When installing a 32bit system with grml-debootstrap 0.55 then the resulting installation lacks presence of a kernel image.

Fixed in:

  https://github.com/grml/grml-debootstrap/commit/e45e376b45ef53014bd6f56164be2b5cbc9f49a1

Affected release:

  Grml release 2013.02, shipping grml-debootstrap 0.55

Solution: upgrade to grml-debootstrap >=0.56 (available from grml-repos as well as Debian/experimental) via running:

  apt-get update
  apt-get install grml-debootstrap

Workaround for already installed systems:

  apt-get install linux-image-686