1 CHEATCODES AND HINTS FOR GRML V0.2
2 ==============================================================================
4 These options (can be combined) work from the isolinux bootprompt:
6 grml acpi=off Disable ACPI configuration in Kernel 2.6
7 memtest Run memtest86 instead of Linux
8 expert [options...] Interactive setup for experts
10 Important: if you notice any problems with one of the
11 following options please report it to the grml-team ->
14 grml lang=at|de|cn|da|es|fr|it specify language/keyboard
15 grml lang=nl|pl|ru|sk|tr|tw|us specify language/keyboard
16 grml gmt Use GMT-based time
17 grml home=/dev/sda1/grml.img Mount loopback file as /home/grml
18 grml home=scan Automatic search for grml homedir
19 grml floppyconfig Run "grml.sh" from a floppy
20 grml tz=Europe/Vienna Use this timezone for TZ
21 grml screen=1280x1024 Use specified Screen resolution for X
22 grml xvrefresh=60 (or vsync=60) Use 60 Hz vertical refresh rate for X
23 grml xhrefresh=80 (or hsync=80) Use 80 kHz horizontal refresh rate for X
24 grml xserver=XFree86|XF86_SVGA Use specified X-Server
25 grml xmodule=ati|fbdev|i810|mga Use specified XFree4-Module (1)
26 grml xmodule=nv|radeon|savage|s3 Use specified XFree4-Module (2)
27 grml xmodule=radeon|svga|i810 Use specified XFree4-Module (3)
28 grml no{acpi,agp,apm,cpu,dhcp} Skip parts of HW-detection (1)
29 grml no{disc,dma,fstab,hotplug} Skip parts of HW-detection (2)
30 grml no{hwsetup,modem,pcmcia} Skip parts of HW-detection (3)
31 grml no{scsi,swap,usb} Skip parts of HW-detection (4)
32 grml noagent={input,isapnp,net} Disable specific hotplug agent
33 grml noagent={pci,usb} Disable specific hotplug agent
34 grml black=modulename Add module to blacklist of hotplug
35 grml nogpm Disable GPM daemon
36 grml nosyslog Do not start syslog-ng
37 grml nosound Mute sound devices
38 grml pnpbios=off No PnP Bios initialization
39 grml acpi=off Disable ACPI Bios completely
40 grml usb2 Try to initialize USB 2.x controller(s)
41 failsafe Boot with (almost) no HW-detection
42 grml pci=irqmask=0x0e98 Try this, if PS/2 mouse doesn't work *)
43 grml pci=bios Workaround for bad PCI controllers
44 grml ide2=0x180 nopcmcia Boot from PCMCIA-CD-ROM (some notebooks)
45 grml mem=128M Specify Memory size in MByte
46 grml dma Enable DMA accelleration for ALL IDE-Drives
47 grml vga=normal No-framebuffer mode, but X
48 grml blind Start Braille-Terminal (no X)
49 grml brltty=type,port,table Parameters for Braille device
50 grml wheelmouse Enable IMPS/2 protocol for wheelmice
51 grml nowheelmouse Force plain PS/2 protocol for PS/2-mouse
52 fb1280x1024 Use fixed framebuffer graphics (1)
53 fb1024x768 Use fixed framebuffer graphics (2)
54 fb800x600 Use fixed framebuffer graphics (3)
55 grml keyboard=us xkeyboard=us Use different keyboard (text/X)
56 grml toram Copy CD to RAM and run from there
57 grml tohd=/dev/hda1 Copy CD to HD partition and run from there
58 grml fromhd Skip checking for grml on CD-ROM
59 grml fromhd=/dev/hda1 Boot from previously copied CD-Image
60 grml bootfrom=/dev/hda1 Access Image then boot from previously
61 copied CD-Image (enables booting from
63 grml bootfrom=/dev/hda1/GRML.iso Access image, boot from ISO-Image. ***)
64 grml grml_dir=GRML Directory to search for on the CD.
65 grml grml_name=GRML Cloop-File to search for on the CD.
66 grml testcd Check CD data integrity and md5sums
67 grml noeject Do NOT eject CD after halt
68 grml noprompt Do NOT prompt to remove the CD
69 grml myconfig=/dev/sda1 Run "grml.sh" from a partition:
70 /dev/fd0 for floppy disk
71 /dev/sda1 for USB-stick/first SCSI-device
73 The following option is probably broken:
74 grml myconf=scan (or config=scan) Try to find "grml.sh" automatically
76 *) Try "grml pci=irqmask=0x0e98" if (you have a notebook and) your
77 PS/2 mouse doesn't work. (Possibly caused by a BIOS-flaw on your board,
78 BIOS updates can help.) Sometimes, switching to the text console with
79 Control-Alt-F1 and back to the X-screen with Control-Alt-F7 solves the
80 problem without rebooting, since the X server reinitializes the mouse
81 driver during that procedure.
83 *) Bootfrom needs access to a running grml-System with the same Kernel
84 as the Bootkernel, before it is able to mount the partition / ISO-Image.
85 This should allow a poor mans install from NTFS-Partitions and makes it
86 also possible to boot an ISO-Image directly. You can also use wildcards
87 in the ISO-Filename, but it must be unique. So: If you have just one
88 GRML.iso on /dev/hda1 you can access it as: bootfrom=/dev/hda1/G*.iso,
89 but if there are several, you need to make clear, which one you want.
90 (Feature added by Fabian Franz.)
92 If your GRML CD makes strange noises during boot, or you see frequent
93 errors like "squashfs: read error", or programs are crashing randomly,
94 then your CD image is probably defective or incomplete, or your CD-burner
95 created a defective CD due to wrong writing speed or bad media. This is
96 the most common error reported. Please boot with "grml testcd" to check
97 if the CD is OK, and/or even better, verify the MD5 checksums that are
98 present on the mirrors before writing the CD. In some cases, defective
99 IDE controllers cause this error if you have DMA enabled. Also, please
102 In case of a failing hardware autodetection, try booting with any of
103 the "no-" options as shown in the table above, like in
104 grml nodiscover nohotplug noagp noapm noapic acpi=off nodma nopcmcia
105 to skip some critical parts of the autodetection system.
107 The "noswap" option is useful for a forensic analysis without touching
108 existing swap partitions.
110 Some Boards apparently don't pass the proper memory size to the
111 linux-kernel. It may cause the message "Panic: cannot mount root file
112 system" and the system hangs. Use "grml mem=128M" to solve that
113 problem if your system has 128MByte memory for example (caution:
114 you MUST use a capital "M" here).
116 The "expert" mode provides a very simple interface to loading additional
117 Kernel modules from floppy disks (ext2 or vfat), plus interactive
118 configuration of mouse/keyboard/soundcard/xserver. "expert" mode supports
119 the same boot options as "grml".
121 The "floppyconfig" or "(my)config=/dev/partition" options allow you to
122 reconfigure the system after autoconfiguration by running a bourne shell
123 script called "grml.sh" from the root directory on the given device (or
124 floppy). The shell script will also be executed at startup.
126 If you wish to remaster the CD, please don't forget to specify
127 -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table \
128 -b boot/isolinux/isolinux.bin -c boot/isolinux/boot.cat
129 as option to mkisofs. Otherwise your CD won't be bootable. The
130 directory GRML, containig the compressed filesystem file "GRML",
131 must be located in the top level directory of the CD.
133 Caution: X-Screensaver: Don't start xlock or any screensaver that
134 requires a password. There are no default passwords on GRML,
135 i.e. all accounts are LOCKED unless you explicitly set a password.
136 See also README_Security.txt about this issue.
137 If you accidentially started a screensaver switch to one of the
138 textconsoles by Control-Alt-F1 and kill the screensaver (or just set a
139 password for the grml user).