8 / Unicode

Check out UTF8-webpage in the grml-wiki.

I noticed some files are missing on grml

Yes, output of 'debsums -a 1>/dev/null' might output some failures. The reason is pretty simple: some modification have been done because of space limitiations on the ISO. The failures are nothing to really care about, but as we don't hide anything we document them of course.

On grml the following modifications have been done:

linux-headers-2.6.20-grml: include files (/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.20-grml/include/) of foreign (!x86) architectures have been removed
texlive-base-bin: documentation directory /usr/share/doc/texlive-base-bin/pdftex/thanh/ has been removed
texlive-latex-base: documentation directories /usr/share/doc/texlive-latex-base/latex/base/, /usr/share/doc/texlive-latex-base/latex/hyperref/ and /usr/share/doc/texlive-latex-base/generic/babel/ have been removed
texlive-latex-recommended: documentation directory /usr/share/doc/texlive-latex-recommended/latex/koma-script/ has been removed

On grml64 the following modifications have been done:

some files of valgrind (/usr/lib/valgrind/x86-linux/*) have been stripped
.so files of ion3 (/usr/lib/ion3/*.so) have been stripped

On grml-small nearly all the documentation has been removed to be able to provide a ~60MB iso with kernel 2.6 and all the provided software.

Please notice that grml ships a script named grml2hd-fix as part of package grml2hd-utils which should fix the relevant of the above errors if you use grml as a harddisk installation.

Bugreport

Take a look at the bugs-webpage.

Is it possible to install grml to harddisk?

Yes. grml provides a tool called grml2hd (see 'man grml2hd'). grml is developed on a box running the grml-system itself, and we - the grml-developers - especially like grml2hd because it gives us a working Linux box within 10 to 30 minutes. grml2hd is perfect for prototyping: test hardware support of Linux, test a specific setup, ... You can even use grml2hd in a fully automatic mode without any further interaction. More information is available on grml.org/grml2hd/ and man grml2hd. Notice: If you are using grml in a production environment and/or use a grml2hd installation, we strongly recommend you subscribe to the grml user mailinglist! Note that grml is based on Debian unstable, so you should be familiar with Debian unstable if you plan to use grml as a harddisk system. If you want to get a plain Debian system take a look at grml-debootstrap.

grml2hd seems to hang?!

grml2hd seems to hang? Switch to tty12 and take a look at the syslog output. If you see something like:

SQUASHFS error: zlib_fs returned unexpected result 0x........
SQUASHFS error: Unable to read cache block [.....]
SQUASHFS error: Unable to read inode [.....]

your ISO/CD-ROM very probably is not ok. Verify it via booting with grml testcd. Check your CD low-level via running:

# readcd -c2scan dev=/dev/cdrom

If the medium really is ok and it still fails try to boot with DMA deactivated via 'grml nodma ide=nodma' at the bootprompt.

I have problems with my hardware!

Take a look at the script grml-hwinfo. This script generates a file named info.tar.bz2 which contains important information about your hardware. If you think we might help, please run grml-hwinfo and send us the file with additional, relevant information regarding your problem.

grml does not boot on my computer!

Please take a look at the available bootparamters and cheatcodes and 'Which ways exist to boot grml?'. Especially booting with 'acpi=off noapm noapic' might help. Bootparameter 'failsafe' provides minimal hardware detection. You still have problems? Please contact us!

Kernel

Where can I find the configuration for the kernel used on grml?

See /boot/config-`uname -r` and on the kernel-webpage.

Are there any special components/patches in the kernel used on grml?

grml uses the most current stable vanilla Linux kernel from www.kernel.org with some additional patches. More information and an all-in-one patch is available on the kernel-page.

For which platforms is the grml kernel optimized?

Plain i586 compatibility-mode with SMP enabled. (Notice: this works for uniprocessor systems as well, thanks to SMP alternatives.)

Software

General

Want to run a program as root? Just use "sudo $PROGRAM". To get a root-shell run "sudo su".

Problems with a specific package? Please try "dpkg-reconfigure $foo". Still encountering difficulties? Please send us a bugreport!

What version of $PACKAGE is available?

Take a look at the dpkg_... files in the Debian-Information section on grml.org/files/.

Init-System

Why is grml using runlevel 2 as default? Because runlevel 2 is 'the textonly one' and it's debian's default.

Where are all the /etc/rc#.d-directories? grml doesn't use sysv-rc but file-rc. This means you can configure the init system in one single file named /etc/runlevel.conf with your favourite editor. No symlink-hell anymore.

Why is zsh the default shell (/bin/sh)?

Short answer: because zsh rocks.

Longer answer taken from ZSH FAQ: 1.2: What is it?:

Zsh is a UNIX command interpreter (shell) which of the standard shells most resembles the Korn shell (ksh); its compatibility with the 1988 Korn shell has been gradually increasing. It includes enhancements of many types, notably in the command-line editor, options for customising its behaviour, filename globbing, features to make C-shell (csh) users feel more at home and extra features drawn from tcsh (another `custom' shell).

If you don't know zsh take a look at ZSH FAQ: How does zsh differ from ...?, 'man zsh | less -p COMPATIBILITY', the grml zsh reference card and 'man zsh-lovers'.

If you are a bash user and don't know zsh yet, don't be afraid. bash is largely a subset of zsh and you don't have to throw away your knowledge about shell stuff.

Wasn't zsh the /bin/sh interpreter?

Yes, until grml 0.6 zsh was the intepreter for /bin/sh. Starting with release 0.7 grml uses /bin/bash as /bin/sh. The reason? Debian does not support zsh as /bin/sh. Take a look at #329288 and #340058 for example.

Is a bash available?

grml uses zsh as the default interactive shell but, of course, a current version of bash (and many other shells as well) is provided by grml.

setuid/SUID

If you set a programm SUID (setuid/mode 4755), unprivileged users on your system will be able to run it. This could be a potentially security hole, so by default the packages are configured not to install binaries with setuid. If you want to use the binaries with setuid please run 'dpkg-reconfigure $packagename' or 'chmod 4755 =programm'. The following packages are well known to have a programm with not set setuid:

davfs2
hddtemp
pconsole
pdsh
rssh
scponly
sing

bitchx

Why isn't bitchx part of grml? bitchx sucks. Please use a better alternative like irssi or weechat which are part of grml.

ispell

You don't want to use the preselected default for ispell? Run 'select-default-ispell' for changing it.

LaTeX

auctex and preview-latex are loaded by default in emacs. If you want to load auctex based on your personal settings put the string "(require 'tex-site)" in your ~/.emacs, for preview-latex use the string '(load "preview-latex")'.
To change this run 'dpkg-reconfigure auctex' and/or 'dpkg-reconfigure preview-latex'.

slapd

The password for the admin entry in the LDAP directory is 'grml'.

Release related issues

Are there any known issues with this release?

We won't hide anything. Therefore, we do provide all known issues/bugs publicly available:

If you find another bug, or consider something a problem not yet mentioned please report it to us!

Why isn't /proc/bus/usb mounted anymore?

Starting with kernel 2.6.14, /dev/bus/usb replaces usbfs. Current versions of libusb check for /dev/bus/usb's existence and /proc/bus/usb is not necessary anymore (see #336596). Of course 'mount /proc/bus/usb' still works; it is just not mounted by default anymore. If you see any problems please report them.

X-Server

How do I start the X server?

Please use 'grml-x' as user grml for starting X on the live-cd. It generates the config file /etc/X11/xorg.conf and lets you start commands on startup (see ~/.xinitrc). Use it, for example, via switching to TTY4 (press Alt+F4) and run the following command to start wm-ng (window manager fluxbox with idesk and gkrellm):

grml-x wm-ng

If you have /etc/X11/xorg.conf already you can use 'startx' instead of grml-x of course. Adjust ~/.xinitrc to your needs.

X does not start on my box?!

grml-x supports several options. If you want to set some special options please take a look at the grml-x manpage (man grml-x)! Some usage examples:

grml-x -display 8 fluxbox          # start fluxbox on display 8
grml-x -force -nostart fluxbox     # force creation of xconfig file and don't start X server
grml-x -hsync 60 fluxbox           # set horizontal frequency and start fluxbox
grml-x -hsync 60 -vsync 40 fluxbox # set horizontal and vertical sync frequencies and start fluxbox
grml-x -mode '800x600' fluxbox     # set resolution to 800x600 and start fluxbox
grml-x -module vesa fluxbox        # start fluxbox and use vesa module

I don't like the resolution of X!

Just run xrandr to switch the resolution during runtime of X. For example: 'xrandr -s 1024x768'.

Framebuffer

The boot option video does not work as expected anymore

grml versions 0.4 and 0.5 provided vesafb-tng instead of normal vesafb. Starting with grml 0.6 and grml-small 0.2 vesafb-tng is not part of the grml-kernel anymore because it caused too many problems. Therefore, you can use the 'normal' vga=... option again.

I don't see anything when booting grml?!

Likely, this is a problem with vesafb framebuffer. Try to boot with bootoption 'nofb' or 'grml vga=normal'.

Further questions

Do you have a question which is not answered in the FAQ or in the provided documentation (also run "grml-info" on your grml-system)? Run 'grml-tips $KEYWORD' on your grml-system. Take a look at the grml-website and the grml-wiki. Please don't hesitate to contact us, a good place to start is the grml mailinglist.

You like grml? Make a donation to support our work!

grml is, as every other Open-Source project, driven by the many contributions made by many developers. The grml-team spends a great deal of their time and money toward this project.

If you have been using grml you will come to remember how much money you or your company saves by using it and how you have been supported via the project mailing list, personal mail or irc.

Now you can contribute by donating to grml. Your donation could either be money or hardware that one of the developers or the project as a whole needs. A donation would enable us to either support a specific hardware/software either at all or simply better.

See grml.org/donations/ for details. Thank you for helping us to work on grml!