grml development blog

At Graz University of Technology (TUG) several software projects have big compile jobs. Yesterday I've been working on a specialized grml version to create a compile farm within some few minutes. And the result: grml-distcc. grml-distcc includes a 2.6.14-kernel optimized for up to 32 processors. There's a new bootparam named 'distcc' with the options $NETWORK and $INTERFACE which provides access to the distcc-daemon for the defined network listening on the ip address of the given interface. Usage example: 'grml distcc=192.168.0.1,eth0'.

Today Hecka and me tested grml-distcc at TUG. As we are lazy guys and don't want to play disc jokey with a lot of grml-CDs ;-) we booted grml-distcc via network. Running 'grml-terminalserver' on the server, configuring bootoptions for distcc within the interface of grml-terminalserver and booting client via PXE was everything we had to do. Afterwards access to the distcc-clients was possible through "export DISTCC_HOSTS=$HOSTS_WHERE_DISTCC_IS_RUNNING". Running 'make -j' was fun of course. :-)

The distcc bootparam will be probably part of the upcoming grml release.

So, what has happend since release of grml 0.5?

Of course some bugfixing (most of the grml_0-5-issues have been fixed). I also added some new features like a wrapper script for a fluxbox setup providing idesk and gkrellm out-of-the-box, some new scripts and I just finished base work on kernel 2.6.14-grml.

So a new develrelease will be available soon...

Thanks to Jogi from the mur.at-team, we now have a new mailinglist: grml-announce

New releases will be announced on this mailinglist. For discussions and questions please refer to the grml-user-mailinglist.

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grml shouldn't be only a distribution with good hardware recognition and "lots of the right tools" but also be comfortable to use. Running usability tests should help us to improve handling of grml.

I'm interested in your opinion regarding what kind of tests might be useful for grml. I already wrote down some basic steps but would like to get your feedback.

Last but not least: I'm searching for people in Graz/Styria who would like to be part of the usability study. It does not matter whether you are a sysadmin or texttool-user, I'm searching for people from all kinds of background. It won't take longer than 30 minutes per person and you will get one of the limited special-edition CDs of the grml 0.5-release for free.

Don't hesitate to contact me.