Release Notes: grml-small 2008.11 - codename Schluchtenscheisser

About

grml is a Debian-based Live-CD. It includes a collection of GNU/Linux software especially for users of texttools and system administrators. 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, unless you want to (use grml2hd for this). Due to on-the-fly decompression grml includes about 2.1GB of software and documentation on the CD.

Whereas grml provides about 2.1 GB of software on a 700 MB ISO, grml-small is a flavor with only ~75 MB ISO-size (~240 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.

Bugfixes

Fixed several bugs and issues reported on grml-small 0.4 @ grml-wiki.

New grml-script:

• grml-chroot: wrapper around chroot with proc/sys/pts/dev filesystem handling

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

• Provide interactive configuration dialog if the configuration file wasn't set up.
• Initial support for SW-RAID.
• Use root=UUID=... by default if possible to avoid possible race conditions with libata vs. pata
• Use stages based on target information, this gives us the possibility to run multiple instance of grml-debootstrap.
• Use policy-rc.d inside chroot to avoid startup of daemons.
• Remove stages after successful execution.
• Move stages to /var/cache/grml-debootstrap.
• Install devices using our own device tarball instead of running MAKEDEV (which is just an ungly fork bomb).
• Run aptitude with --without-recommends option.
• Copy /etc/debootstrap/[s]bin as well to the chroot if they are present
• Allow symlinks when coping existing files to chroot
• Pre-seed packages using /etc/debootstrap/debconf-selections
• Support DEBOOTSTRAP_OPT for passing extra parameters to the debootstrap command
• Support KEEP_SRC_LIST to allow user to provide their own apt sources.list from /etc/debootstrap/etc/apt/sources.list
• and a lot more updates... check out the Debian changelog for details

Special thanks to Tong Sun for his contributions and to Sipwise GmbH for sponsoring development of grml-debootstrap.

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

Special new features:

• using same kernel version as in grml / grml-medium for easy installation further features/modules on request
• integration of vcs_info within Zsh prompt (demo screenshot)
• use random password if bootoption 'ssh' doesn't have an option (thanks to Michael Holzt and Marc Haber)
• (re-)implemented the isofrom and tohd bootoptions
• moved from syslog-ng to rsyslog
• added supported for swedish keyboard (thanks to Martin Karresand)

Kernel

Based on vanilla kernel 2.6.26.8 including several patches. Notice: some more modules aren't pre-installed but available through the grml-repository.

See grml.org/kernel/ for more details regarding the grml-kernel.

Important Changes

Using a new version schema: as we want to improve tracking of all the different flavours and releases of grml we decided to use "$flavour $YYYY.MM" for the stable releases. No further confusing 'grml 1.1 vs. grml64 0.2'.

Switched from old IDE drivers to libata drivers. What might have been known as /dev/hdX on your system will become /dev/sdX nowadays.

Packages / Software

Details about shipped packages and their versions on grml are available at the Debian section. See dpkg_get_selections for a main package listing and dpkg_list for a more detailed list of packages shipped with grml-small 2008.11.

Updates

Updated all packages to Debian Unstable branch by 20th of november 2008 (plus some further selected updates).

Removed 15 packages (excluding lib* and *2.6.20-grml*) - please notice that some of them are available under different names/in different packages:

*2.6.20-grml* lib*

dhcp-client firmware-ipw3945 gcc-3.3-base gcc-4.1-base gettext-base
grml-small ipw3945d localepurge modutils nvi pppoeconf prism54-firmware
syslog-ng tinysnmp-tools unzoo

Added 41 new packages (exluding lib* and *2.6.26-grml*):

apt-utils bc debian-archive-keyring dhcp3-client dhcp3-common ed ethtool
gcc-4.2-base gcc-4.3-base gnupg gpgv grml-crypt grml-debian-keyring
grml-hwinfo grml-policyrcd grml-vpn grml2hd-utils grub-common htop hwinfo
ipsec-tools iptables keychain live-initramfs lzma md5deep
netcat-traditional nfs-common openssh-blacklist policyrcd-script-zg2
portmap realpath resolvconf rsyslog sysfsutils syslinux-common traceroute
user-setup vim-common vim-tiny zoo

Upgrade notes

As usual you can upgrade your grml harddisk system to the latest grml version running 'apt-get update; apt-get install grml'. Take a look at the upgrading webpage in the grml-wiki as well. Notice: If you are using grml in a productive environment and/or use a grml2hd installation we strongly recommend to subscribe to the grml-user mailinglist!

Major changes since release grml-small 0.4 (20070518)

• Migration from Mercurial to Git.
• Developer related mailinglists moved from mlmmj to mailmain setup at ml.grml.org.
• For information regarding further changes visit the news section.

Known issues

Take a look at grml-small_2008.11 @ grml-wiki. Please report problems using information on grml.org/bugs/.

Download grml-small 2008.11

grml-small 2008.11 can be downloaded from mirrors listed on grml.org/download/.

Feedback

Your comments, bug reports, patches, and suggestions will help fix bugs and improve future releases. If you find a problem with the release please check grml-small_2008.11 @ grml-wiki and report problems using information on grml.org/bugs/. Please send your feedback, feature requests and bug reports to the grml-team!

• grml.org/contact/
• #grml on irc.freenode.org

Thanks

Many thanks in this release go to Tong Sun, Martin Karresand, Ralf Schlatterbeck, Thomas Köhler, Peter Palfrader, Michael Holzt, Florian Schuele, Marc Haber, Sipwise GmbH, Charles Hewson, Thomas Lehmann, Christian Vogel, Andreas Roedl and Christian Hofstaedtler for their contributions. Many thanks also to the ones of you who donated something to the grml-team and of course to all those who have sent feedback since the last release!

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.

Further Questions?

Contact us.