Re: Question re repairing and reinstalling
You need to do the usual things you do when you don't have a network connection. Start out with lspci to identify your network card. Find out which driver use that network card. Run an lsmod to see if the driver is loaded. If it is not loaded, load it and see what happens. If it is loaded, find out what device it creates. If the module is loaded and the device is created, try bringing it up. If it's already up, try pinging it's IP address. If you can ping it, try pinging something outside like www.google.com. Else you can work backwards and try pinging www.google.com first and work backwards from there. In other words, the first thing you need to do is to identify at which point the network configuration is failing.Once you figure that out, you can ask here or google it or whatever. On 5/31/25 8:31 AM, Steve Matzura wrote:
Still no ssh because still no network. dhclient won't find it and netcardconfig doesn't do anything. Should I write to the grml support list to find out what I can do to diagnose or fix this, do you think?
On 5/29/2025 10:56 PM, John G. Heim wrote:
Sounds as if everything is working as expected. If you are right about your machine not having a PC speaker, it can't beep at the boot prompt. But it sounds as if you are doing everything else right. And ssh should be working.
I have never seen GRML fail to bring up a network connection. But I suppose it could happen. Are you saying that only the loopback device is displayed when you type "ip addr"?
When you start GRML, it brings up a menu. You have to press the q key to exit the menu before you can start typing commands.
On 5/29/25 7:09 PM, Steve Matzura wrote:
I downloaded grml and wrote it to a USB thumb drive. It boots perfectly, with two problems.
1. If it's supposed to beep before I press TAB and then "ssh=MyPassword", I'm not hearing the beep. No real surprise there, I'm not even sure this machine's speaker actually works. I've never heard it beep. Ever.
2. After booting, if I wait about a minute, then press TAB followed by typing "ssh=MyPassword" and pressing ENTER, Speakup speaks the remainder of the boot process, then I get a prompt that tells me, among other things, to press ENTER to return to the shell. This I do, and I get a nicely talking Debian grml prompt. But if I then type "ip addr", it tells me my IP address is 127.0.0.1. The network cable is definitely connected on both ends. Does this mean it maybe doesn't recognize my hardware? Can I remedy all of the above once I hit the grml shell prompt?
On 5/29/2025 12:17 PM, John G. Heim wrote:
If you want the character interface, i would recommend GRML.
GRML includes the speakup modules and espeakup. All you have to do to get sofware speech is to create a bootable GRmL thumb drive or CD and once it boots, type "modprobe speakup_soft; espeakup".
You can also pretty easily enable an ssh server on a system booted into GRML. So then you can ssh in and do whatever you want.
We are in the process of creating a web site for blind people to document accessibility techniques but it's not live yet. The final draft version of the documentation i wrote for GRML is here:
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.johnheim.com/articles/grml/*__;Lw!!M...
I am not sure my ISP's firewall is going to allow you to get to that page. So if you can't get to it, let me know and I'll figure something out.
PS: I have a version of the GRML iso that is supposed to start talking during boot. It doesn't work on all of the hardware i tried it on. If it doesn't start talking during boot, just type "espeak" after it's done booting. You won't have to load the speakup modules at least.
https://people.math.wisc.edu/~jheim/GRML/soft-full-2025.05-amd64.iso
On 5/29/25 10:03 AM, Steve Matzura via Blind-sysadmins wrote:
I have a Debian version 11 system that needs repairing or reinstalling, but before I do that, I need to boot something that will let me access the system disk and copy some hard-to-reconstruct configuration files from some application directories to a holding place on another drive in the same cabinet. Should I do this with a Debian Live distribution, or can it be done from the regular Debian installation disk? In either case, am I stuck with using a desktop to find the file(s) in question and copy them to the holding location, or can I get Speakup in a shell? If I'm stuck with a desktop, which ones is most accessible? I've never been a fan of the Linux desktop environment, much preferring the CLI, but you can't always get what you want from these distros, but like the song says, if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need. Ultimately, that's my question--which accessible live distro do I need/should I use to effect the above?
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I've done all the things you mentioned, some even before you mentioned them. lspci shows a RealTek network device lsmod shows a driver is loaded for it I've tested the cable. It's brand-new out of the package and it works end to end. I've tried a different cable, just in case some flaky odd thing is wrong with the previously mentioned cable--all results the same. netcardconfig lets me set up the eth0 interface, but I can't ping anything except myself, and I've tried a few tricks with nmap, all with the same results. this system just can't see past the end of its network nose. I'm certainly going to keep troubleshooting this, but for now, to solve my problem, I'm just going to mount the other filesystem on the internal volume and copy the files I need, then try the installation right from the running grml system. Here's hoping... On 5/31/2025 10:49 AM, John G. Heim via Blind-sysadmins wrote:
You need to do the usual things you do when you don't have a network connection.
Start out with lspci to identify your network card. Find out which driver use that network card. Run an lsmod to see if the driver is loaded. If it is not loaded, load it and see what happens. If it is loaded, find out what device it creates. If the module is loaded and the device is created, try bringing it up. If it's already up, try pinging it's IP address. If you can ping it, try pinging something outside like www.google.com.
Else you can work backwards and try pinging www.google.com first and work backwards from there.
In other words, the first thing you need to do is to identify at which point the network configuration is failing.Once you figure that out, you can ask here or google it or whatever.
On 5/31/25 8:31 AM, Steve Matzura wrote:
Still no ssh because still no network. dhclient won't find it and netcardconfig doesn't do anything. Should I write to the grml support list to find out what I can do to diagnose or fix this, do you think?
On 5/29/2025 10:56 PM, John G. Heim wrote:
Sounds as if everything is working as expected. If you are right about your machine not having a PC speaker, it can't beep at the boot prompt. But it sounds as if you are doing everything else right. And ssh should be working.
I have never seen GRML fail to bring up a network connection. But I suppose it could happen. Are you saying that only the loopback device is displayed when you type "ip addr"?
When you start GRML, it brings up a menu. You have to press the q key to exit the menu before you can start typing commands.
On 5/29/25 7:09 PM, Steve Matzura wrote:
I downloaded grml and wrote it to a USB thumb drive. It boots perfectly, with two problems.
1. If it's supposed to beep before I press TAB and then "ssh=MyPassword", I'm not hearing the beep. No real surprise there, I'm not even sure this machine's speaker actually works. I've never heard it beep. Ever.
2. After booting, if I wait about a minute, then press TAB followed by typing "ssh=MyPassword" and pressing ENTER, Speakup speaks the remainder of the boot process, then I get a prompt that tells me, among other things, to press ENTER to return to the shell. This I do, and I get a nicely talking Debian grml prompt. But if I then type "ip addr", it tells me my IP address is 127.0.0.1. The network cable is definitely connected on both ends. Does this mean it maybe doesn't recognize my hardware? Can I remedy all of the above once I hit the grml shell prompt?
On 5/29/2025 12:17 PM, John G. Heim wrote:
If you want the character interface, i would recommend GRML.
GRML includes the speakup modules and espeakup. All you have to do to get sofware speech is to create a bootable GRmL thumb drive or CD and once it boots, type "modprobe speakup_soft; espeakup".
You can also pretty easily enable an ssh server on a system booted into GRML. So then you can ssh in and do whatever you want.
We are in the process of creating a web site for blind people to document accessibility techniques but it's not live yet. The final draft version of the documentation i wrote for GRML is here:
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.johnheim.com/articles/grml/*__;Lw!!M...
I am not sure my ISP's firewall is going to allow you to get to that page. So if you can't get to it, let me know and I'll figure something out.
PS: I have a version of the GRML iso that is supposed to start talking during boot. It doesn't work on all of the hardware i tried it on. If it doesn't start talking during boot, just type "espeak" after it's done booting. You won't have to load the speakup modules at least.
https://people.math.wisc.edu/~jheim/GRML/soft-full-2025.05-amd64.iso
On 5/29/25 10:03 AM, Steve Matzura via Blind-sysadmins wrote:
I have a Debian version 11 system that needs repairing or reinstalling, but before I do that, I need to boot something that will let me access the system disk and copy some hard-to-reconstruct configuration files from some application directories to a holding place on another drive in the same cabinet. Should I do this with a Debian Live distribution, or can it be done from the regular Debian installation disk? In either case, am I stuck with using a desktop to find the file(s) in question and copy them to the holding location, or can I get Speakup in a shell? If I'm stuck with a desktop, which ones is most accessible? I've never been a fan of the Linux desktop environment, much preferring the CLI, but you can't always get what you want from these distros, but like the song says, if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need. Ultimately, that's my question--which accessible live distro do I need/should I use to effect the above?
_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list -- blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org To unsubscribe send an email to blind-sysadmins-leave@lists.hodgsonfamily.org
Blind-sysadmins mailing list -- blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org To unsubscribe send an email to blind-sysadmins-leave@lists.hodgsonfamily.org
You went right from saying the driver was loaded to saying the cable is good. Typically, the next step would be to determine witch interface device was created by the driver module and then to check the status of that interface. You should not have to create your own device. You should use the ip command to list all the network interfaces and then determine which one was created by the driver for your network card. That will probably be obvious but in case it is not, the way i determine that is to do the following: For each network interface displayed by the ip command, export iface=<yourInterfaceNameHere> |readlink /sys/class/net/$iface/device/driver| Once you are sure which interface was created by the kernel module for your network card, you should check how it is configured. To do this, you want to examine the output from the ip command: ip addr show $iface On 6/1/25 9:13 AM, Steve Matzura via Blind-sysadmins wrote:
I've done all the things you mentioned, some even before you mentioned them.
lspci shows a RealTek network device
lsmod shows a driver is loaded for it
I've tested the cable. It's brand-new out of the package and it works end to end.
I've tried a different cable, just in case some flaky odd thing is wrong with the previously mentioned cable--all results the same.
netcardconfig lets me set up the eth0 interface, but I can't ping anything except myself, and I've tried a few tricks with nmap, all with the same results. this system just can't see past the end of its network nose.
I'm certainly going to keep troubleshooting this, but for now, to solve my problem, I'm just going to mount the other filesystem on the internal volume and copy the files I need, then try the installation right from the running grml system. Here's hoping...
On 5/31/2025 10:49 AM, John G. Heim via Blind-sysadmins wrote:
You need to do the usual things you do when you don't have a network connection.
Start out with lspci to identify your network card. Find out which driver use that network card. Run an lsmod to see if the driver is loaded. If it is not loaded, load it and see what happens. If it is loaded, find out what device it creates. If the module is loaded and the device is created, try bringing it up. If it's already up, try pinging it's IP address. If you can ping it, try pinging something outside like https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.google.com__;!!Mak6IKo!N9eWEN3LeF8Gjc... .
Else you can work backwards and try pinging https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.google.com__;!!Mak6IKo!N9eWEN3LeF8Gjc... first and work backwards from there.
In other words, the first thing you need to do is to identify at which point the network configuration is failing.Once you figure that out, you can ask here or google it or whatever.
On 5/31/25 8:31 AM, Steve Matzura wrote:
Still no ssh because still no network. dhclient won't find it and netcardconfig doesn't do anything. Should I write to the grml support list to find out what I can do to diagnose or fix this, do you think?
On 5/29/2025 10:56 PM, John G. Heim wrote:
Sounds as if everything is working as expected. If you are right about your machine not having a PC speaker, it can't beep at the boot prompt. But it sounds as if you are doing everything else right. And ssh should be working.
I have never seen GRML fail to bring up a network connection. But I suppose it could happen. Are you saying that only the loopback device is displayed when you type "ip addr"?
When you start GRML, it brings up a menu. You have to press the q key to exit the menu before you can start typing commands.
On 5/29/25 7:09 PM, Steve Matzura wrote:
I downloaded grml and wrote it to a USB thumb drive. It boots perfectly, with two problems.
1. If it's supposed to beep before I press TAB and then "ssh=MyPassword", I'm not hearing the beep. No real surprise there, I'm not even sure this machine's speaker actually works. I've never heard it beep. Ever.
2. After booting, if I wait about a minute, then press TAB followed by typing "ssh=MyPassword" and pressing ENTER, Speakup speaks the remainder of the boot process, then I get a prompt that tells me, among other things, to press ENTER to return to the shell. This I do, and I get a nicely talking Debian grml prompt. But if I then type "ip addr", it tells me my IP address is 127.0.0.1. The network cable is definitely connected on both ends. Does this mean it maybe doesn't recognize my hardware? Can I remedy all of the above once I hit the grml shell prompt?
On 5/29/2025 12:17 PM, John G. Heim wrote:
If you want the character interface, i would recommend GRML.
GRML includes the speakup modules and espeakup. All you have to do to get sofware speech is to create a bootable GRmL thumb drive or CD and once it boots, type "modprobe speakup_soft; espeakup".
You can also pretty easily enable an ssh server on a system booted into GRML. So then you can ssh in and do whatever you want.
We are in the process of creating a web site for blind people to document accessibility techniques but it's not live yet. The final draft version of the documentation i wrote for GRML is here:
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.johnheim.com/articles/grml/*__;Lw!!M...
I am not sure my ISP's firewall is going to allow you to get to that page. So if you can't get to it, let me know and I'll figure something out.
PS: I have a version of the GRML iso that is supposed to start talking during boot. It doesn't work on all of the hardware i tried it on. If it doesn't start talking during boot, just type "espeak" after it's done booting. You won't have to load the speakup modules at least.
https://people.math.wisc.edu/~jheim/GRML/soft-full-2025.05-amd64.iso
On 5/29/25 10:03 AM, Steve Matzura via Blind-sysadmins wrote: > I have a Debian version 11 system that needs repairing or > reinstalling, but before I do that, I need to boot something > that will let me access the system disk and copy some > hard-to-reconstruct configuration files from some application > directories to a holding place on another drive in the same > cabinet. Should I do this with a Debian Live distribution, or > can it be done from the regular Debian installation disk? In > either case, am I stuck with using a desktop to find the file(s) > in question and copy them to the holding location, or can I get > Speakup in a shell? If I'm stuck with a desktop, which ones is > most accessible? I've never been a fan of the Linux desktop > environment, much preferring the CLI, but you can't always get > what you want from these distros, but like the song says, if you > try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need. > Ultimately, that's my question--which accessible live distro do > I need/should I use to effect the above? > > > _______________________________________________ > Blind-sysadmins mailing list -- > blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org > To unsubscribe send an email to > blind-sysadmins-leave@lists.hodgsonfamily.org
Blind-sysadmins mailing list -- blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org To unsubscribe send an email to blind-sysadmins-leave@lists.hodgsonfamily.org
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participants (2)
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John G. Heim -
Steve Matzura