Release Notes: Grml 2025.12 - codename Postwurfsendung

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About

Grml is a Debian based live system focusing on the needs of system administrators. The 2025.12 release provides fresh software packages from Debian testing/forky. As usual it also incorporates up to date hardware support and fixes known bugs from previous Grml releases.

About the codename.

Important changes

• This release is based on Debian testing/forky as of December 2025.
• We use a new signing key for the deb.grml.org repositories

New and removed features

New software since the Debian 13 release is included, and we continued to clean up the house. Noteworthy changes are:

grml-live - build system for creating Grml (based) Linux live systems:

• New TOR class, contributed by anarcat
• Incorporate previously separate package grml-desktop (grml/grml#225, grml/grml-live#425)
• Live-CD glue code was imported from grml-scripts
• Minimum host OS for running grml-live is now Debian bookworm, minimum build target is also Debian bookworm

Detailed changes: grml-live v0.55.1 to v0.54.1 [¹]

grml-scripts - console scripts:

• Dropped old scripts: grepc, grepedit, iimage, logview, mailhops, notifyd, osd_server, qma, dirvish-setup, grml-iptstate, make_chroot_jail, grml-swapon

Detailed changes: grml-scripts v2.14.8 to v2.14.10

grml-zshrc - Zsh configuration:

• zshrc: sync global aliases from zshrc.local
• zshrc: remove asc function

Detailed changes: grml-etc-core v0.19.24 to v0.19.25

Bits & bolts

• Linux kernel 6.17.9

• grml2usb: removed GRUB 0.x, syslinux < 4.0 support
• grml-hwinfo: collect upower information
• Inlined functions from grml-shlib into software requiring it
• Fixed several bugs reported in the issue tracker

Packages

Details about shipped packages and their versions in Grml are available in the Debian section.

Packages for individual Grml software is now also available directly from their GitHub release pages, for example grml2usb.

Updates

Packages are taken from Debian testing/forky, as of December 11, 2025.

The following 3 relevant packages have been added (excluding e.g. lib*, fonts*, *-{base,bin,common,core,data}, {gcc,cpp}-*, perl*, python*, ruby* and kernel image):

• firmware-mediatek (see: grml/grml#446)
• gosop (a dependency of devscripts, replaces sopv-gpgv)
• imagemagick (replaces graphicsmagick, see below)

The following 11 Debian packages have been removed/replaced (excluding lib*, fonts*, *-{base,bin,common,core,data}, {gcc,cpp}-*, perl*, python*, ruby* and kernel image):

• daemon (dependency of mpt-status, see below)
• flashrom (see: grml/grml-live#450)
• gpgv (was a dependency of devscripts, automatically replaced by gosop)
• graphicsmagick (was replaced by imagemagick, see above)
• links2 (see: grml/grml-scripts#22, grml/grml#37, grml/grml-live#119, grml/grml-live#413)
• lynx (see: grml/grml-scripts#22, grml/grml#37, grml/grml-live#119, grml/grml-live#413)
• mpt-status (Removed from Debian, see: Debian Bug #1039272 and grml/grml#443
• sopv-gpgv (was a dependency of devscripts, automatically replaced by gosop)
• w3m (see: grml/grml-scripts#22, grml/grml#37, grml/grml-live#119, grml/grml-live#413)
• wakeonlan (drbl has its own embedded version of wakeonlan and does not depend on wakeonlan anymore)
• xserver-xorg-video-vmware (xserver-xorg-video-vmware is obsolete as it caused Debian guests to fail to boot in VMWare and VirtualBox, see: Debian bug #1117840 via xorg changelog)

Known issues

Please visit the known bugs web page.

Download Grml 2025.12

Grml 2025.12 can be downloaded from the download page.

Feedback

Your comments, bug reports, patches, and suggestions will help fixing bugs and improving future releases. If you find a problem with the release, please check the known bugs list and report problems using information on grml.org/bugs/. We also welcome feature requests and any kind of constructive feedback. If you want to reach out to the Grml team, please visit our contact webpage.

The next stable Grml release is scheduled for the first half of 2026.

The Grml team is available also for commercial support and services. If you are interested in our consulting services, need a special feature in Grml or a custom branded Grml version with your company logo, please reach out to business (at) grml.org

Thanks

Many thanks in this release go to (alphabetically)

Antoine Beaupré, Christopher Bock, and Helmut Grohne for their contributions. ❤️

Once again netcup contributed financially, this time specifically to this release. Thank you, netcup ❤️

We also want to thank our individual sponsors donating through GitHub. If you like what we are doing, please join in!

No new sponsors joined in for this release.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to Grml and this release, stay healthy and happy Grml-ing! ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

More Information

You can find out more about Grml on our website, IRC channel, and the wiki.

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